8th October 2024

A proud day today! My 14 year old daughter was one of a select few invited to attend the Mazak UK Cadet Scheme, spendinga working week at their UK facility in Worcester.

She has spent the day disassembling and reassembling a small spindle in the spindle workshop.

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5th January 2024

We take a look at a Matsuura MAM72-63V 5-axis multi-pallet changer with Siemens 840Di control coupled with Yaskawa drives.

This machine hadn’t struck a blow for over 4 years, pretty much condemned by the OEM with quotes of over £30,000 to put it right.

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22nd November 2022

A common issue on Siemens 810D controls is the failure of CCU3 / CCU3.4.

Over time dirt and coolant ingress causes component failure on the PCB rendering your machine inoperable.

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2nd May 2022

We saved our customer money with the repair on this Sinumerik 810D HMI screen.

The backlights had gone short, which in turn took out the inverter.

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3rd January 2022

Many companies will request the end user removes servo drives and hardware and send to them for diagnosis and repair.

Ultimately the customer ends up with a huge bill and more often than not is still left with the same issue unresolved and unfixed.

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26th November 2021

The spindle motor on this Hardinge VMC was found to be dead short across all three phases.

We found the wrong, ill-fitting fan cable tied to the back, so the wiring on overload and contactor were tricking the machine.

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10th November 2021

The spindle on a customer's Breton NC260 had failed during one of their busiest periods.

Our customer produces bespoke marble, granite and quartz solutions. This being their only machine, a major mechanical failure couldn’t have come at a worse time.

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11th September 2021

A fault we see regularly on Siemens 828D and 840DSL systems is multiple drive errors, including cyclic data transfer alarms and over-temperature alarms.

The common cause of these alarms is the SMI module failure on one of the servo motors.

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10th September 2021

Machine 1 - XYZ Minimill 560 VMC CNC Machining centre

Machine 2 - XYZ Vulcan 150 TC. 2002 Model Year

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6th June 2021

This XYZ 1060HS VMC had ground to a halt with multiple X-axis drive alarms.

We lent the customer an LT module and regulator card to fit, as this was believed to be the source of the faults.

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5th June 2021

A nice straightforward job replacing the spindle in a Kitamura horizontal machining centre.

The customer had a spare ready on site, so we just had to take the old one out and fit the new one back in.

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5th April 2021

This XYZ 1060 VMC had a very unusual fault. It initially started out with a Z axis brake fault; when the emergency stop was engaged, the head fell under gravity and hit the dead stop.

We came out after a third party misdiagnosed it as a defective motor. Our inspection showed the Z axis reference and hard overtravel switches were damaged from the previous head crashes.

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19th February 2021

We retrofitted a 4th axis to a Dugard Eco 1000 VMC with Siemens 828D control and Sinamics drives. This machine had never had a fourth axis and had no interface preparation.

The 4th axis was a Detron with a no-drive Cliq Heidenhain motor.

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8th February 2021

Our customer was considering scrapping this 21 year old XYZ Vulcan with Siemens 810D control when the CCU1 failed to boot after being turned off for a long period of time.

After a site visit and assessment, the faulty (now obsolete) CCU1 was removed and repaired offline by us. It was returned to the site, refitted with a new backup battery and the NC and PLC were reloaded.

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6th February 2021

A nice straightforward install on this Hurco TM8i with barfeed. It is a really nice machine and is now ready to produce in it’s new home.

We are Siemens specialists and keep a large stock of hardware, which we are invested in repairing. Please contact us for further details.

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27th January 2021

This is a 4th axis cable built to interface a Detron Rotary table with a Heidenhain motor onto a Dugard VMC1000 with Siemens 828D control.

This was a bit of a challenge with added complexities, with the control needing more confirmation inputs than the Detron can give.

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15th January 2021

It has been a busy post-holiday return to work, with lots of slightly older machines struggling to function after a few weeks off! This is always the case over Christmas and the New Year.

This Hardinge VMC1000ii with Sinumerik drives and 810D control unfortunately suffered from a blown 50A drive. This is a common failure on CCU boxes; it always seems to be the 50A (spindle) port that blows.

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13th November 2020

Coolant and oil mist inhalation from machine operations can put the operator’s health and anyone else in the vicinity at risk.

Metalworking fluids can be carcinogenic, so it is important to protect your workforce from these dangerous substances.

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6th October 2020

I'm so happy to see a green run LED on this PLC on a customer’s wash plant after seeing a red SF LED for the last few hours.

This VIPA PLC looks like a Siemens CPU, acts like a Siemens PLC and even works with Siemens S7 software; however, it isn’t Siemens.

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27th August 2020

Another day, another spindle! After more than a decade of solid service in an XYZ TC250, this spindle finally gave up.

As the photos show, coolant ingress over time washed the grease out of the bearings, causing them to heat up, dry out and eventually fail.

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20th August 2020

This is an XYZ TC250 with a noisy spindle. Finally, after 14 years of turning the same job day in and day out, the bearings have finally dried up and worn out!

The spindle was removed and sent off for a refurb, which we will then refit and setup once rebuilt.

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5th August 2020

The X axis was immediately tripping out on this 1998 Bridgeport VMC800 when trying to reference it. We were called in as the customer suspected the faults were caused by a faulty servo drive or servo motor.

The motor passed the insulation and balance tests and the servo drive passed the diode check, so we had to dig deeper.

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23rd July 2020

A common failure on Siemens and Heidenhain Controlled CNC machines such as XYZ, Hardinge, Bridgeport, Breton, Dugard is E/R module failure.

Over time the internal fans stop working and coolant and contaminant ingress occurs. The most common failure type we see is the 16/21 KW (6SN1145-1BA01-0BA1(2/0).

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8th July 2020

Today I installed this fantastic used Dugard ECO 1000 VMC with Siemens 828D Control and Sinamics drives.

It is a great machine with a brilliant Control. Even though it’s 9 years old it looks almost new.

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7th July 2020

It can often be a struggle to get a tool setter to calibrate correctly and we have a lot of customers contacting us for assistance with this.

Our tried and tested method is to use a 10mm ground bar in a collet, set up in tool management as a turning tool and measure it.

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24th June 2020

Our engineers are the only independent Siemens qualified and trained CNC Machine Tool Specialists. We specialise in 810D, 840D, 840C, 828D and 840DSL, S5, S7, Sinumerik 611 and Sinamics drives.

We cover all elements, including Mechanical, Electrical, Drives and Control. We offer extremely competitive Preventative Maintenance packages for all CNC Mills, Lathes, Broachers, Presses, Saws etc.

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5th June 2020

A chance occurrence caused the PLC in the 1.5 year old Doosan DNM 5700 VMC with Siemens 828D control to lock up and generate a spurious alarm.

The alarm indicated that the side maintenance doors were open, even though they weren't and no input signals from the door sensors were missing.

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22nd May 2020

A frustrating issue was solved for our customer on his XYZ Vulcan 250. This turning centre was suffering from intermittent turret clamp / unclamp faults, which were disrupting the production of ventilator components.

After a quick investigation, we found there was excessive backlash on the intermediate gear within the turret, caused by the keyway rolling over and the collar on the intermediate shaft had broken free and was slipping.

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8th April 2020

A noisy spindle and poor surface finish on his Hardinge lathe were the complaints from this customer. We carried out a site visit to diagnose, after a few checks and tests we concluded that the spindle bearings had started to fail.

Unfortunately, through excessive working, the grease had dried out. It was only a matter of time until the spindle seized completely, potentially causing more damage.

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30th March 2020

Some of the earlier Siemens 810D and 840D controls can suffer from hard-drive data loss and corruption.

This is more often than not caused by not shutting them down correctly. If the control is accessing or writing data to the hard drive and it’s turned off, the files become corrupt, rendering your machine useless.

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9th March 2020

Spindle drive belts are often overlooked as part of routine PM checks.

This Hurco VMX42 suffered drive belt failure purely due to contaminant ingress on the belts, something that could have been avoided.

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28th February 2020

This was a first for us, having never worked on one of these machines before. This is the XYZ UMC 5-X (The Challenger) 5-axis VMC with Siemens 840DSL control and Sinamics Drive.

This particular machine is just over a year old and just out of manufacturer warranty. It has been suffering from multiple drive and profinet errors.

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30th January 2020

This week I have been working on a Takisawa T10 lathe that wouldn’t power up. I was able to quickly diagnose the problem as a faulty hydraulic pump.

Control CNC does not stock these units, but we were able to source one from one of our UK suppliers and arrange for delivery to our customer the following morning.

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28th January 2020

It was a pleasure to work on this old girl today. I felt very nostalgic working on this Yang with Acramatic 2100 control.

20 years ago, these were a regular sight in many machine shops; however, they are now becoming quite rare. In our opinion, they are a brilliant control way ahead of their time.

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17th January 2020

Working on a local job today, our customer was complaining of intermittent B-axis encoder faults on his XYZ 1060HS with the 4th and 5th axes and 840DSL control.

When the X axis was fully at limit, the wiring harness on the 4th and 5th axes was getting pulled and faulting out.

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13th December 2019

Something a bit different from the usual CNC Machining and Turning Centres today - a CNC laser cutter. This Gantry style laser cutting machine suffered a serious malfunction at our customer’s in the West Midlands.

Unfortunately, a mechanical jam caused a series of drive failures; 1 regulator card and 2 LT modules (power sections) failed as a result. We were able to attend the site, diagnose and fix all of the issues and supply new hardware.

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12th December 2019

Today we have been working on this stunning factory-fresh Mach 1062 VMC with Siemens 828D control. Firstly, we had to configure it for through spindle coolant after fitting an upgraded encapsulated spindle.

We did this using HMI Startup with a field PG to update the topology.

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4th December 2019

Today we replaced a 2x15A drive on an XYZ Minimill 560 with Siemens 802D control after the X axis failed with a drive fault.

The next task was to overcome a software glitch on another XYZ, this time a 710VMC with Siemens 828D control. After reloading a fresh NC archive, this resolved the issue caused by a corrupt file, which we suspect occurred after a power cut.

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21st November 2019

Siemens 611U fault, alarm E-A608 speed controller output limited.

The fault was diagnosed by swapping the power section (LT module) to another axis and the fault followed, indicating a faulty LT module.

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13th November 2019

This week we have been looking at multiple topology errors on a Dugard Eco VMC with Siemens 828D control and Sinamics drives.

After confirming that all the hardware was OK, we discovered that the control had lost the topology data for drive object 6 which was the 4th axis and all of it's associated hardware (motor, drive, encoder and SMI module).

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3rd November 2019

This week we have been working on a spindle removal and refurb on a 30 year old machine.

We found this to be particularly challenging, as we had never seen one of these machines before and we were following the failed attempts of another machine tool repair company.

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23rd October 2019

Control CNC are now using ServiceM8 for booking and enquiries, you can book an Engineer or request a quote by clicking on the "Request Booking" button.

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6th October 2019

I am over the moon to be sponsoring Stourport Swifts Juniors U10's this season. A fantastic club that three of my own children play for. Come on, lads, smash it this season!

I love the Swifts: teamwork, commitment, communication, resilience, respect... the list goes on. Anything to help our kids get on in life and put them on the front foot.

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17th September 2019

Our customer was experiencing intermittent PLC stop issues that were hindering production.

Unfortunately, the HMI alarm page on Siemens 840D & 810D didn't give enough information for engineers to correctly diagnose the route cause PLC stop issues. This is a common complaint that can be hard to diagnose without the right equipment.

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9th September 2019

Retrofitting a 4th axis to a 10 year old Hardinge VMC600II that's never had a 4th axis fitted.

It was a bit of a challenge, but a satisfying job. I had to dig deep into the PLC to find the option bits to allow it to run!

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4th August 2019

A great way to optimise your machine's performance is through regular servicing and alignment checks.

Siemens 828D and 840D controls have in-built functionality to carry out circulatory testing and drive tuning; this allows the user to check and tune and prevent mismatches between interpolation axes.

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26th June 2019

Today we removed and refitted a spindle on a Breton NC260 for our customer in the North East of England. 380 miles and 13 hours later, the machine was back in production and running like a dream.

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18th March 2019

This week we have been looking at multiple topology errors on a Dugard Eco VMC with Siemens 828D control and Sinamics drives.

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5th March 2019

Is there anything worse than a dark work area inside your machine? Normal halogen lights tend to suffer from coolant ingress and blow prematurely, often taking out the control voltage with them.

We now supply LED worklights that are IP67 rated and, if maintained correctly, will last the lifetime of the machine. They can be supplied in 24v or 110v (AC/DC).

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24th January 2019

Spindle drive belts are such a cheap item to purchase, yet they are often overlooked.

Oil and coolant ingress can often damage them without any knowledge of the user until it's too late and they fail.

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14th December 2018

Are you ISO 9001 accredited? Would your machine shop pass an audit? At Control CNC, we service and inspect all CNC machines, satisfying all the preventative maintenance stipulations for ISO compliance.

Not only does this create an audit trail for each machine, but it also helps your business achieve maximum uptime and prolongs the life expectancy of your machine tools.

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4th December 2018

To the casual eye, all can often seem ok; however, once you start to interrogate electronic repairs under magnification, the true magnitude of botched jobs can easily be seen.

This is a board that costs in excess of £8000 to replace and has been sent to us for assessment after repair by a third party.

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26th November 2018

This is the Siemens 810D CCU start-up procedure from power on to completed boot. A healthy CCU is a number 6, green +5v, green PR and a flashing amber CB.

The whole process takes around 1 minute.

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26th October 2018

"There's a funny smell coming from the electrical cabinet." The 50A spindle drive on the Siemens 810D went bang. All three phases failed the diode test (no surprise there).

This is a fairly common failure on CCU boxes, specifically on the 50A spindle drive.

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2nd October 2018

Looking at a Hardinge 710 Mill with 828D and Sinamics drives today with multiple X axis alarms. After a few tests, a faulty motor was diagnosed, more specifically the SMI 20 unit, which had failed to break the motor encoder comms to drive.

We removed the motor and a new SMI 20 was fitted and config reloaded. The X axis was then a mile out as it had an absolute encoder on, so after a re-teach of the absolute 0 position, the machine was put back into production.

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21st August 2018

XYZ CT52 Lathe with Siemens 828DSL and Sinamics drives. A hardware fault of the active encoder on the Z axis alarm was identified.

We quickly diagnosed the problem and a new encoder was sourced and fitted, Don't try this at home! It was very complicated to align the encoder commutational angle and centralise it to prevent any following errors.

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17th July 2018

This is a 17 year old Hardinge VMC 1000 with a Siemens 810D; it hasn't struck a blow for 8 years. 

After a few hours and a replacement CCU1, it's running like a dream. There is life in the old girl yet!

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25th March 2018

One of the mechanical jobs we have completed this week. Our customer complained of poor surface finish when cutting in the X plane on his XYZ 710VMC.

On investigation, there was a lot of backlash on the X axis caused by worn-out bearings front and rear. Once replaced with high-performance SKF bearings, a thorough clean, circularity checks and optimised drives, the 10 year old VMC was back on top form again.

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16th February 2018

YCM NXV560A with Siemens 828D control has a tool change issue. After mains air failure, it hung up during toolchange.

Our customer was able to manually return the twin arm by winding the cam to the home position; however, the machine still wouldn't change in auto.

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12th February 2018

We were able to successfully recommission today's machine, a Hardinge VMC Mill with a Sinumerik 810D.

The hard drive and power supply on the PCU50 had failed and there were damaged pins on the CCU. In addition to this, the backup battery had failed.

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27th June 2017

This customer based on the south coast had returned to their machine, an Emag VSC 400 Duo with Sinumerik 840D and 611D drives and suffered huge issues. 

On returning power to the machine, a large bang was heard and machine power was lost resulting in an alarm 120202 waiting for connection to NC PLC with a flashing control panel.

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23rd May 2017

CNC machines are sensitive things, often costing several hundred thousand pounds. In order to maximise their lifespan, it is important to carry out regular housekeeping and checks.

When this machine was turned back on after Easter, carbon dust had settled on the drives and caused tracking on the main board of the E/R module, which resulted in a large bang.

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29th April 2017

Many people underestimate the damage that airborne oil and dirt contamination can do. Pictured here is the root cause failure of a Siemens 16/21 kW E/R module.

The internal fan had blown contaminants all over the board eventually shorting and burning out several components and the track.

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3rd April 2017

We were asked to build a Sinamics rig for a local repair company to enable them to demonstrate and function test the latest range of Sinamics drives, motors and hardware.

This rig utilises the latest Siemens Sinamics drive cliq hardware and works the same way as a CNC machine with 840DSL control.

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24th March 2017

Such a simple thing, yet the consequences of ignoring the battery and fan in your NCU will result in disastrous consequences.

We have attended 3 sites this week due to NCU battery and / or fan failure.

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22nd February 2017

Today we dealt with something completely different. A Fanuc (dirty word I know) Robodrill which we were called to after a collision which left the toolchanger out of alignment.

After resetting the toolchanger position we checked the spindle orientation (M19) position and found it to be about 15° out.

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7th February 2017

611 heaven! Good old 611 drives, our customer suffered a good old bang when the regen failed on his E/R module. Consequently, this took out a 2x25A LT module and power supply.

After resetting the toolchanger position, we checked the spindle orientation (M19) position and found it to be about 15° out.

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1st February 2017

We refit this little beauty, which has an 828D PPU, to an XYZ Mini Mill after we carried out a mega fast repair for our customer.

The PPU had suffered a failure when the operator inadvertently slammed the door. We unfortunately found that the PPU had a screw floating around inside, which we think was disturbed by the force of the door slamming.

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25th January 2017

Today we looked at an XYZ Lathe with Siemens 828D control. We were called to assist a customer who after making an edit to one of his programs and trying to run it in simulation, suffered a complete control lockout. 

This was a strange issue that we certainly hadn't seen before.

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20th January 2017

Sometimes new isn't necessarily better. Today a customer brought out his Meger to test a motor, "...it was here when Frank started and he's been here 50 years!" - was the comment from the customer.

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11th January 2017

We were called to investigate positional discrepancies on the Z axis of a MAG Specht CNC machine.

Control CNC fitted new encoders on the Z1 and Z2 axis and then the positions were checked.

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4th January 2017

Oops! This is what happens when a Deublin valve seizes while the spindle is cutting at 15000 rpm! 

A bit of mechanical work today, including a new hose built up for us by Pirtek, a replacement Deublin valve and the customer's Mazak vertical mill, is up and running again in no time!

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7th December 2016

A testing job this week involved multiple topology errors on a Hardinge Bridgeport 828D machine.

After the drive and cables were texted and proven and a suspect encoder had been replaced, we were called to assist in the diagnosis of this fault.

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24th November 2016

We completed an 840D Powerline rig with 611D drives capable of running multiple axis'.

This rig enables us to diagnose and test multiple Sinumerik hardware components, including reg boards, LT modules, ER modules, motor encoders and any associated 840D hardware.

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