Pdq g5 motor timeout

Hey All, I have been experiencing a motor timeout issue on one of our g5s. I have gone through a lot of the typical things with help from PDQ and friends in the industry. I installed and maintained a ton of these g5s when I was a tech for a distributor. But either Im overlooking the obvious or I am loosing my touch. I just can't find the cause of this on this unit.

the wash will not finish a bfl, it runs fine test full cycles or test half cycles. it will wash cars but not consistently . stops mid wash no particular pass, and not in the same spot. I realize it should be correlated to a comm issue between the card and vfd or vfd and motor.

I have replaced all 3 encoders and encoder card due to another previous issue, run a new eni cable bay to bridge, I have taken apart and remade the rs 485 cable from the node card to vfd, and tested continuity. I have swapped the vfd for the trolley (from adjacent bay) as it seems the trolley is in motion when the error occurs. But that's just a guess. I have run new power lines from vfd to motor. I have swapped node card and software from bay to bridge and vice versa. I swapped wires on the system stop loop to rule out loss of power to vfd. so far no change machine just dies intermittently and aborts wash. no encoder errors,no vfd errors, no eni errors or stress test failures. Any Ideas or insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading the post apologize for the length.

G5

It sounds like maybe either the backplane or control card.Are the rails smooth?If there not,it has a tendency to shake the plugs(where the wires push into) and the cards and make an intermittent loss of connection.Since the VFDs have no codes I would poke your hands around the control card to see if you can get the vfds to act up.

Thanks Rosey, rails aren't too rough, but the unit is no spring chicken, Ill definitely double check all the connections as far as board to back plane and connectors to board.

check the arch and trolley gearboxes. The arch especially because the bearing on top is too high for the oil to bath it so that top bearing goes out and I have seen the exact same motor timeout issue, where it is supposed to complete a motion and didnt due to gearbox and then creates a motor timeout. Is it always the same motor that times out?

I am having the same problem. One of my G 5 Machines when we do a bridge find limits on the third pass when it returns to its home position at simply shutters down. Did you resolve your problem if so what was it. Saturday we tried doing a wash slowing the bridge speed down to 50% and the problem persists it once we get to the left rear corner the machine times out we have replaced the VFD, the controller board, the backplane, and the power cable from the VFD to the motor. Motor has also been replaced. I'm starting to run out of ideas

Fruncle said:

I am having the same problem. One of my G 5 Machines when we do a bridge find limits on the third pass when it returns to its home position at simply shutters down. Did you resolve your problem if so what was it. Saturday we tried doing a wash slowing the bridge speed down to 50% and the problem persists it once we get to the left rear corner the machine times out we have replaced the VFD, the controller board, the backplane, and the power cable from the VFD to the motor. Motor has also been replaced. I'm starting to run out of ideas

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Sound like a short in the communication cable in your boom.

We really don’t know what motor it is. We simply get a message motor timed out we suspected bridge motor and have been working with PDQ. They ran diagnostics but really nothing definitive other than bridge motor time out.

we did take out the arch motor and examined the gearbox. Everything looks in good shape, and no excessive lash in the gearbox. We have also replace all of the encoder’s.

We got it. After trying almost everything we could think of including replacing circuit boards, Network cabling examining gear boxes, replacing one gearbox, and all failed. Even though we inspected the arch gearbox, and it appeared to be good, we replaced it and believe it or not it solve the problem. Now we have a boatload of spare parts, if anybody needs some. PDQ tech-support was invaluable and did assist us way beyond our expectations. They just wouldn’t give up. Hats off to PDQ.