We have an RJ3 controller. We had our safety circuits run out to a switch with 2 normally closed contacts which we run each circuit through independently. This worked fine until we recently had our Key switch go bad. One of our guys tried replacing the key switch with a selector switch before we ordered a new key switch and installed it. Now we get several issues involving our Chain circuits. When in Auto mode, if we go to open the fence we get Chain Fault (Fence) Abnormal and we also get multiple errors saying that the Teach Pendent is disabled in T1, T2 mode, even though we are still, and have been operating in Auto mode. Once the fence is closed we get a Persistent Chain 2 (0v) fault which we can't get to clear, even through a couple power cycles. It will eventually clear. If we put it into T1/T2 mode we can usually get the Chain 2 fault to clear however, sometimes we can't get the fault to clear. This occurs if the fence is open while in T1/T2 mode, however we were under the impression that the fence was essentially jumped out in manual mode, so we would think having the fence open would have no affect, and hasn't had one in the past.
We called the company who sold us our robot and he gave us two things to try. Put the robot in Auto mode then unplug the harness. We did this and the robot defaulted to the T1/T2 mode with a chain 2 fault. We then plugged this back in and unplugged the teach pendent. We still had some kind of persistent fault, I can't say what it was since the TP was unplugged. The tech from the company said that the Chain 2 fault is actually generated by the Teach Pendent as the circuit goes through it. Therefore if we unplugged it and still had the fault, that the board inside the door of the RJ3 controller was most probably bad.
I just wanted to know if anyone had any other suggestions on things to try or if it appears that our board is bad? We assume now that something was shorted when the selector switch was installed, and the board is blown.
Thanks in advance for any help