new B mistakes

[laura passek]

Hello Everyone
I am very new to engraving, we purchased an already established Trophy and Awards business in January 09, consisting of an old miestergram 1219 rotary/diamond drag machine and a New Hermes hand engraver plus tons of stock. I have pretty much figured them out and can do quite well.
I started researching lazers because I wanted to bring the business up to date, I decided on an epilog because of all the good things people were saying out them and because the people I was dealing with were very helpful and informative.
In June I ordered a brand new Epilog mini 24 and it arrived in july. I have not had a lot of time to play with it but one day last week I was making up some brass name plates which were turning out pretty good. feeling confident I decided to try engraving some wood I had lying around (maple shields).1/4"
I did my layout on the laptop, and sent it to the lazer.
This is where I made an almost very expensive mistake.
I have been using auto focus, maybe a little too much.
I'm going to leave this as a Quiz to see who can figure out what i did wrong.
I will post the results of my mistake in a few days so others can see if they guessed write.
P.S. SMC is an awsome site and the people are the best. I have read almost all the pages of posts and have found a wealth of info that will definately help me along the way.
thank you to all who contribute, I too would like to be a contributer when I get more experience behind me.

John ---- Lauras Husband.

[Garrett Nors]

Auto focus plunger go through the honeycomb table? I've done that before :D

[laura passek]

close, good guess.

[Rodne Gold]

AF gauge slammed into the side of the wood and broke off , derailing the flying head , the resulting naked laser beam drilled a hole in the side of your motherboard and set the electronics enclosure alight , which burnt the house down , unfortunately it also set the forest behind the house alight which spread to the nearbye town , a plague of locusts stopped aircraft taking off to waterbomb the conflagration which spread to the major industrial complex that is the lifeblood of the area and now 17 000 ppl are without shelter and work?
:)
Am I close?

[Joe Hayes]

The auto plunger stuck, allowing the table to go to far down out of focus. You failed to glance in too see that it had stop where it was supposed to. Out of focus when the laser came on, fire was the result. Kind of scary isn't it?

[Darren Null]

I've put mine through a lead-crystal glass.

[Brian Robison]

The height was set for the thinner brass so the auto focus plunger "sprung" sideways on the thicker wood. The table came up and jammed. Suggestion, manually focus everything. I've removed my auto focus btw.

[David Fairfield]

Remove auto focus plunger is a really good idea... I did that long ago. But if you've been in the habit of using autofocus... it could be dangerous. I don't wanna know what happens when the the autofocus box is checked in the driver, and there is no plunger! :eek:

[Dan Hintz]

Remove auto focus plunger is a really good idea... I did that long ago. But if you've been in the habit of using autofocus... it could be dangerous. I don't wanna know what happens when the the autofocus box is checked in the driver, and there is no plunger! :eek:
Could you tape the plunger in the up position? If the autofocus box is unchecked it should have no effect on normal operation, but it would save you on those times you accidentally checked it.

[AL Ursich]

Could you tape the plunger in the up position? If the autofocus box is unchecked it should have no effect on normal operation, but it would save you on those times you accidentally checked it.

That the best idea I have seen..... Tape it up and take it out of the picture...

AL

[Stanley Waldrup]

I can't count the times I have knocked off the Auto Focus off. On the laserPro it will just fall off if you hit it...
Stanley

[Martin Boekers]

Forgetting tho lower the table is easy to do when your in a hurry.

I've been lucky not to have damaged the AF when I first started lasering.

I learned quickly to go through a quick step "mental" checklist before hitting "GO"

I'll be honest though I have shattered a few glasses by forgetting to lower the table before setting up the rotary device.:eek:

On my Epilog you have to shutdown the machine first then plug in the device, When you power back up the head goes directly to the start position. If you didn't previously lower the table.......shattered glass!!!


Marty

[Phil Garcia]

I think everyone pretty well covered the possibilities except for this one. As Brian said the table height was set for the thinner brass and when the AF moved to position it pushed the wood out and away from the upper left corner and the laser engraved your raster grid and probably across part of your wood. Just another guess???? ....by the way, Good luck in your new business and welcome to the Forum.. a lot of great people here who are all willing to help.:D

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Guys;
You guys are way off the wall- I think Rodne hit it right on the head and gets my vote.
Best regards;
George
LaserArts

[Dave Russell Smith]

AF gauge slammed into the side of the wood and broke off , derailing the flying head , the resulting naked laser beam drilled a hole in the side of your motherboard and set the electronics enclosure alight , which burnt the house down , unfortunately it also set the forest behind the house alight which spread to the nearbye town , a plague of locusts stopped aircraft taking off to waterbomb the conflagration which spread to the major industrial complex that is the lifeblood of the area and now 17 000 ppl are without shelter and work?
:)
Am I close?

Powell River only has a population of around 13,000 so you lost the plot there Rodne other wise it sounds good to me :D

[laura passek]

Thanks for the welcome Phil.
Dave, how did you know about our population?
Did you do a search or do you know PR.

Sorry Rodne, your senario was quite interesting but fortunately my experience wasn't as serious as that.
Most of you have pretty much had the right idea of what happened.
When I hit go and the head came over to do the focus , the auto focus plunger was pushed off to the side ( didn't break it ) but when the head came down the air assist tube got wedged into the wood and everything came to a sudden halt.
My heart was in my throat at this time because I thought I had just cost myself a hefty repair bill.
I tried to lower the table but no go, so I turned everything off and gently wiggled the plaque out from under the tube, it was really stuck (tube was slightly bent) but I managed to get it free.
I looked things over and pushed the auto focus plunger back into place ( a great feature that Epilog has incorporated) and then turned the laser on.
The head returned to home position with no indication of problems so I decided to try it out and hoped for the best.
Lucky for me everything seems fine at the moment, time will tell.
I just have to straighten out the air tube.

I'd like to thank all who responded and I promise I won't be this long winded again.
This is a great site with great members.

John

[Bill Cunningham]

The first time I did that, It lifted the cross beam off the track and had to call tech support to find out how badly I screwed up my new machine.. They emailed me a .pdf on how to put the beam back on the track.. No damage to anything, and no one was watching, so I didn't look too stupid.. :D

[Martin Boekers]

That is so easy to do. Epilog seems to have covered some of these things by realizing that we are going to screw up at times and designed the machine that we wouldn't damage it too badly.

I've bent the tube before also and found it was easier to replace it (I forget what it cost) but it wasn't much, then you know you are directing the air where it should be.


Marty

[Steven Wallace]

Just like everyone else, I have done a very similar thing. :mad: Then I made the Laser Engravers Anonymous introduction: "Hello, my name is Steve and I am a laser engraving idiot and my table is really stuck". :o

To recover I simply powered the machine down. Removed the 4 screws from the front cover (Epilog mini 18) and removed the cover. Reached in under the table (did I mention that the power to the machine needs to be off?) and moved the belt to move the table down until it was free of everything on the table. Reinstalled the front cover, powered the darn thing back up and was back in business. :cool:

I too do this from home and the wife and/ or customer was not in the room when it happened (lucky me) but she wondered what had caused the very loud, "Awww Crap!":eek: (or words to the effect as I can be quite colorful in my choice of phrases when left alone), coming from the work area. Oh nothing Honey:rolleyes:, I just thought I had missed reminding you about your favorite TV program... yeah right!