Epilog System Down - X-axis will not stay put

[Bryan Cowan]

This morning I go to load our Epilog FiberMark 20W system like any other day. Load the Corel program, trace the perimeter of the part with the red laser pointer, and everything looks good. Re-print in Corel with Raster settings and let the machine do it's work like it does everyday.

After 30 seconds, I hear the carriage smacking into the left rail and can visibly see the engraving missing it's target and shifting left. I hit pause and reset.

Go back to Corel and re-print the vector outline to re-trace with the red laser pointer and notice the x-axis has shifted to the left 3/8".

I turned off the system and rebooted. After it loaded, I re-printed the outline and everything was fine; both x- and y-axis locations were good. Before ruining more parts, I re-printed the drawing on Raster with the door open simulating the process. I no longer hear the carriage knocking, but after a minute, I hit pause and reset. I notice the "home/reset" position isn't normal, so I re-print the vector outline. The x-axis has shifted again to the left.

I can reboot the laser and everything is fine.

What's happening?

Side note, last Friday and cleaned the system and removed the yellow Epilog rail cover to grease the top bearings. I moved the carriage around by hand to work in the grease, but I've done this before and haven't had this kind of problem.

I thought maybe I put the yellow rail cover back on to tight, but I removed the cover and repeated the steps outlined above. Same results.

Why is the x-axis continually shifting left during raster, but a reboot will get it back in place just to shift again during a raster print?

TIA!

[Bryan Cowan]

Correction, the carriage is still smacking into the left rail with every pass.

[Scott Shepherd]

Possibly a dirty encoder on the X, but I've never seen that machine, so it may work differently.

Epilog's open, best bet is to give them a call. They'll get you squared away.

[AL Ursich]

I am taking a WAG here and bet you got grease on the encoder strip and into the encoder. I only have the very old Epilog units but I read every post about Lasers.

Another WAG (Wild ... Guess) is there is a thin flat cable that when the conductors get broken the drive does wild things like smack the side due to an unbalance in the steppers... Flipping the cable end for end sometimes fixes it as when you flip it, the broken wires are not used. A Temp Fix....

Peck will chime in with some REAL answers but this gives you something to look at now.... In my Navy days going out and fixing Radars and Computers my first question to the Tech was "What did you do Yesterday?" O'.. I adjusted all the power supplies now my Radar won't work... :eek: OK... Now we know where to start..... Power Supplies.... Or in your case.... Grease on the encoder or pushing on the flex cable broke a wire.... Fixed Play Stations for Sony for a few years... Cigarette Smoke.... Fogged the optic 9 out of 10 times....

Good Luck,

AL

Edit: Scott is just 3 min faster this morning....

[Bryan Cowan]

I briefly looked over the flex cable and everything appears to be in good condition. There's a little tear on one side of the plastic shielding, but it does not come in contact or expose the first wire.

I went in with some cotton swabs and cleaned excess grease/dirt out. I'm running another trial on raster to see if it will kick it out of place. I did remove a lot of gunk.

[Dan Hintz]

I briefly looked over the flex cable and everything appears to be in good condition. There's a little tear on one side of the plastic shielding, but it does not come in contact or expose the first wire.
Internal breaks in flex cables (the most common type of break) are not visible from the outside. Continuity checks also usually show the cable as "good". It's only in certain positions that the break shows up.

[Bryan Cowan]

I went in with some cotton swabs and cleaned excess grease/dirt out. I'm running another trial on raster to see if it will kick it out of place. I did remove a lot of gunk.

^^ seemed to do the trick. I ran a couple of tests and everything lined up correctly. Soon after I cleaned everything, I received a call from Epilog who also suggested to do what I did and if that didn't work to give them a call back.

A+ customer service again!