Home Is Off

[Tim Bateson]

I lasered my 1st of a dozen jobs tonight only to find the Home on my laser is way off! :confused: I'm going to attempt to finish by jobs with the "New" Home, but I've got to get this fixed ASAP. I've powered Off & On, even tried to manually set Home - No luck. Picture Attached - Any Ideas?
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[Mohammed Issa]

hey,
i dont have an epilog myself, but i ran into this youtube video yesterday.
im not sure if it is the same machine as you have, but i hope it helps!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXFWwl5iJbU

[Frank Corker]

Tim, a couple of years ago my Epilog Helix did the same thing to me, the park position appeared to change, however it was only affected two jobs. It was the 0 zero 0 zero position inside Corel had changed after I had helped someone with a file. I reset the default position in Corel and it corrected the problem, but the park position remained 'out of position' on the laser itself. Never did get to the end of it or the cause but all I'm suggesting here is that you check Corel before messing with your laser machine settings.

[Tim Bateson]

...youtube video yesterday...

Thanks, I thought of that too, but if this were the issue the "current" Home would be absolute, I can still laser above the current position, but not quite to the proper HOME position.


... It was the 0 zero 0 zero position inside Corel had changed after I had helped someone with a file. I reset the default position in Corel and it corrected the problem, but the park position remained 'out of position' on the laser itself.....

Would this effect the laser even if it wasn't connected to a computer? I've since run other jobs from Corel files I had saved previously and it didn't change this behavior. Once last night it even set Home to 3 inches down. When I powered Off/On it again reset 1 inch down.

It took awhile to finish my work last night, but I got through it. I do have a ticket open with Epilog for this and a 2nd (long term) annoying issue that causes me to power Off/On every few jobs.

[Frank Corker]

Tim, to be honest, I don't know. All I know is that I save all my work spaces as the size of my laser bed. 18x24. Every file is saved so that I know exactly where on the laser any piece should be when the laser is working. When I used one of the saved files from someone else who didn't have the same working layout, the laser home position was out. It had also defaulted my corel settings to their settings. The laser was still finding exact locations, but only in direct response to their set out.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I'm sorry I can't give you a "this is what I did" answer ... I had this happen to me on my Epilog Mini probably 7-8 years ago. I was able to solve this on my own without calling tech support and I vaguely remember that I had to physically move something to get it to return to home. It may have been adjusting the belts or gears... Did the carriage hit something and knock itself out of alignment? I think that is what happened to me when mine shifted.

[Walt Langhans]

If Epilog hasn't fixed your issue yet you can try this.

Unplug your machine, press the power button to turn it on (this will discharge any capacitors that might still have a charge), plug it in and then turn it on again. If that doesn't do it, Unplug the machine again, then find the mother board for the controller, some where on it there will probably be a watch battery, remove the battery, press the power button to discharge the capacitors again, put the battery back in, plug the machine back in and turn it on again.

Here's the thought process behind this.

Either the machine itself is setting the position, or it's getting it's position from the computer that it's attached to, or like Mike said it's physically out of position and the machine is reading it at the 0,0 position.

From what you said it doesn't seem like it's corel is the issue. If it's the machine, by removing all the power and discharging the capacitors that will force it to reset to the factory presets which should solve the problem. If it doesn't I would try turning the machine off, physically moving the head to the correct location, and then powering it on.

[Tim Bateson]

No luck on all fronts. Support has yet to get past setting the X/Y to the default location. I've humored them and did so - no change. I've tried all of the suggested solutions - no change. What's odd is - 1st it happened suddenly from 1 job to the next - same session. #2. regardless of what I set X/Y to in the control panel - it'll go back to the same spot and start engraving at the same spot - the 2 locations are different.
At least it's consistent enough that I can get some work done. If I needed to use my whole bed, I'd be screwed.

[Walt Langhans]

Well that's really bizarre, I would have bet removing all power would have reset it and you'ed be good. The only other thing that I can think of is that you've got a bad sensor some where. Something has to be telling the machine that the position it's going to is the 0,0 spot even though it isn't. When ever you get it fix please post what it was, I'm very curious to hear the fix.

[Tim Bateson]

Well..... I'm being told it's likely the Mother board @ $1k to replace. Ouch! They are going to do a bit more research, but currently have no solid explanation.

[Walt Langhans]

I hate to say it, but if the other fixes don't work, that's kind of all that's left. If you do everything to reset it to factory specs, and that doesn't work, then you have to look at how the device is getting it's information (ie sensors) and if they are ok then the only thing left is the board itself.

Best of luck to you

[Tim Bateson]

I was ready to make a new guide and live with a smaller work area, but my sports guy called today and needs 100 ball bats. Grrr now I have to spend the money & with no guarantee of a solution. The "New" Home I could work with, but without the capability of setting HOME elsewhere on the grid, I'm hosed.

[Kim Vellore]

It is difficult to think the board would be bad, but without all the details it is difficult to debug.
The it works on my 24TT is the motor looks for the home sensor, once it hits the home sensor it moves away from the home sensor by a preset distance then goes back to the home sensor again and moves back to the preset distance and stops.
Now if it moves to a different location the things I would look at is if the encoder is clean at the ends
the Home sensor- if it is good, or come off loose, worst case the memory location where the offset is stored has become corrupt and now the position is further away.
Kim

[Rodne Gold]

I don't know the machines at all , however does the motherboard have a removeable eprom or ram ? It could be the eprom/ram , maybe it wont cost you a new MB?
A broken or faulty homing sensor will generally not allow the machine to find any home at all , slam into the end stop of an axis or it will be out in the faulty axis only.
Does your machine have the ability to return where you started the engraving if you didn't start from home? If it does , does that work? If it does , you can make a jig to hold a single bat and do em one by one and still have correct positioning.

[Steve Clarkson]

Tim,

First, I'm sure it's not the problem.....but maybe it's the encoder strip (since that tells the laser head where it is on the table) so try cleaning it really well or replacing it).

Second, if -1 is the new zero position......what happens when you vector/raster something at -11.5? In otherwords, if you vector a line at 0.5" from 0 to -12......what happens?

I know it is not recommended (which means yes I have done it many times) but you can change your home position using the front panel.....do you know how to do that?

[Tim Bateson]

Thanks Steve. Any engraving is offset, but not as much as HOME is off (Home is off 1 inch down and about 1/8 inch in - rastering starts 1/2 down and about 1/16 inch in). Even the Rotary's HOME is off. I REALLY wish that setting a home position from the front panel worked, but it doesn't That's why I can't run the ball bats. When I try to set home from the front panel, it just goes back to it's new default Home. I have tried cleaning everything, unplugging and plugging back in every cable in the machine. Nothing, not even adjusting the X/Y from the front panel has made any difference.

[Steve Clarkson]

Tim, that's really strange that Home is down 1, yet rastering starts down 0.5 (which is actually above the Home position). But that's why I was wondering if it had something to do with the encoder strip which tells the head where it should be relative to the table. In any event, I would still order a new encoder strip when you get the MB sent to you and replace that first......it's a lot cheaper than paying for a new MB.

Also, someone else mentioned the magnet on the back that tells the head where home is every time you reset or turn on the machine.....I don't think that would be the problem because if it somehow fell out or moved, I would think that your head would be crashing into the back of the machine......but you should still check to see if you can find it and make sure it's still in there correctly.

Lastly, when "setting the home position from the front panel"........I'm not 100% sure that we're talking about the same thing......I'm not talking about setting the home position like you do for center-center engraving.......I'm talking about punching in the secret code (I can't remember off the top of my head what it is.......but I do know tech support doesn't like giving that info up) to change the X-axis position independently, and then there is a second code for changing the y-axis position. When you do it, let's say the x-axis position is "280"......changing it to something like "380" moves it about 1/64" to the right and changing it to "180" moves it about 1/64" to the left.....they are super small increments, but should be permanent regardless where your home position is. Just make sure you write down the original number where you started from in case you have to move it back. Hopefully, I explained that clearly and I assume this is what you meant when you referred to "adjusting the X/Y from the front panel". Although doing this may fix your problem for the time being....there was something else that caused it to get out of line initially.

[Tim Bateson]

Yes, I have tried setting Home as in Center to Center - No effect - still goes back to where it thinks is Home.
Tried resetting both the X and Y from the front panel too - No effect - still goes back to where it thinks is Home.

Cleaned the X encoder, but where is the Y encoder?

The X motor has a magnet wrapped in wires & zip tied to the motor.
The Y motor has a magnet wrapped in wires & doesn't appear to have ever been up against the motor. The wires don't even look like they would reach that far.

[Martin Boekers]

Tim have you tried a different page size and engrave at the far right end? Sometimes this has worked for me and generally ment it was an encoder issue.


Epilog if you are listening a great help in diagnosing encoder strip issues if you had an "encoder test" where the reader went the length of the encoder strip
and read it. Then see how the readings compare to the way the encoder strip is marked. That way we could find out if the issue was an encoder strip
and where on the strip it lies. This would be a quick test an a short macro for it shouldn't be too difficult to write....

[Tim Bateson]

New MB has been ordered. Total damage: Board, Core, Taxes, Shipping = $1,464.67 I'll need several big orders to offset that cost. My new employee/boss/wife is busy working on targeting past customers and hitting up new sources.

[Walt Langhans]

Ouch! Make sure to ground your self before you take it out of the anti static bag. I'd hate to see it get zapped from static electricity before it goes into the machine.

[Tim Bateson]

Thanks, Great suggestion. I'll try to remember that.

[Kim Vellore]

If the rotary is off too then it has nothing to do with encoders or home switch, it is the MOBO most likely the offset that is programmed is somehow corrupted and changed. Maybe reprogramming the firmware might work.

[Tim Bateson]

Tried that this past weekend - no luck there either.

[Chuck Stone]

if you want, I'll pop a grounding wrist strap in the mail

[Rob Bosworth]

Tim, have you watched the Randy Allen procedure on re-setting your home position on an Epilog? I watched it yesterday on U-Tube. It was pretty informative. You might watch it to make sure you did not miss a step.

[Walt Langhans]

Thanks, Great suggestion. I'll try to remember that.

Most people don't know that all electronics work because of the magic smoke inside of them, and if you let it out they won't work anymore ;)

[Tim Bateson]

Wow!!! Ordered the board around 5:30 pm last night and it was on my door step this morning... Colorado to Ohio in a matter of hours. Hats off to Epilog.

I won't get to swap out the board until this evening, but I can see it's an updated board, a bit different than what I now have.

[Walt Langhans]

Sweet! If you get a chance can you post pics of the old board and the new board? My IT side is curious to see the changes.

[Martin Boekers]

Hope you got the right board.... Yes Epilog is fast!!!!! Both my machines are out of warranty, but thanks to
their contract with UPS, overnight shipping is affordable!

[Tim Bateson]

Success! The new board resolved all of my issues! :D:D:D:D:D:D The board even included a disposable static wrist band. Attached is a picture of the old board, the new board, and a close up of the new board.
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[David Rust]

Good to hear yo got it fixed. Out of curiosity you should ask Epilog to let you know what failed on the board and why... I am sure they will do a failure analysis... For the money you spent they should at least let you know why it failed.

[Walt Langhans]

Nice!

From an observation of only pictures, FYI, that's my disclaimer notification and I'm sticking to it :), it looks like the main architecture of the new board hasn't changed from your old board. But they seem to have changed how the input / output is handled which can make all the difference in the world.

Glad to know you are up and running again!

[Tim Bateson]

There is now a daughter board attached to the upper right and on the back a couple new jumpers and resisters have been added.