Problems in Paradise! Epilog Fusion stopped working -

[Michelle Adams]

I originally posted the following as a reply on another thread, but thought I should repost it as a new thread since there may be some people who have had the same issue. Please forgive the duplicate posting...I will delete the other post.

As promised, I am keeping you up to date on our adventures in engraving. My staff and I have been training/practicing for about four days, and it has been pretty amazing. I'm sure the small items we have created as we learn our way around the machine would not be all that impressive, but we have definitely been impressed by user friendly dashboard, and the way the machine works.

Unfortunately, we have hit a snag. So a part of our learning experience will be troubleshooting and working through a problem big enough to take us down.

Here is the problem.

It started two days ago, with one small incident. My assistant was working her way through a tutorial, and in the middle of it, the machine showed "internal error/drive error fault detected" on the screen. We shut it down and restarted, and everything was back to normal and we did quite a bit more work. Yesterday one of my students was working, same thing happened. This time shutting it down didn't work. We tried several times, and three of those times we gave it several minutes between restarts. We noticed that the first couple times we tried to restart, the initialization went through its paces until it got to the "Homing" part, and the table tried to move (lower) but didn't, and the laser went far back into the cabinet. The fourth time we restarted (with loving pats and encouraging words) the table lowered, the laser went back deep into the cabinet, and then it showed the error again and wouldn't do anything else. That's as far as we have gotten.

Now, I know better, but I never established up front with the company we bought the machine from whether I am supposed to call them for tech support, or call Epilog directly. Since we have one of the trainers/technicians coming back on Friday, I thought I should call the company we bought it from first. They have been in contact with Epilog, but so far I haven't heard anything more. I am waiting until about 2:30 (pacific time) this afternoon, then I will call Epilog directly. The company we bought from is very responsive and trying to help, but if Epilog needs me to try anything or look at anything, I think direct contact is my best route. I want to make sure if there is a defective part that needs to be ordered, I can get it here before Friday.

Since all of this is a learning process, I will let you know how it goes. I know that part of owning/operating equipment is figuring out what to do when something goes wrong, so this should be interesting! And who knows...maybe some Epilog Fusion owner out there has had a similar issue?

Michelle

[Mike Null]

Michelle

By all means contact Epilog tech support. That's why they're there. Whenever you have an issue call them. In this case it's probably a small glitch in the steps you're taking, the computer interface or maybe a loose connection. I have been impressed overall with Epilog reps but not all of them are really expert enough to offer the tips you may need.

[Michelle Adams]

Just got off the phone with Epilog Support. Wait time was under two minutes. We went through and checked all the connections, reseated the control board, checked everything we could check, and couldn't find the issue. He is going to confer with other techs first thing tomorrow morning and call me back with a plan.

I am impressed with their response so far. I'm sure we will figure it out. The good news, I am getting to know the machine inside and out.


Michelle

By all means contact Epilog tech support. That's why they're there. Whenever you have an issue call them. In this case it's probably a small glitch in the steps you're taking, the computer interface or maybe a loose connection. I have been impressed overall with Epilog reps but not all of them are really expert enough to offer the tips you may need.

[Eric Claiborne]

I have the same machine. We had an issue where it wouldn't even finish booting up. As trivial as this sounds, start the machine up NOT connected by USB and after it finishes starting up and says, "JOB" then connect it. Haven't had a problem since. Tech support had me convinced we needed a new motherboard, I figured this out on my own.

[Kevin Gregerson]

I originally posted the following as a reply on another thread, but thought I should repost it as a new thread since there may be some people who have had the same issue. Please forgive the duplicate posting...I will delete the other post.

As promised, I am keeping you up to date on our adventures in engraving. My staff and I have been training/practicing for about four days, and it has been pretty amazing. I'm sure the small items we have created as we learn our way around the machine would not be all that impressive, but we have definitely been impressed by user friendly dashboard, and the way the machine works.

Unfortunately, we have hit a snag. So a part of our learning experience will be troubleshooting and working through a problem big enough to take us down.

Here is the problem.

It started two days ago, with one small incident. My assistant was working her way through a tutorial, and in the middle of it, the machine showed "internal error/drive error fault detected" on the screen. We shut it down and restarted, and everything was back to normal and we did quite a bit more work. Yesterday one of my students was working, same thing happened. This time shutting it down didn't work. We tried several times, and three of those times we gave it several minutes between restarts. We noticed that the first couple times we tried to restart, the initialization went through its paces until it got to the "Homing" part, and the table tried to move (lower) but didn't, and the laser went far back into the cabinet. The fourth time we restarted (with loving pats and encouraging words) the table lowered, the laser went back deep into the cabinet, and then it showed the error again and wouldn't do anything else. That's as far as we have gotten.

Now, I know better, but I never established up front with the company we bought the machine from whether I am supposed to call them for tech support, or call Epilog directly. Since we have one of the trainers/technicians coming back on Friday, I thought I should call the company we bought it from first. They have been in contact with Epilog, but so far I haven't heard anything more. I am waiting until about 2:30 (pacific time) this afternoon, then I will call Epilog directly. The company we bought from is very responsive and trying to help, but if Epilog needs me to try anything or look at anything, I think direct contact is my best route. I want to make sure if there is a defective part that needs to be ordered, I can get it here before Friday.

Since all of this is a learning process, I will let you know how it goes. I know that part of owning/operating equipment is figuring out what to do when something goes wrong, so this should be interesting! And who knows...maybe some Epilog Fusion owner out there has had a similar issue?

Michelle

Not an epilog rep, but from a mechanical thinking.

Internal drive error most likely means that something is either out of alignment or one of the connections is bad on the sensors. I've seen on a number of lasers where problems like this are fixed simply by disconnecting and reconnecting the X and Y axis connectors. Though, it sounds like your problem might center around the Z based on the tried to move table comment. . If that's the case and you have access. Take a look at the Z Screws under the table and make sure they are well greased and nothing is in the space that might cause binding. Usually it's a screw or something that was dropped into the perfect hole.

[Jason Saul]

Hi Michelle - Any luck with your issue? We have a Fusion 40 and had some minor issues getting going after updating to the newest firmware. Epilog quickly overnighted us a new motherboard which fixed our problems. We didn't have the same issue as you, but a new motherboard might end up helping. There have also been issues with the newest driver and using USB with Windows 7 - the auto-install driver feature ends up installing an older version of the driver for us and we have yet to resolve that. Given that the Fusion is the newest machine from Epilog's lineup, we are guinea pigs - but so far we've been VERY happy with the Fusion - it's a GREAT machine.

[Michelle Adams]

Wow, these were some great responses. Extremely helpful. When I was on the phone with Epilog yesterday we did test the sensor and connections theories (the x and y axis connectors--disconnected and reconnected both). Thanks for that idea Kevin! The table started operating fine, still might be troublesome that it didn't work at all, but if it is a problem in the control board, as they think it might be, then I suppose it could affect the table intermittently.

Eric, that sounded so close to what was happening with ours that I had to run out and try your solution as soon as I read it--darn, no joy. Interesting issue though, isn't it?

Jason, it sounds more and more like our motherboard IS the issue...and I think you are right. The model/machine is so new, I am sure there are going to be some bugs to work out. When this machine is running, it is so slick that I am willing to work through it...especially since the company seems as eager to get me back up and running as I am. It speaks well of the tech support. I am going to ask our tech guy that is coming out tomorrow about the Windows 7 and the driver issues. What is interesting to me is that when he installed the machine he or Epilog installed Version 1.41 of the driver. I looked at the website and that is definitely not the most recent driver...so I planned to ask him about that.

I spoke with Epilog support again this morning. They are overnighting both a new control board and the entire x axis assembly. They want me to replace both so we can start fresh with both, and because they were unable to isolate the problem to one or the other. It will get here in the morning and I will install all of it before the tech support person from the distributor comes over. He's going to check my installation and teach me to realign the mirror (3) and check our laser alignment. Then we will get the rest of our training done.

So far I am VERY happy with the response from both companies, and I think we will be up and running again by the end of the day tomorrow. I need to be--I was in a meeting with other departments on campus and word is spreading very quickly about the engraver. I will have a long line of people when we officially open for engraving business...which will probably be September 1st.

All of this information you all have given is really good! I will let you know what else I find out. We are going to video tape the repairs tomorrow so we can refer to it if tech support needs to know how we did something.

[Michelle Adams]

An update to our initial problems...Epilog Support responds VERY quickly. I think that, like Jason Saul said, the model is SO new that we have some hiccups. Epilog initially sent us a new control board and x-axis arm assembly and we replaced both items pretty easily. It initialized fine, seemed to be working as we aligned all the mirrors and the laser, but then when we went to print it did this crazy dance across the x-axis without any lasing. So we took a video of what it was doing and sent that to tech support and described what it was doing and asked the the question "why is the belt on the new x-axis arm a different color?" It was a different color because they sent the x-axis arm for the Fibermark instead of the Fusion. It caused a little frustration, we are on a fast ticking clock and at this point I was 4 days down...and still waiting for a working machine. But they did overnight another x-axis arm and sent it, and we put it in and it has been working since...

So far we are loving the machine, still learning. I'm going to start a new thread about software issues, and see what we come up with on that one.