Offset text on Mercury M-25

[Jim A. Walters]

I am trying to figure out if the problem is Corel or the laser.

When I am engraving a line of text with the first few words higher than the rest of the line. The laser will horizontally shift when it begins to engrave the rest of the line. This has happened on a few different jobs, and happens in different parts of the table.

Has anyone seen this before?




Link to full size pic 1 (http://www.discountfinds.com/MVC06126.JPG)

Link to full size pic 2 (http://www.discountfinds.com/MVC06127.JPG)

[Lee DeRaud]

Pretty much has to be the laser (or its driver): Corel doesn't rasterize the font.

[Bruce Volden]

Jim,

I had a very similar/identical problem which turned out to be my kevlar belt. Seems it decided to shed a couple of teeth. That made sense to me as most engraving is oriented from top left corner. Also check to make certain your rails are clean, it doesn't take much "crud" to put a drag on the axis. Good luck


Bruce

[Jim A. Walters]

We run a lot of anodized aluminum, so we have to clean the laser rails after each run. If there were teeth missing on the belt, wouldn't it happen everywhere, all the time?

[Joe Pelonio]

We run a lot of anodized aluminum, so we have to clean the laser rails after each run. If there were teeth missing on the belt, wouldn't it happen everywhere, all the time?
Depending on which belt it may only do it when it reaches those teeth, so it would do it when engraving at that position on the material every time.

[Rodne Gold]

Most likely an X motor going west , or a dirty encoder , we had it a few times with ours . You can remove the motor and take off the plastic cover over the rotary encoder and lightly brush or blow it off with a gentle stream of air. If it doesnt cure it then the motor itself is faulty.

[Jim A. Walters]

Rodne,

I was hoping for a response from Kevin Huffman, but he must have been out of the office today. I will try looking at the X motor and encoder.

[Jim A. Walters]

Joe,

It is happening at different places along the X-axis and Y-axis with different files. It repeats itself when printing the same file, but not in the exact place on different files.

[Rodne Gold]

Does it occur if you rotate the file - IE is the shift only left to right or is it top to bottom as well , if it shifts in both axes , then it could be a Corel/driver problem. Did you upgrade anything recently? You aren't perhaps having power surges? Here are a few more things to try , DL the latest drivers and firmware for the machine , reseat the RAM in the motherboard , fall back to another or older version of Corel and see if it repeats , check the cables to the laser.
Problems like that in the X axis on our explorers and mercuries were invariably X motor stuff however.

[mike klein]

I had the same problem a few weeks ago with my M series machine and it ended up being the rollers on the head. Replaced those and everything went back to normal again. Fact is , I just went ahead and replaced ALL the rollers, not that expensive considering the time/material loss and headaches..

[Jim A. Walters]

Thank all of you for the great info. I have talked with Kevin at Signwarehouse, and he agrees it should be the X motor. He is sending one out under warranty. I hope this regains my trust in the capabilities of my system. I have wasted a lot of product with this problem and hate to have to do "tryouts" on paper before I actually try it on good material.

[Jim A. Walters]

I have installed the new X motor, with no change in the output. I have tried printing the file from CD 11 and CD 12 from different computers with no change.

My efforts have led me to believe the Corel file is the problem, but I have no way to prove this. If anyone wants to give the file a shot, I would really appreciate it.

I am running a Pinnacle Mercury 25 watt using the 3.44 print driver and 2.24 firmware. I have been testing the burn with a piece of notebook paper set at 20% power, 100% speed, 500 DPI. This just browns the paper, and saves valuable engraving plastic. Remember to stop the engraver before it tries to cut the outline!

It seems to happen when the text is offset along the X axis.

[mike klein]

Jim,

I just tried your file on my pinnacle 45w and the engraving was perfect.
60sp, 25pwr, 500dpi

I use those setting when working with Rowmark Lasermax material, much different than Rowmark recommends but it works perfect for me.

I still believe its your rollers on the laser. Just my opinion..

Mike

[Gary Shoemake]

Hi Jim

I have sent you a PM take a look and let me know what you think.

[Jim A. Walters]

Mike,

Thank you for taking the time to help. I did replace all the rollers on the machine about a month and a half ago. I have plenty of the bottom rollers, but ran out of top rollers. I will contact Signwarehouse and order a few new top sets, along with those junk door gas springs on Monday. Seems to be an option I really need to look at, now that I am sure the problem lies with my laser.

Thanks again!

[Jim A. Walters]

I believe we have solved the problem. I installed the new X motor, and it didn't seem to change the problem. My wife tried to run some barcodes on the laser, and they were unreadable. On the old X motor, we had to adjust the "Image Offset" to compensate for the laser running jagged vertical lines. The new X motor needed the Image Tuning turned off to make straight vertical lines. Once I turned off the Image Tuning, the "jog" in the text went away. I am worried that in another year, our X motor will require the Image Tuning again, and I might have to purchase another X motor rather than use the Image Tuning.

Thanks to all that helped me with this problem. Now back to work!