Epilog 24TT HELP!!!!!!

[Pete Thomas(UK)]

Can any one please give me some guidance. New to lasering and the forum. I have just bought a used Epilog 24TT. Had it for nearly three weeks. On Friday eve I was rastering some acrylic when it started to miss out some bits of the image text I was engraving. Checked all connextions, resent image, restarted Corel draw and PC. RRestarted laser.Still no change.
I tried repeating the same job to see if the same bits were missing. It missed out bits at random. Then on the 7th or there about time it worked OK. Tried the rotary fixture, 3 glasses came out OK the the next ones missing bits again.

Any one out there had the same problem? Any suggestions please. Going nuts at the moment. Got jobs to do and a dodgey laser. Cant afford to mess up more work.

Thanks,
Pete T

[Larry Bratton]

Pete:
Have you contacted Epilog Tech support? Have you cleaned your optics? Many times weird things are caused by dirty lenses and mirrors. That's the first thing to look for if your quality is suffering. That's probably the first thing tech will ask.

[Joe Pelonio]

Clean the encoder strip. It's located under the x axis bar cover. Remove the cover and it stands up along the top, less than 1/4" high. Use a q tip with windex or alcohol to wipe it down, dry, then try again and see if that helps.

[Pete Thomas(UK)]

Thanks Jo,
I will have a look at the encoder strip. Should I expect to find it visibly dirty?

Just tried it again on some scrap glass. If I move the image along 4 or 5 inches it seems to work fine. Would that point to the encoder(what ever that does?). Also guess the mirrors must be OK.

I have contacted Epilog but guess they will not be about at the weekend.

Still puzzeled.

Pete T

[Scott Shepherd]

I agree with Joe, encoders are dirty. Might not be visibly dirty, but you should see residue on the cotton swap you clean it with.

Very easy to do. Just take that cover off, and wipe that long thin clearish strip down. Just be gentle with it.

[Joe Pelonio]

That strip tells it where it is, on the x-y axis. If it thinks it's in the wrong place it will not fire. It's the most common reason for that problem. If that doesn't do the trick then you consider the ribbon cable attached to it, mine has had to be replaced, but there's an easy way to check it. Let us know what happens after the cleaning.

[Bruce Volden]

Pete,

Also when you are cleaning the encoder strip, look at the black assembly the strip rides in. I have found "fuzz balls" in there which will mimic the exact same symptoms you describe! This assembly reads to contrast lines on the encoder strip. The strip has 300 lines per inch, now imagine having some dust/dirt/fuzz adding a line here and there and you can understand how it misses/gets lost.

Bruce

[Pete Thomas(UK)]

Cleaned the encoder strip. Was not bad at all. Tried again. First two attempts had lines. Been OK since.

The laser stops firing for the whole of its movement for several passes. some times 1/16" sometimes1/2". It does the same with the rotary attachment also. Don't think it could be the encoder. All a bit new and very frustrating.

[Joe Pelonio]

Obviously Epilog Tech Support is the best place for information, but we are speaking from our own experiences. You can try taking that white ribbon cable off, and reversing it. There are several wires in it and only a few are used, so when you reverse it you are now using different ones. This worked on mine, stopped the symptoms, so I ordered a replacement.

["Terry Pless"]

I had a similar problem once and after pulling out my hair and the teck's I found the trouble was the magnets/switches on the lid (Legend 24ex 35watt.) were out of adjustment and would sometimes interrupt the firing of the laser. some times I'd close the lid slowly and the magnets would not pull the safety switch completely and would cause the laser to go on and off. I placed two magnets on the switches and no more trouble, then I worked on the lid magnets and no more problem. Hopefully yours will be as simple to repair. Good luck. Terry

[Scott Shepherd]

I had a problem with our Epilog similiar to that on the rotary. It would work fine and then just skip a line or several lines. Had to replace the motor on the rotary axis to resolve the issue.

Could be a motor (or motors) problem. Tech support is going to have to resolve it, I think, as Joe mentioned.

[Pete Thomas(UK)]

It gets worse--- seemed OK so I put on the rotary to finish the job. Problem--would not "print". Took off rotary back to table--would not print then. Re installed driver for laser- still not working.

Depressed.

[Scott Shepherd]

Would not print, in my limited experience was user error. Either the page size in Corel doesn't match the page size on the driver. With a mismatch in page sizes between Corel and the driver, the printed item is outside of what the driver is seeing as the page size (only know because I did it about a zillion times).

Not sure if that is the problem, but it's stopped me dead in my tracks more than once.

Check that and report back!

[Bill Cunningham]

When you send the job to the laser, you should be able to select 'view' in the job dropdown menu. If you can see the job, it went to the laser ok, but something else is preventing the tube from firing.. Check the magnets in the lid (there are two little ones near the leading edge one on the left, and one on the right..) I had one fall out, and the laser kept working ok, but if their both gone it won't fire..

[Ed Maloney]

It gets worse--- seemed OK so I put on the rotary to finish the job. Problem--would not "print". Took off rotary back to table--would not print then. Re installed driver for laser- still not working.

Depressed.

Pete - Does the job get to the laser?

A few times I sent a job to the laser and had the print driver set to vector, but it didn't have any hairline curves in the job. I would press Go and the display would say Done right away. Check your artwork, maybe all (or part) of your graphic is hairline and you are trying to raster.

[Pete Thomas(UK)]

The job didn't seem to be getting to the laser. I have just reinstalled Corel Draw and Epilog drivers on another PC. That now sends the file to the laser. Just done one test fire, engraved that OK. Need to try more.
Problem two may have been either Corel draw or the print driver I guess.

Could this have also been responsible for the misfiring streaks.

[Joe Pelonio]

When it won't print look at it on the laser's little LED screen, if it's not there you have a spooling issue or the lines are too thin to engrave/too thick to cut so the driver didn't send them over.

I had an experience this morning, after cleaning/lubricating everything to start a job. The pointed tip of the grease tube shot off and got it in places not normally lubricated. I though I got it all cleaned off.

The first run I had a spot about 8" from left where every cut
had a "miss" as it passed that point. Right where the grease had been. I took the cover back off the X-bar and cleaned the encoder strip, sure enough it had gotten on it, and after that all was fine again.

[Peck Sidara]

Pete,

So many questions come to mind when reading thru this posting.

Did you get any training from the person(s) you purchased the unit from?
How is your laser connected to the PC, Ethernet or Parallel?
A picture says a thousand words? Got any pics?
Tech support's open 6-6PM M-F mountain time. I think we're about 6-7 hours behind you. Tech support is free regardless of where you purchased your Epilog from.
If no training has been provided, I recommend contacting ID-UK to see if they'll provide some basic operational/maintainance training.
Next time if fouls up, let the job finish, place some scrap material into the machine and repeat the job from the display of the laser (do not send the job over again) and see if it does the exact same thing. If it does, it's communications related.
Tech support's number is +1.303.215.9171 and their email is tech at epiloglaser dot com.

[Pete Thomas(UK)]

Hi Peck sen a PM. Thanks