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Beth Page
04-07-2008, 2:19 PM
Ok those who don't know we had a problem with our x motor and went ahead and ordered a new one from signwarehouse for almost $300 well turns out they were on back order but we didn't find that out till almost a week later. So over the weekend we tested our motor and guess what?, thats right there is nothing wrong with the motor, so we figure its the pcb board so we get a hold of signwarehouse to get a new one and guess what/ yep you gussed it their on back order also, so we get a hold of Laserpro they say they cary them but they get theirs from the same place as signwarehouse does. so now they both so they will not get any till the 17th so that means i am out of business till then. so as you can tell we are very frustrated at the moment.:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Mitchell Andrus
04-07-2008, 2:28 PM
Your post is notable for the intermittant use of punctuation and the inappropriate use of lower case letters where upper case would be correct. This connotes in you an extreme level of frustration.

If you are truely sidelined after exhausting all avenues of redress, sweep the floor, paint the walls, do some bookkeeping....

Rodne Gold
04-07-2008, 2:56 PM
Did you try cleaning the shaft encoder?
What makes you think it's the PC board?
One or 2 other things to try
move the head to the lowest left hand corner when the machine is off and restart it when the head is in that position. Check the ribbon cable going into the small pcb where the x motor is, check the ribbon cables going into the motherboard.

Joe Pelonio
04-07-2008, 3:05 PM
I have in the past used the Creek Laser list to find someone local to me to help out when either down or swamped. Think about it, especially if you have short deadlines to meet.

Jerry Hay
04-07-2008, 3:29 PM
Are you using the auto focus pin. if you are try taking it out. I have had that same problem and my pin was bad. I now use manual focus for everything.

Richard Rumancik
04-07-2008, 11:09 PM
Beth, I would be frustrated, too, but sometimes they guess wrong as to what is defective. When you first asked I posted this:



In my file I found a page from LaserPro Mercury for x-motor problems. It might be similar for yours.

Step 2 asks to check that the flat cable is defective. You could probably do this with an ohmmeter but I am not beside my laser so can't say how hard this is to do.

In step 3 they mention a PCB attached to the motor. I can't remember what this looks like but it might just be an adapter PCB going from motor wiring to flex wiring.

Unfortunately they don't have a procedure here to determine between X-motor and mainboard failure. It suggests changing x-motor but if that didn't resolve it, it must be the mainboard. But the x-motor is over $250.00 so I think you want them to help you find out which one it is.

If it is under warranty they will probably send you a flat cable, PCB, then x-motor, then mainboard in that order till it starts working.

Okay, I was wrong - they sent you a motor first. Now they are saying it is the PCB (or did you decide this?) But keep in mind that the flat cable flexes, and the PCB is basically a connector board. So what if they send the PCB and it is the flat cable?

Since you are off line, ask them how you can check the flat cable. Probably it could be checked with an ohmmeter. You might need to check it in various positions for continuity as it could be an intermittent break. Perhaps you need to order one?

As far as the PCB - you could remove it and check it for damage or breaks. I can't remember if there are any components at all on this board besides connectors. You might be able to tell visually if there is anything wrong. Look at the solder joints to make sure they are all good.

Now - if it isn't any of the three, then you are left with the mainboard. Let's hope it isn't the mainboard.

But if it is the mainboard, keep in mind what GCC says - it is likely the driver chip for the motor. It is called an L6203 and is a common driver chip and fairly easy to get. GCC suggests that if the impedance between pin 1 and pin 3 is infinite, the driver chip is blown.

If you can't do this yourself, perhaps you could hire a tech for $50 to come and check the flat cable, PCB, and the L6203. Get as much info from GCC first so the tech doesn’t waste time. I think you could check the impedance of the 6302 driver without removing the mainboard.

If it is the driver, a good tech should be able to replace the bad device. If you are out of warranty I'd try my luck with that before I bought a new mainboard.

Just some suggestions . . .

Don’t feel too bad about the motor; the x-motor takes a beating. (Mine failed one month out of warranty.) Look on the bright side; when it does fail, you have a spare on hand.

Mike Page
04-08-2008, 12:29 AM
Shhh I think she is sleeping.;)

First of all I want to thank you all for the help and say what a great forum this is!

I did clean the shaft encoder. I dont know for sure that it is the pcb or the flat cable.
So when the tech told me that the motor was on backorder, I asked to send the pcb and the flat cable as that could be the problem, the motor will run if I put power to it. But I was told that the pcb is also not in stock.

Richard and Rodne I did read your posts last week and thank you!

The tech at signwarehouse has been very good to work with. Just the lack of parts is a little frustrating, as this is the reason I didn't buy a maching straight from china

Mike

Richard Rumancik
04-08-2008, 9:33 AM
. . . the motor will run if I put power to it.
Mike


Mike, do you mean the motor will run on the bench? Have you got it to move while in the machine at all?

Rodne Gold
04-08-2008, 10:58 AM
The motor running on the bench doesnt mean its not faulty........still get them to send a new one.

Richard on the PCB , Im sure there is an optical switch which is broken by a tab on the head as it gets to the end of the X axis , this is what tells it not to slam into the right hand of the machine. We once had a problem with the head slamming and found the tab had broken , we cut our own using rowmark plastic and it worked again....

You can check the ribbon cable with a continuity tester or ohmmeter, however sometime the cable has a slight crack in one of the tracks and this doesnt show up if removed and tested but manifests it'self when the head is travelling.
I think it's pretty much poor planning that the 3 components you need are not available , they do tend to fail and are subject to wear and tear.
Get em to send you all 3 and perhaps a new MB and return what doesnt fix the problem.....thats what we used to do.
Never knew about the driver chips , thats pretty good info if anything happens to our mb's , tho we have 2 good ones spare , we also have 2 dud ones.
Well we also got bad news today , one of our explorers was never used much (we have 3 explorers and 3 spirits) much cos the tube was way underpowered , we sent it to the local repair facility and its totally shot , coherent DEOS 30w........price to replace , $2900 + freight. Im not gonna do it right now but perhaps before our really busy season , considering a chinese glass laser instead of replacing it and using the dead explorer as a donor machine for parts for the remaining 2......dunno..

Mike Page
04-08-2008, 11:03 AM
Yes it runs on the bench. I get the errer msg. right at machine start up. The table drops then when the x and y axis are to home I get the message.

Now I get to work this morning and I see the big brown truck has just dumped off a new motor from GCC? ( how did that happen???).

I will see if it is the fix when I get home this afternoon.

Thanks
Mike

Richard Rumancik
04-08-2008, 2:13 PM
. . . So over the weekend we tested our motor and guess what?, thats right there is nothing wrong with the motor, so we figure its the pcb board . . .

Ok, I misunderstood what you were saying Beth; I thought you had installed the new motor but what you are saying is that you convinced yourself that the old motor was okay. But there are two parts to the motor, the windings and the encoder. If the windings are working the x axis will move but if it does not get proper encoder signals it will give the error because it does not know where it is.

So you just got the new motor, right Mike? So you don't have much to lose by putting it in. Might as well try the parts you have. Did you try to clean the encoder in the old motor last week as Rodne suggested?

Rodne, I realize that it is hard to prove the flat cable is "good" with an ohmeter as it can be intermittent. But if you get an "open" at any point then you know it is bad. I'd try to test it in the laser unplugged at each end. Not at my laser right now so don't remember what it looks like.

I'm also disappointed that GCC does not have these parts in stock as they are probably common repair parts.

Mike Page
04-08-2008, 2:31 PM
Well I get the same results with the new motor. So its on to the pcb and the flat cable.

Jerry Hay
04-08-2008, 6:25 PM
What does the error message say on the screen? is it like table is at the limit?

Richard Rumancik
04-09-2008, 10:17 AM
Rodne was correct concerning the optical sensors on the PCB. The x and y optical sensors are on this PCB so there is one chip and a few resistors as an interface. But not really much on the board. I would have thought that if the optical circuit failed (either the chip, or broken plastic vanes as Rodne experienced) you would get the error in the lower right corner, as soon as it did not zero properly.

You are getting the error when you go back to upper left. So it seems to be zeroing the machine position, then tries to go to the "ruler" 0,0 and fails. (Is that correct?) That would still tend to suggest it is not getting the encoder feedback.

In the flat cable there are power lines for motor, autofocus sense line, and x and y optical sensors, plus the motor encoder (4 lines). Have you already unplugged the flat cable from both ends and cleaned the copper pads? (You need to lift up a little collar around the connector to release the flat cable.)

When you put the new one in be careful not to put any sharp creases in it.

Mike Page
04-09-2008, 11:03 AM
Hi Jerry, The error message is X MOTOR MALFUNCTION
Richard, the machine never moves in X or Y, I get the error at power-up .

Richard Rumancik
04-09-2008, 9:09 PM
When it does its zeroing procedure at startup, it normally moves the carriage to the extreme right till the x-optical sensor is tripped; then it turns the y motor until y-sensor is tripped. Since it detects a failure on the x axis first, it aborts the process before it even tries to zero the y. So the fact that the y isn't moving doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem with the y-motor circuit.

If it doesn't even attempt to zero the x then I would guess that the optical sensor circuit isn't the culprit.

The mainboard should send power to the x-motor to start turning and the encoder wheel on the motor should provide feedback to the mainboard that the motor is actually turning. If it doesn't detect motion, you will get the x-motor malfunction error.

So it seems either (a) the encoder signal is not getting back to the mainboard or (b) the motor is not getting power.

(a) could be PCB or flat cable
(b) could be PCB, flat cable, or mainboard

Mike, did you check that there is +40VDC going into the mainboard? The power supply for the mainboard/motors is beside the mainboard. On my board JP6 which is in the top right of the mainboard is the +40V/5V supply for the mainboard. You probably can't test z-axis functionality because you can't initialize. If the +40V is dead you wouldn't be able to move any axis, but the x-axis failure would be detected first and it would abort.

You said you ran the motor on the bench. How did you know what voltage to apply? Is the motor marked? If the +40V is okay, one thing I suppose you could do (if you are comfortable with it) is to try to tap into the two wires that run the motor, and see if a voltage appears on these two wires when you start the machine. If there is no voltage present when you get the x-motor error, and you have +40V on the mainboard, then I would tend to guess that the mainboard isn't supplying the power. Which might mean a blown driver chip.

Most of the mainboard is proprietary chips etc and GCC won't give out the schematics. But the motor driver section (with the 3 tall heatsinks) could probably be figured out by a technician as it is probably a fairly standard implementation. Depends on your budget and time available.

Does anyone know if GCC will repair mainboards or offer an exchange? Or is it considered disposable if it fails?

Mike, you never mentioned if you have any warranty left.

Richard Rumancik
04-09-2008, 9:23 PM
Mike - I'm trying to remember the initialization sequence - it normally drops the table before initializing x and y. Upon startup, does your laser drop the table and then fail? Not sure what is powering the z motor though as the z motor is a stepper not a servo. I originally assumed that z axis was +40V too but am not sure now. Best to check if the +40V is present.

Mike Page
04-28-2008, 1:56 PM
Well its been 30 days that we have been down now. Sign warehouse last told me that GCC would send A new (tested) mother board pcb and motor from China or wherever? On the 21st.

I called GCC last friday and tryed to buy A pcb board as out of my own pocket and was told that I would get emailed some forms. And that they would call Signwarehouse to see what the problem was.

Today we called GCC to tell them that we didnt get the email. We were told that S/W told them to "back-off". So GCC did!

Mike
Someday this will be a funny story to tell the grand kids huh!:D

Rodne Gold
04-28-2008, 4:35 PM
I would start screaming at SW , 30 days is totally unnaceptable .......
i would continue asking GCC for help if SW cant do anything for you.

Richard Rumancik
04-28-2008, 7:09 PM
Sign warehouse last told me that GCC would send A new (tested) mother board pcb and motor from China or wherever?

I don't know what the current GCC policy is but when I got a replacement mainboard several years ago it came without any memory and without the firmware IC's. There are two IC's (plus memory) that I had to remove from the old board and put into the new one. I wasn't really happy about that - I hope they have changed the policy, but if not be prepared to move some chips around. In that case you will then have to load the firmware.

Glyn Jones
06-24-2015, 9:22 AM
Well its been 30 days that we have been down now. Sign warehouse last told me that GCC would send A new (tested) mother board pcb and motor from China or wherever? On the 21st.

I called GCC last friday and tryed to buy A pcb board as out of my own pocket and was told that I would get emailed some forms. And that they would call Signwarehouse to see what the problem was.

Today we called GCC to tell them that we didnt get the email. We were told that S/W told them to "back-off". So GCC did!

Mike
Someday this will be a funny story to tell the grand kids huh!:D

Mike - what was the final outcome of this as I have the same problem. I have tried swapping the motor, PCB and ribbon cable. The main boards are no longer available.

Bill George
06-24-2015, 9:36 AM
Mike - what was the final outcome of this as I have the same problem. I have tried swapping the motor, PCB and ribbon cable. The main boards are no longer available.

Do you realize this Thread dates back to 2008? Seven years is a long time, you would be better off starting your own Thread with a Post and going into details with info about your machine and settings.

Dan Hintz
06-24-2015, 11:23 AM
Mike - what was the final outcome of this as I have the same problem. I have tried swapping the motor, PCB and ribbon cable. The main boards are no longer available.

Mike hasn't logged on in close to two years... your chance of receiving a reply are somewhat slim...

Kev Williams
06-24-2015, 3:33 PM
so now they both so they will not get any till the 17th so that means i am out of business till then.:mad::mad::mad::mad:
While this is an old thread, it just points out why --in my opinion-- if you're relying on a machine to make a living, you need at least 2 machines...

Glyn Jones
06-25-2015, 3:39 AM
I knew it was a long shot. It's just that it is exactly the same problem as mine. Seemed to be sensible to add to an old thread when it was 100% applicable!