GCC LaserPro Mercury problem

[Arron Martin]

I honestly don't know how I got it working before, just plugged it in and off I went. I'm going shop around for an old pc with xp and a parallel port. Seems my best and easiest bet.

[Arron Martin]

Right, just ordered myself a nice old pc with xp and my golden treasure that is a parallel port! I'm praying this solves my problems.

[Richard Rumancik]

You are on the right track. It should not cost you a bundle.

Electronics can be like that. Join a bunch of hardware and software together from different eras and it might just work. For a while. Or sometimes. But you need a robust configuration that always works. Best bet is to use what the manufacturer tested and approved and stick to 2000-era hardware. Otherwise you are pretty much on your own.

For what it's worth, if you have the Mercury with the Synrad tube, I have been told that firmware 2.27 and 2.28 has some issues. This came from a guy who used to be on this forum (Viktor from Litographa) and he seemed to know what he was talking about. The 2.27 and 2.28 came after they introduced Deos tubes and so there were different firmware for each type of tube. But Viktor recommended to me that I use 2.25 for my Mercury w/Synrad as it was stable. (That is why I asked if you have the Synrad.) His take was that 2.27 fixed some bugs and added new ones. Your call as to what you do with this info.

Chances are you will get it working by getting rid of the USB adapter. But if you have future problems, you might consider this tidbit of info.

[Arron Martin]

Quick question, I remeber ed I need to upgrade the firmware but I don't know Wether to use the 2.28 deoscoherent or synrad. No idea what either of those are.

[Arron Martin]

I honestly would know if mines sybead or not. Its bad how clueless I am of all this. I'll learn though. I'm hoping when this old computer arrives i can get things up and running and start making an income again.

[Richard Rumancik]

Aaron, you'll soon get really familiar with what is in the box as you will need to support it - you have to realize that this is an older laser and you won't get a whole lot of help from GCC. So if you want to keep it running you need to start collecting whatever support info you can.

I have been assuming all along this is a Mercury I (see the Jorlink picture here):

https://www.jorlink.com/ -> SUPPORT -> LASER DRIVERS-FIRMWARE

https://www.jorlink.com/support/lase...-firmware.aspx

Download the manual and whatever other support material you can find. You might need to print out some sections.

Now, you said that you were running firmware 2.27srd. I think this means you have a SYNRAD tube. But don't take my word for it; get out the screwdriver and open up the back and take a look. While you are in there clean all the fans and make sure they are all working. See if you can find the Synrad label. The tube will probably look like this:

http://photovaclaser.com/plr/index.p...products_id=17
(click on Larger Image)

The Deos/Coherent tube was made by a different manufacturer. In 2002 or 2003 (not sure exactly when) GCC decided they needed another supplier of laser tubes so they went with a Deos tube from Coherent. But it was not exactly plug-compatible so needed different firmware. Since 2.27srd was working then leave it alone for now. I suggest you only flash the firmware if you still can't get it running it with the new PC. You can flash later once you have a stable working system (and are caught up with orders.)
Don't forget my warnings about 2.27 and 2.28. I am using 2.25.

If the tube is dusty brush all the dust off. Have you ever done an alignment? When you have a lull you need to familiarize yourself with how to do this. If you have a procedure already, great. If not, I can probably find one for you. You also need to learn about cleaning lenses and mirrors. Open up the side panel. Ground yourself and reseat the RAM as I suggested before. If you are uncomfortable with this ask a computer guru friend to show you how to remove and reseat the memory sticks.

Read a bit on the forum every day and before long you pick up what you need to know.

Good luck; I sure hope the "new" computer solves the problem. At this point I really don't think it is the laser itself.

[Joe Walmer]

Hello I think I am the one that talked to you on facebook and suggested coming here. How did this end up? I can almost swear it happened to me years ago and I had to get new eeprom chips because nothing i did fixed it untill that.