Upgrading Accuris Laser engraver circuit board

[Bruce Clark]

Good morning,

I'm hoping someone here can help. I know there are a lot of people out there making their own DIY laser engravers, so I'm hoping this is possible. I have an Accuris Powersharp12 that interfaces through a parallel cable to the computer and uses a print driver specifically for the Accuris engraver.

Signwarehouse.com, who as far as I can figure out, is the only retailer for this engraver, but their tech support is totally worthless. Absolutely impossible to get anyone to respond to you via email or phone.

So, I want to change out the electronics with USB interface. I'm pretty computer savvy, but not experienced enough to handle this without some advice.

Thank you!

[Bill George]

Good morning,

I'm hoping someone here can help. I know there are a lot of people out there making their own DIY laser engravers, so I'm hoping this is possible. I have an Accuris Powersharp12 that interfaces through a parallel cable to the computer and uses a print driver specifically for the Accuris engraver.

Signwarehouse.com, who as far as I can figure out, is the only retailer for this engraver, but their tech support is totally worthless. Absolutely impossible to get anyone to respond to you via email or phone.

So, I want to change out the electronics with USB interface. I'm pretty computer savvy, but not experienced enough to handle this without some advice.

Thank you!

Buy a USB to parallel conversion, had one on my ULS machine. Worked fine less than $10. This is what I used > Sabrent USB to Parallel IEEE 1284 Printer Cable Adapter (CB-CN36)

[Kev Williams]

Other than a few seconds faster data upload time, IMO there's no benefit to USB. I have 15 machines in my house, and only 5 of them are USB connected, the other 10 connect via serial or parallel. The GCC laser, also a Signwarehouse laser, I can connect parallel or USB, and I've used both, and yeah the USB upload is faster, but not all that much.

I've tried 3 USB to serial conversions, all 3 worked great for about a week, then the data errors started. Always fun to check on engraving progress and find a straight line engraved across your customer's part and the spindle jammed against a wall while the stepper keeps trying to push it towards next week... and I've never gotten a USB to parallel conversion to work at all.

and then there's connection issues. With my GCC, every so often jobs just won't load, and I have to unplug/replug the USB cable. And this is with an amplified cable. My IS400 about twice a week tells me "connection with machine failed". My 'server' computer, an otherwise okay machine has all dead USB ports. My old Sony F-101 camera that I take all the pics I post up with, it's USB port hasn't worked in years, I have to pull the memory stick. My USB converters dont' work, I've had bad cables and several USB hubs fail.

In other words, I've never found USB to be all that reliable.

If newer computers with no serial or parallel ports is the issue, that's an easy fix... Just yesterday my new-to-me 2009 vintage Dell T5400 workstation showed up, this thing's an animal -- 8 core Xeon processor, 32gigs of ram, 1tb drive, win7 pro, AND it has 2 serial and 1 parallel port, and 2 PCI slots to add more. All for $250. This one computer will let me lose two others. Just have to re-route a few cables

[John Lifer]

The only thing that I have been able to make work halfway right that is legacy parallel port is a old HP LaserJet 3 printer. And it doesn't like us connection either. Now that I have my network switch connected to the internet through power line adapter, I need to put it back on the network. Then it will actually work correctly....

[Bill George]

All I can say is it worked fine on my ULS for 2 years and for less than $10 off Amazon where it got over 600 reviews and a 4 1/2 star rating . , Lots cheaper to try than shopping for another computer.

[Jerome Stanek]

if you use a desktop you can install a new parallel pci card that is better than the usb to parallel

[Brian Leavitt]

if you use a desktop you can install a new parallel pci card that is better than the usb to parallel

I just did this recently for the X-660. We were having serious data loss issues with the amplified USB-to-parallel setup I was running. Got a Rosewill PCI Express Parallel card and no more problems.

Still running that USB-to-parallel setup on the X2-600, though. Don't really have any issues with that one.