murphyslaw

plotter blade/carriage not moving up/down

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After shipping my working plotter to niece plotter blade and or empty carriage not moving up and down. I flew to her location and am with her for a short time. Carriage freely moves down and up after depressing by hand. am at my witts end. I don't want to let her down. Will be leaving soon. Please help.

20180319_021843.jpg

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Does it move freely when it's off, on , or both?

Does it stay in the up position, or the down position?

Is there any sound like it's trying to move up and down?

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12 hours ago, haumana said:

Does it move freely when it's off, on , or both?

Does it stay in the up position, or the down position?

Is there any sound like it's trying to move up and down?

It moves freely  left to right when plotting but not up and down. when pushed downward manualy  it freely goes down and then freely pops back up. It stays in the up position with power on or off. thank you for responding to my post. m running out of time to get this ghost out of machine. The only sound made when plotting is the sound of the plotter head moving left to right.

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still no idea of what machine or software we are trying to diagnose - could be hardware, software or even just wrong drivers running the plotter - we have seen in the past wrong drivers that do what you describe,  we have seen in the past mainboard issues doing what you describe, we have seen damaged carriage selenoid do what you described but without more info it is a total shot in the dark.  that is why above I asked for more info so we had something , anything to go on.   

What model of plotter?
What cutting software are you using?
What driver within that software did you choose?
what operating system are you using with the software?

 

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Using Windows XP. It is a Vinyl Express Ultra Pro Twenty Four. Using Vinyl Express (aka Flexi) software with a GRC 50 driver.  Have not had software issues in the past on laptop I am giving to niece which has successfully driven in the past.  No software settings have been changed on that laptop.Plotter was working fine a week ago b4 shipping it. Help please.

 

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I have ve-LXI master plus and checking for all of the plotter sold by signwarehouse I do not see a ultra pro 24   they have the enduracut series, grc series, q and qe series, jaguar, lynx and R series but nothing on a ultra pro 24 so wondering if you have the wrong driver selected and it is not telling the plotter to pick up and drop the blade holder

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What happens when you try to do "Test" from the on-board cutter dashboard?

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2 hours ago, murphyslaw said:

Plotter carriage will not go up and down (will go left to right) when test cut is launched directly from from plotter menu

 

if it won't do a test cut from the  menu on the cutter then it is internal like the solenoid in the carriage or mainboard.  with a cutter of that age I would buy the new SC2 that is on sale right now and have a new plotter and the new vinylmaster (even though I love the ve-lxi master plus I don't think it will have a driver to work with the sc2)  .  with some cutters there is a z axis chip that can be replaced for what you are describing but identifying it on that cutter and the chance of it being replaceable are probably pretty slim

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Is there anything mechanical you can think of which may have come loose doing shipping and thus would not allow  the z axis to engage to  assuming the solenoid etc. are in working order? I had seen a post relating to such an issue but it was very brief and was regarding a different plotter. What do you think about this being a possibility?  From a layman's point of view jostling  etc. in shipping could cause mechanical issues but electrical issues when unit is not powered up I do not have the expertise to comprehend. I am very limited in that regard. Please tell me your educated view upon this. Perhaps the lack of my expertise on this matter combined with my desperation to not let my niece down has me grasping at straws as the time continues to wind down before I must depart thus leaving failure behind.  I wish I could afford to buy her another plotter. I would do so.  Thus I am in an all or nothing circumstance. Failure to be able to repair means my niece will get nothing.  It would have been better had I not told her I was sending a working plotter and lap top to her for she was fired up to receive them and now nothing.  Bad uncle, bad uncle. It is very sad.

 

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If you can move the cutting head by hand freely, the problem is not likely mechanical and you have a bad solenoid or solenoid control board/chip. While solenoids can go bad, they typically do not and you're problem is most likely the motherboard that controls the solenoid.

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I will be returning to Mansfield Tx. from my visit to family in Lakeland FL on the 26th.  I had my niece happy I shipped the plotter to her and would be here to set it up. Do you have any suggestions on how to know which board/chip controls the solenoid chip and if it is practical to replace it?

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Sorry, no. Outside of taking it apart and tracing wires or googling to see if someone else has done this.

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You can take a 9volt (square) battery and use some wires to connect it with the leads on the solenoid, if it JUMPS, then you know the issue is not a dead cutting head unit, but is rather just the Z chip.

And if it's the Z chip, on your machine, that's not going to be so easy to track down and replace.

(On the older MH machines, it was actually a really easy thing to do, the Z chip was not soldered in, but inserted into a receptacle port on the motherboard, and user-replaceable, for $5.)

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