MH 871 Seems to have been shocked

[Cincyeast 0]

I grounded the stand, but I still get static.  I was rolling the vinyl out a little when the vinyl touched the back of the actual plotter, there was a shock and now the unit moves in every direction, but the blace refuses to drop and cut?   Any Suggestions, I tried power off and on, nothing...

[BannerJohn 1,324]

try unplugging the cutter from the wall,wait about 10 minutes or so,and plug back in,turn back on..see what happens.

[Cincyeast 0]

Tried That and it still does the same thing

[BannerJohn 1,324]

I guess you'll just have to wait til Monday and call Brandon at USC. I never heard of static electricity frying a board but I guess it could happen.

[jd_design 0]

I'm working on the same issue with my MH-871 right now.  I have a new motherboard on the way from US Cutter at the moment.

I made the mistake of moving my cutter over from a standard 6' table to it's metal stand.  The first time I attempted to run a design through, I clicked the mouse button to start, looked over at the machine and saw a blue spark from down inside the unit on the lower right hand side.  After that, the blade/carriage will not drop. 

The US Cutter tech support guys were able to run through some diagnostics, like using a 9V battery to test the coil on the carriage. That tested out fine, so hopefully the static just zapped something on the motherboard. All the other functions work just fine.

I have about 50-60% humidity in my house right now but when the vinyl starts moving off the roll on the back of the stand it builds up a static charge. I added a ground wire from the stand to a grounded screw on the machine. Using a volt meter helps with this task, just to make sure you have continuity all the way to the chassis ground.  I can tell it's working as a ground now because I saw tiny little blue sparks in between the roller bearings and the metal of the stand when I tested running the material forward and backward on the machine.

The two metal rollers on the unit itself (below the pinch rollers) are connected to the chassis ground. The only other metal part that touches the vinyl is the cutting blade itself. My guess is it arced over from the carriage, down to the motherboard.

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

Good time to add the reminder to use a good surge suppressor and and extra ground wire never hurts.  when we heat in the winter even with the whole house humidifier static is an issue and even worse since we are using vinyl in our jobs!