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I cut polycarbonate with a laser all day long.. Good fume extraction and nitrogen = perfect cuts. Best way for a beginner as well as its cheap to setup and has great results - more like a printer rather than a machine tool. Routers are better for materials that can't be cut with a laser or if...

As with most plastics - fume extraction is a must, but using nitrogen results in cleaner cuts as there's no oxidation. Of course when cutting wood - you want it to burn quickly - that's why you can cut it - because it burns, then chars which resists the heat - cuts rather than sets it alight -...

Lol.. Of Course you can cut polycarbonate - that's why I said nitrogen or argon.. No fire. It burns if you use air assist, that's why you use nitrogen. Nitrogen also stops charring on most materials.

Well.. You've got a few options.. Personally. I'd laser cut them. Co2 lasers in that size are relatively cheap and easy to use.. No tool bits to setup and hard software to understand. The only thing with polycarbonate is that it's best to use nitrogen when cutting to stop charring - but...

It's not so much the printer - more the substrate you're printing on. Humidity to low = Static. Too high = curling and sometimes adhesion issues. The ink cures with uv light, so environmental issues don't really affect it that much.

When the machines are turned off - make sure the head carriages can move freely - move them by hand and see if there are any rough spots. Position alarms are down to the servo motors these machines use - they tell the motor to move, and have a sensor to tell the machine how much the motor has...

The windows scale only affects the ui.. I use loads of programs with the same issues. Only a few of the older programs won't play nice.

As Bradley said - It'll be the solvents its been exposed to - paint, etc. In these days of "Environmentally Friendly" products, formulations are often changed - so what was OK, might not now be OK. Might be worth trying a few samples of solvents and see what happens...

I've used toner transfer foils before - very simple if you have a laser printer and your prints are upto A3 in size. Usually zero cost investment wise. Anything you need to hot foil can work with this.

Sounds like the dongle drivers aren't installed or it's been damaged. Easily done as they are usually usb and easily knocked.

Plug the USB dongle into another USB port, or the dongle may be broken - unfortunately it's easily done - but luckily relatively easily fixed by someone who knows how to use a soldering iron. Easiest way to check is to plug it into the machine and see if any messages pop up or the machine makes...

Definitely buy some cheap bits while you're getting used to things.. Even cheap Chinese bits are good these days.. Stay away from carbide to start with as they are more fragile. Get used to setting speeds and feeds.. The different types of cutters needed - single flute tend to be quite useful...

Usually a spoil board is what you need (if you're cutting straight through) - just a piece of thin mdf/osb. The mats are primarily for engraving, but do nothing to stop work lifting. Depending on where you are, a cheap alternative is the dash mat to stop things moving in the truck. You can...

Exactly.. Poor earth's, loose connections cause massive frustrating issues.. Caps ageing in psus is a big issue as they can blow the lot, servo drives usually have the same issues.. Prevention is better than waking up to everything in bits.. Not an easy task though..

The encoder fault is quite likely either over voltage or ac ripple. I'd change the psu caps ASAP before you get a big voltage spike that takes out everything.

Unfortunately the capacitor shown isn't an electrolitic cap.. It looks like a tantalum cap - these are far more sensitive to over voltage than electrolytics. I'd guess that the psu is failing which probably does have electrolytics in them.. Their ESR value has probably changed and ac ripple is...

Anytime.. Old kit works.. Its just marketing that makes you "want" the latest and greatest.. Unless of course you actually are overwhelmed with jobs and you need the best. But in that case, it's often better to buy more, rather than a better single one.

As long as it has a serial port - any Plotter should still work.. The issue arises if blades are available, In your case they are. It'll just be bit slower and the curves might not be as crisp as newer models. The biggest killer is rust and bad caps on power supplies

Lol.. all Of them.. From co2 and fiber lasers to interferometers and Cnc machines - even got a pick and place machine/semi automatic stencil printer/chain oven. I usually get them as non working and then repair - you can get some really expensive gadgets if people don't know how to use them.

Shame.. I didn't know they'd closed.. Guess they designed it themselves as it was a pretty unique requirement. What height do you want? What's the end product? I do R&D, so make/design/have lots of gadgets - might be something that can be repurposed