Need Help [Cause still unknown but fixed for now] Oce Arizona 480GT suddenly failing every print - unsure what's going on

[Nibroc99]

Hey all,
Today I did my morning maintenance of purging and vacuuming the print heads, nothing out of the ordinary. Then when I went to do the nozzle check the first time, I hit print, everything was running normally, numbers looked fine, and then suddenly the print stopped while it was laying down the first black chunk of the nozzle check. It only says "Print failed" with no additional details on the status screen, so I generated the logs and, since I'm very new to all of this as of about 3 weeks ago, I haven't got much of an idea of what to look for or what to do. The log from today is attached (I had to change the file extension to .txt from .log to be able to upload it).

Now with any print that I try to do - nozzle check or otherwise - fails after the first pass of the carriage.
I've made sure that the print height is correct, lamps are good, nothing is obstructing the print path (I know it should say "motion error" if that were the case), and I tried doing the maintenance purge and clean again just for sh*ts & giggles and that didn't change anything.

If anybody has any ideas, or is able to tell what happened from those print logs, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Hopefully it's something that's fixable without needing to call in a service tech!

 

[Pauly]

Could be the data / ethernet cable to the heads.

 

[Nibroc99]

Could be the data / ethernet cable to the heads.

Interesting. I just rebooted the press again and now it seems to be working just fine, so maybe it was a loose cable inside the carriage... I'll have to pull the cover off and have a look at the connections. Thanks, will report back if I find anything. This thing does run on Windows XP and has a copyright of 2005, so it could very well just be that the thing is getting old. Wonky stuff happens to old equipment and old software!

 

[AlsEU]

It could be created by the data cable between the mainboard and the carriage. Either some kind of the noise (and delay in data transmission longer than the accepted time) or the beginning of the physical damage.

 

[Nibroc99]

It could be created by the data cable between the mainboard and the carriage. Either some kind of the noise (and delay in data transmission longer than the accepted time) or the beginning of the physical damage.

Gotcha, thanks for the ideas. Will definitely pull the cover off and inspect the cables when I get the chance - I would assume it would be in the carriage that I should be looking for damage, correct?

 

[White Haus]

We had something similar happen on our 318gl and it turns out it was the carbon deposits/dust from the brushes in the scan motor. (I think it's the scan motor)

Cut main power switch, pop the cover off the left side of the machine (where you top off the coolant) and you should see the motor. Take a flathead screwdriver and remove all 4 brushes. (Take cap off, then spring w/ brush) Insert the straw from a compressed air can and fire away. You'll probably see clouds of dust come out of the other 3 openings.

Seems like a weird fix but we went from being down and dead in the water to back up and running. Now we'll just do this every few months as preventative maintenance and it stops it from happening again.

Edited to add: We also had to replace our firewire cable eventually, which was lots of fun. Had to run it through the whole igus track from the main board to the head carriage.

 

[Nibroc99]

We had something similar happen on our 318gl and it turns out it was the carbon deposits/dust from the brushes in the scan motor. (I think it's the scan motor)

Cut main power switch, pop the cover off the left side of the machine (where you top off the coolant) and you should see the motor. Take a flathead screwdriver and remove all 4 brushes. (Take cap off, then spring w/ brush) Insert the straw from a compressed air can and fire away. You'll probably see clouds of dust come out of the other 3 openings.

Seems like a weird fix but we went from being down and dead in the water to back up and running. Now we'll just do this every few months as preventative maintenance and it stops it from happening again.

Edited to add: We also had to replace our firewire cable eventually, which was lots of fun. Had to run it through the whole igus track from the main board to the head carriage.

Gotcha, I'll have to see if there's something similar with the motor brushes in my machine. I couldn't see the motors being brushless so that would definitely make sense! Interesting that it would cause interference though, but hey, weird stuff can happen like that sometimes for sure. Replacing the firewire cable sounds... Pleasant. Yikes!

 

[Pauly]

You can take the covers off and run your own cable to see if it eliminates the problem.

 

[ToTo]

In the log you’ve sent you can see lots of link errors to carriage. I would suggest to reseat both sides in carriage and behind the big cover where the ink filters are located. and clean the contacts with contact cleaner first. Check logs afterwards regarding carriage link errors.

 

[Nibroc99]

In the log you’ve sent you can see lots of link errors to carriage. I would suggest to reseat both sides in carriage and behind the big cover where the ink filters are located. and clean the contacts with contact cleaner first. Check logs afterwards regarding carriage link errors.

Ah, good to know! I'll add that to the list of things to do when I have enough down time to work on this deeper. Thank you!

 

[smholm22]

To parrot White Haus, this sounds like one or some of your motor brushes are going bad. I've experienced the same thing with our 360 and replacing the worn brush turned things around immediately. The part number is 3010115615. Let me know if you need any more description on how to access / replace these.

 

[Nibroc99]

Hey all, just wanted to send an update that cleaning the brushes fixed the problem! I've made this part of my monthly maintenance routine. Luckily, we will be selling the Oce Arizona soon anyway, as my company just purchased a SwissQprint Impala 4 a few months ago and the Oce has laid still aside from daily nozzle checks. Thank you all for your help!! P.S. If anyone knows how to prepare the Oce Arizona 480GT for long-term storage so I don't have to do maintenance every day, please let me know haha... That would be quite nice and my boss would be very happy.

 

[White Haus]

Glad to hear that helped, despite the Oce being on it's way out the door. I'd be curious to know how the transition has been going from an Oce to SwissQprint.

 

[garyroy]

Hey all, just wanted to send an update that cleaning the brushes fixed the problem! I've made this part of my monthly maintenance routine. Luckily, we will be selling the Oce Arizona soon anyway, as my company just purchased a SwissQprint Impala 4 a few months ago and the Oce has laid still aside from daily nozzle checks. Thank you all for your help!! P.S. If anyone knows how to prepare the Oce Arizona 480GT for long-term storage so I don't have to do maintenance every day, please let me know haha... That would be quite nice and my boss would be very happy.

Don't store it, sell it in working/running condition along with a demo when the new buyer comes to look at it. (if you have the room to keep both up and running)

 

[AlsEU]

If anyone knows how to prepare the Oce Arizona 480GT for long-term storage so I don't have to do maintenance every day, please let me know haha... That would be quite nice and my boss would be very happy.

If the printer will be idle for 15 to 30 days, here is the procedure:

• Remove or rewind any media from the RMO (if present)
• Turn off lamps
• Perform printhead maintenance when ink temperature is at least 40° Centigrade -104° Fahrenheit)
• Swab printheads (Don't perform printer maintenance after swabbing heads)
• Turn off ink heaters
• Wait until ink cools to below 30°C
• Turn off all purge valves
• Open the maintenance drawer and leave it open until printer will be powered on again.
• Cover the open area of the maintenance station with a dark material to protect the exposed printheads if the printer is stored in a room where ambient outdoor light is present (e.g., windows or skylights). Do not place material in the ink tray.
  Click on the Shutdown icon in the Tools and Utilities tab to properly shut down the printer software
  Power off the printer
  Detach all of the ink bags
  Empty the waste ink tank

If the planned idle time is longer than 30 days, follow the procedure 'De-installation and shipping procedure', so a technician is required...