JavelinWorks
New Member
Hello forum dwellers, first post here so please be gentle with me 
I'm trying to figure out where to look at to fix an Error 53 Z Origin on a Mimaki CF0912
Yes, I know it is ancient but before it gave up on its previous owners it was the bread and butter of the shop. I'm in Pakistan with no real Mimaki tech support but I have a background in electronics and mechanical systems myself so I was feeling pretty confident that I could fix it on my own.
As far as I can tell, it had never been serviced in its entire operating life apart from general dusting (without really opening any covers). Also, some flat ribbon cables had shorted out over time and had been clumsily repaired with wire jumpers. The dust in rollers and bearings had increased the drag to unacceptable levels. This started heating up the power supply which eventually gave up after 6 months of persistent overheating. The panel started showing Error 52 Θ origin and the plotter failed to initialize.
That's when I met her.
This was the first flatbed plotter I'd ever seen but hey, the thing is just electronics, a few motors and sensors so how hard could it be. I took it apart piece by piece. First the main board. Found the burned out power supply that had its reference voltage circuit over heated so it was sending a bad reference and the resulting output was high by ~70% for both 24V and 35V lines. I fixed that and brought it back to life, now with clean stable voltage and nothing heating up, sparking or shorting out.
Then I addressed the flat cables. Someone had replaced the damaged 40 channel cables with bunched wires in thick insulation that were really heavy and creating extra drag on the X motor. Other flat cables had worn out. I replaced the two 20 channel cables to the mother board and the two 16 channel cables coming from the head with identical replacements. For the 9 channel cables going to the head and the 40 channel cables going to the motherboard, I used flat cables similar to (but more flexible) PC IDE cables. Drag gone, clean linkages and all connectors reverted to factory specs!
Next came the mechanicals, the source of all the grief. Bearings were screeching and well past end of life on the X access. I replaced them all. Cleaned a lot of dust, dismantled the conveyor belt, cleaned, installed again and recalibrated it. Cleaned brushes and bearings on the Y bar, cleaned the head assembly mechanicals. It took me 2 days to do it and a long hot bath to recover from it. Finally assembled the whole thing back, perfect assembly. Took a deep breath and hit the power button.
Funnily enough, I did not get the Error 52 Θ origin this time. In fact I could not induce it even after locating and pulling the sensor wire but... I'm now getting the Error 53 Z origin and getting it persistently. The user manual says contact Mimaki but they don't support it any more.
HAS ANYONE EXPERIENCED ERROR 53 Z ORIGIN AND KNOWS WHAT CAUSES IT?
Tomorrow I start tracing paths from every sensor on the head all the way to the motherboard which is tedious to say the least. It will help much if someone can share their experience and guide me to a specific bad boy.
Thank you in advance to any helping soul and sorry for the really long post.
Saqib
I'm trying to figure out where to look at to fix an Error 53 Z Origin on a Mimaki CF0912
Yes, I know it is ancient but before it gave up on its previous owners it was the bread and butter of the shop. I'm in Pakistan with no real Mimaki tech support but I have a background in electronics and mechanical systems myself so I was feeling pretty confident that I could fix it on my own.
As far as I can tell, it had never been serviced in its entire operating life apart from general dusting (without really opening any covers). Also, some flat ribbon cables had shorted out over time and had been clumsily repaired with wire jumpers. The dust in rollers and bearings had increased the drag to unacceptable levels. This started heating up the power supply which eventually gave up after 6 months of persistent overheating. The panel started showing Error 52 Θ origin and the plotter failed to initialize.
That's when I met her.
This was the first flatbed plotter I'd ever seen but hey, the thing is just electronics, a few motors and sensors so how hard could it be. I took it apart piece by piece. First the main board. Found the burned out power supply that had its reference voltage circuit over heated so it was sending a bad reference and the resulting output was high by ~70% for both 24V and 35V lines. I fixed that and brought it back to life, now with clean stable voltage and nothing heating up, sparking or shorting out.
Then I addressed the flat cables. Someone had replaced the damaged 40 channel cables with bunched wires in thick insulation that were really heavy and creating extra drag on the X motor. Other flat cables had worn out. I replaced the two 20 channel cables to the mother board and the two 16 channel cables coming from the head with identical replacements. For the 9 channel cables going to the head and the 40 channel cables going to the motherboard, I used flat cables similar to (but more flexible) PC IDE cables. Drag gone, clean linkages and all connectors reverted to factory specs!
Next came the mechanicals, the source of all the grief. Bearings were screeching and well past end of life on the X access. I replaced them all. Cleaned a lot of dust, dismantled the conveyor belt, cleaned, installed again and recalibrated it. Cleaned brushes and bearings on the Y bar, cleaned the head assembly mechanicals. It took me 2 days to do it and a long hot bath to recover from it. Finally assembled the whole thing back, perfect assembly. Took a deep breath and hit the power button.
Funnily enough, I did not get the Error 52 Θ origin this time. In fact I could not induce it even after locating and pulling the sensor wire but... I'm now getting the Error 53 Z origin and getting it persistently. The user manual says contact Mimaki but they don't support it any more.
HAS ANYONE EXPERIENCED ERROR 53 Z ORIGIN AND KNOWS WHAT CAUSES IT?
Tomorrow I start tracing paths from every sensor on the head all the way to the motherboard which is tedious to say the least. It will help much if someone can share their experience and guide me to a specific bad boy.
Thank you in advance to any helping soul and sorry for the really long post.
Saqib