FC 7000 registration mark laser issues

[os101king]

My FC7000MK2-130 is having issues recognizing registration marks. It's happened on the last three runs... I was able to re-run the jobs over and over about ten times each and get it to cut... but now it's refusing to recognize any one of the four marks on two separate jobs. Sometimes it won't see the first, then the third.... never the same and it makes no sense. There's nothing in the manual about this at all, anyone have any advice for me? Could it be a dirty lens on the laser? Some sort of calibration issue?

 

[parrott]

We face this issue all the time. The only explanation we ever get is that "It's human error."

 

[os101king]

You deal with it all the time? I'm used to getting the mis-read occasionally.... not like this though. Is there a way to clean the registration laser lens? Could that be an issue?

 

[omgsideburns]

Make sure it's square up as good as you can.. anything over about 1/4" of skew tends to make mine goof up.

Make sure there is no overspray around your marks.. Make sure you're marks are dark enough, sometimes I have to go over mine with a sharpie. Also if it's too reflective it can make it mess up, might try putting a piece of matte lam over the marks and see if it helps.

Blow the lens off. If you take the pen block apart you'll see how simple it is so blowing it off won't hurt anything. The thing that comes down is just to push down on it, the sensor doesn't actually touch the vinyl but i imagine some dust could get in there and make it read funny.

It never hurts to redo your calibrations but I don't know how much that has to do with the sensor reading things.. just cut and distance accuracy.

That's all I got.. I have issues sometimes. It's annoying but what can I do?

 

[signs+banners]

I have dealt with a few of these issues. The ARM sensor is usually the culprit and cheap and easy to replace.

 

[AnotherSignManiac]

try putting a piece of masking tape over the reg. marks, sometimes mine will get too much of a glare from the lights in the shop, this tends to work

 

[bob]

I printed some stuff on silver vinyl a couple of weeks ago and my FC7000 had problems reading the marks...

I blew the dust out of the carriage and the lens, no help there but it certainly didn't hurt anything...

Then, desperate, I pointed an LED flashlight [white light] so that it lit up the vinyl right under the marker sensor tackle. That worked line a charm. When I held the flashlight lighting up the vinyl, the plotter never missed.

I've never had to to this on white vinyl, but in thinking back, my plotter sits in front of a window and in the past I have had to move it around so that the light from the window fell evenly across the entire width of the media to get it to sense all four marks. I think that if it ever again misses on any sort of vinyl, I'll break out the flashlight.

 

[ProWraps]

check your lazer levels in the menu. for some reason graphtec sets them at 90 and 70 from the factory.

set them both to 70 and try again. trust me.

 

[os101king]

check your lazer levels in the menu. for some reason graphtec sets them at 90 and 70 from the factory.

set them both to 70 and try again. trust me.

I went through every single MENU option, every one. There is no option for setting "lazer" levels that I could find. Could you possibly step-by-step me to get to those?

Bob, in the interim I'm going to give the flashlight trick a try!!! Next step is going to be the vendor where I got it for an ARMS sensor and a few hints on how to replace it. I did pull the cover off the carriage but couldn't see a way to really get under the lens to clean it effectively.

 

[os101king]

Went thru everything with my tech.... even updated the firmware. Looks like this must be the nut behind the desk again that I'll have to adjust.

 

[bartman]

I have to admit, I have had this problem since day one of purchacing the machine and graphtec america is absolutely NO HELP. They said it was an issue with the software and or the rip program. I had to make my own registration marks and manually read them. Big pain in the *** but have no idea what else to do.

 

[ProWraps]

its sense level in the arms menu.

 

[TresL]

1000% Bartman!

This is the reason I now have a Summa.

 

[ProWraps]

dude you have no idea. i put one through a wall because of it. no joke. had to buy another.

listen to me.

its the sense level on the arms. its set WRONG from the factory for laminated prints.


if you really want me to get into it i will.

if you are cutting laminated prints set the sense level to 70 for the X and the Y.

do NOT make the same mistake i did. i wondered how long this would take to come up as a problem.

 

[bob]

dude you have no idea. i put one through a wall because of it. no joke. had to buy another.

listen to me.

its the sense level on the arms. its set WRONG from the factory for laminated prints.


if you really want me to get into it i will.

if you are cutting laminated prints set the sense level to 70 for the X and the Y.

do NOT make the same mistake i did. i wondered how long this would take to come up as a problem.

Where and how, exactly, is this setting accessed? I see nothing in the vast and often bewildering FC7000 diagram of menus that could have anything to do with the ARMS sense level.

 

[ProWraps]

bob, ill preface this as im not in front of my machine.

go into the menu.

scroll down to the ARMS settings.

go to SENSE level.

i want so much for you and/or nobody to have to figure this out as i had to.

i have a $5k doorstop in my shop cause i had to get so pissed at it i killed it (i do so much contour cutting its not funny).

 

[Case]

You can only change the percentage of sense level on an FC8000, you can not do it manually by a percentage or number value on an FC7000....

You can have the FC7000 do a sense reading on different medias.... But not by a percentage or number value like I previously stated.........ONLY can be done on the FC8000.....

Case