FC700 MK2 130 is drunk....

[os101king]

I have started seeing issues with my plotter starting a few months ago... I normally cut large contours, but occasionally I get small cut jobs. It used to be a champ, cut great with no issues. I just recently replaced the cutter strip (three years on) and the blade holder and blade... no solution. It doesn't matter what I cut, it is just most obvious on lettering 1" or smaller. I am trying to run a contour on some iPhone skins, and the little hole for the camera lens is IMPOSSIBLE to get as a circle from my file. The files are perfect, the circle is a perfect shape coming out of the program.

One thing I HAVE noticed is that if you grasp the carriage lightly and just pull out with no force at all the entire carriage shifts on a vertical axis. You can see the rollers at the top of the rail come off of the rail a very very small amount. I don't have calipers to measure but I would figure less than .1". I'm guessing that's the problem since I've replaced the other things that were sugggested (and cleared the NVRAM back to factory setttings). Now on my old CE (which by the way they recalled due to low quality, I know I've read suggestions on which to buy but from what my supplier told me the CE is now a low-quality machine as opposed to the old CE's) I was able to remove the top cover and basically just tighten the screws on the roller wheels... taking up the slack. Anyone done this on an FC? Is it possible? I have a good bit of patience but I really need this thing back on top of it's game.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, if I can fix it I will post photos of the issue and the fix for the greater good of the forum.

Thanks!!
Ian Smith

 

[SignosaurusRex]

From your description of whats happening, It sounds like it may possibly be a cracked pulley. According to Graphtec, they had some issues with that on some of those models. Some machines were produced with pulleys that were made of some type of plastic and sometimes they crack, especially on the larger units. The way to check is to remove the 4 screws that hold the right side plastic cover in place. Once the cover is removed, you can inspect the pulleys.

 

[os101king]

Awesome. No one at Graphtec to answer the phone in tech. Fantastic. Just found out I'm under warranty which is wonderful news, but let's see if I can get a call back before september! When I finally do get it fixed I will make sure they tell me what it was and re-post what had to be done for information sake. Thanks!

 

[os101king]

Ok, got a callback from a very helpful (but seemingly under the weather, hope you feel better, man!) tech at Graphtec. I had fixed a similar issue on my CE model, but wasn't sure if it was the same issue. Little scared to tackle it myself, basically because it's still under warranty.
However, the fix was cake. I moved the carriage over to the left side of the track, about three inches from the side. I removed the four screws (front and inside the top groove at both ends of the top metal cover) and had my helper hold the top cover up. I removed the carriage cover as well, then the two screws holding the circuit board atop the carriage as well. Careful, there are spacers below the board.

I then loosened the four screws holding the wheel bracket in place. This allowed the spring action to pull the carriage back into position. I checked that there was no slack, and going back and forth from the outer to outer then inner to inner screws alternately, tightened them back down. I checked for play, there was none and buttoned it all back up. Make sure the band connecting the circuit board to the main board remains flat in the groove behind the rail. Everything's hunky dory now!!!

Hopefully this helps someone down the road. No replacement parts, nothing but an adjustment.

Thanks!!