Graphtec ce5000-60 x positon alarm woes

[midwestside]

Hi all , Just joined and am new here.
I've got a graphtec cutter i've been on and off trying to fix for about a year.
Scouring the web for a solution. no dice, but some interesting leads.
I'm a hobbyist, so i've never really put the thing through the demands of daily use.

Just to start off I'm going to say it doesn't work, and then magically i turn it on one day and it will do test cuts , then boom next day its broken with the x position plague again.

As far as i know, pinch rollers are where they need to be, nothing is obstructing the roller that feeds the vinyl. I know how to reset the thing to default values, I know how to change the speed , etc.

I am working on the machine in isolation, not connected to any computer.

Here is the typical symptoms:
turn on the machine. I load the media.

case 1: roll1 setting. Sensor head goes all the way to the right, then moves left to read the vinyl area. After that head moves back to the right past the origin point. shoots the media out the front at hyperspeed and i get an x position alarm

case 2: roll 2 setting. Sensor head goes all the way to the right, then moves left to read the vinyl area. Then parks itself at an origin point. This makes it seem like roll2 setting works, however i go to press test cut, the rollers shoot the media out at hyperspeed and i get the x position alarm.

case 3: sheet. Sensor head goes all the way to the right, then moves left to read the vinyl area. After that head moves back to the right past the origin point. shoots the media out the front at hyperspeed and i get an x position alarm.

On case 2. after the media has been loaded and read and not shot out the front of the machine, i can sometimes acess the machines menu, however changing condition seems to go nowhere.

So i'll get tired of messing with it, come back a different day and bam.. it works in every case. Yesterday I did 20 different loads and test cuts, came in to today thinking i was back in business, wala, the machine goes back to refusing work.

Not really trying to shell out a ton of money to fix it, and ironically, the unit went bust 1 month after the warranty expired.

Anyone deal with this before? I literally cant think of anything more i can attempt.
That's why i've turned here, because maybe one of you guys would know.

Thanks in advance. I hope i posted in the right category, please excuse me if i did not.

 

[mfatty500]

Have you tried to re set to factory defaults?

 

[midwestside]

Have you tried to re set to factory defaults?

Yes,I have,
I have also upgraded the firmware.
Opened the side caps to see if the motor was obstructed/dirty.
Checked for bad capaicitors/checked for loose connections on the pcbs/main boards, etc.
Today I went back and looked at the sensors.
There is a 'docking' as i would call it sensor attached to pen carraige that seems to
be a tad loose on its circuit board. I wiggled it around and it seemed to have different
outcomes when i tried to loading media.
I guess i might try reflowing the solder joints on the sensor/pcb and see what happens.
Its just bizarre. I've literally run out of ideas.

 

[bloobird0]

could you please post a video of the problem?

 

[digitalsolutionsok]

graphtec problem

I believe you have a problem with 1 or 2 things the first would be control board second would be x motor. If it is a plotter that is older and used a lot I know those boards wear out as well as the motor do you ever get error codes? specific errors any type? How old and often is plotter used?

 

[midwestside]

I believe you have a problem with 1 or 2 things the first would be control board second would be x motor. If it is a plotter that is older and used a lot I know those boards wear out as well as the motor do you ever get error codes? specific errors any type? How old and often is plotter used?

I've had the plotter for over 2 years. Used very lightly, meaning I tried to start a side business doing vinyl graphics and it didn't take off.
Anyway, I'd say it has probably been used/ran 70 times.

I dont get error codes except for only the x position alarm.
I'm basically putting a 12x12 inch sheet in there, loading the media up.
The x position error happens during the loading/reading cycle.
I'm not even talking about while trying to do a cut job.
I load the media, press one of the roll or sheet buttons and at the end of the reading cycle, the machine goes wonky spits out the vinyl, gives the position alarm and sometimes reboots itself. This is the cycle im stuck on.
Perhaps i can try to explain a bit better.

press sheet>enter
cutting head moves from far right position by the control area , it moves left and stops momentarily at the orign, then continues to read furthest left at the farthest out pinch roller.
The cutting head moves back to the right, past the origin point , parks itself the furthest right it can go (next to the controls) and immediately spins (shoots it out the front), then the immediate resulting x position alarm.

However, when read stage does sucessfully work, while the cutting head is moving back to the right after the read, the machine is feeding the media forward a bit, cutter comes to meet and stop at the origin point

Like i mentioned initially, by a miracle it seems that sometimes the cutter will start behaving normally on the loading/reading cycle. I can even do a test cut, But then mysteriously (overnight) it will go back to not completing the reading cycle. And since I cant get it to to complete a reading cycle, it is amost impossible .

To be honest, Its kind of acting like somehow its out of synch

I appreciate all your efforts guys.

 

[midwestside]

So after exhausting all posibilities,
I decided it was probably like all the other graphtecs I read about.
something wrong on the mainboard.

Staring in the face of most likely paying 450.00 + labor or more for a replacement main board,
I decided I would dig deeper into testing the main board's capacitors.
Turns out I found 1, perhaps more shorted surface mounted capacitors !
If indeed some of these are shorted, perhaps the roller motor is getting a huge spike of power causing it to violently shoot the media out
Instead of gently advancing the media under a controlled voltage, which is what capacitors do.
This is only my supposition.
However for under 10 dollars in parts, im gonna be able to find out if indeed this is the problem.

Hope to return with good news after ordering and installing the parts.

 

[dochlywd]

Midwester !!!

Did you ever get this figured out? I currently have a CE2000 that works great but there is a CE5000-60 locally that I could get cheap. However, it states that it throws an X-Position alarm sometimes randomly.

Thanks!

Doc

 

[eahicks]

This may be a simple fix...I had that happen on our machine, and it was simply the small metal tab inside the plotter head was stuck. It's in the hole on the side that retracts the slicing blade to sheet cut. It was stuck on ours and causing the X position alarm.