Need Help HP Scitex error: encoder strip

[Santimus]

Hi all,

Scitex was printing fine until at the very end of print (48" wide) the carriage hit the ACM substrate on the corner at the service end due to table being bumped at back end and substrate shift. Now it will not print. I keep getting error to clean or replace encoder strip. I inspected the strip and nothing looks different than when I cleaned it a couple days ago. In the carriage motion diagnostics it passes the the encoder strip and electrical portion but fails at the movement test. I've cleaned and oiled the rails but still same issue. Anybody have ideas on what to do? Our tech can't come out til next week

 

[Santimus]

bump. Anybody?

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

which printer is it? fb700 or fb750? or other?

 

[Santimus]

which printer is it? fb700 or fb750? or other?

Oops, FB500

Media is read and sized just fine with the carriage moving back and forth. The problem starts at the first line of printing

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

if you have some compressed air, find the encoder reader on the backside of the carriage on the service side. if you look along the strip with the carriage in the middle of the rail you should be able to see a little tiny thing that runs along the strip that is connected to the carriage. once you find that, i would get a flashlight and take a look to see if you've got some dust or substrate or ink clumps wedged in there. i have had it happen where a small piece of dust can get in there and not allow it to read the strip correctly. blow some air in there and try to clear it if there is anything.

now if this error that you are getting has anything to do with the head strike you may be out of luck til you can get a tech in, mostly because it could be a number of things affecting it in that case. hope i helped at least a little bit!

 

[Santimus]

if you look along the strip with the carriage in the middle of the rail you should be able to see a little tiny thing that runs along the strip that is connected to the carriage. once you find that, i would get a flashlight and take a look to see if you've got some dust or substrate or ink clumps wedged in there.

I tried that, thanks. I'm not sure its because of a head strike. The actual strike wasn't bad and the mark was about 1/2" long on the corner of the media on the service side. I was hoping it was some dust knocked loose and blocking the reader like you suggested but I stuck a piece of paper in there to knock any dust loose and I tried some compressed air. Still same problem. The carriage motion diagnostic test stops in the middle where there is a crimp in the encoder strip but that crimp was there when we bought this machine and hasn't given us problems before.

 

[Mattocks]

What was your solution? I keep either going towards the sensor or replacing the encoder strip. However, I did notice on the rail there are some chip marks of sort and wondered if that would cause the issue from having some bumps in the road? Did you also level the machine ? Just curious .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mattocks]

Seems like there is some slight damage to the encoder strip itself . Cleaning the encoder reader is a real pain and just curious if others see the same issue. HP tech told me that it’s the strip, reader or worse case could be the carriage drive motor starting to fail. I’m feeling it’s more of the strip itself than the motor but replacing all today to hopefully get better results .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[czbhu]

Seems like there is some slight damage to the encoder strip itself . Cleaning the encoder reader is a real pain and just curious if others see the same issue. HP tech told me that it’s the strip, reader or worse case could be the carriage drive motor starting to fail. I’m feeling it’s more of the strip itself than the motor but replacing all today to hopefully get better results .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Does it stop always at the.same spot?
If not I don't think it is the encoder but the timing belt or the driver wheel of the motor is worn out. Get a new one and replace them. These are cheap stuffs.
Or the blue belt can cause movement failures too if it slips.

 

[Santimus]

What was your solution? I keep either going towards the sensor or replacing the encoder strip. However, I did notice on the rail there are some chip marks of sort and wondered if that would cause the issue from having some bumps in the road? Did you also level the machine ? Just curious .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I called in a tech and he did a cleaning on the reader and replaced the strip.