Rastek. Seriously???

[WYLDGFI]

I think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail..."RUN AWAY.....RUN AWAY"

 

[artbot]

now i'm afraid to turn on my daytona h700. these entries are horrifying. i'll be putting a cleaning valve system on my printer in the next few weeks (have the parts, just too slammed). i'll post the photos of how the mod goes.

 

[Kaiser]

now i'm afraid to turn on my daytona h700. these entries are horrifying. i'll be putting a cleaning valve system on my printer in the next few weeks (have the parts, just too slammed). i'll post the photos of how the mod goes.

She's been on for about 3 days now. Running all the diagnostics and so far so good. No heads need replacing but then again, I conditioned it nicely before boxing up.
Tomorrow I will be printing at production level. If it goes well at that pace for at least a week I can say it's back to "normal"

 

[Hzone15]

It's not a good sign when EFI/Vutek are doing whatever they can to separate themselves from the Rastek name.

 

[Kaiser]

Where can I find Prozak at an affordable price?

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

Our T1000 just had its carriage control board replaced for the third (maybe fourth, I've lost track) time since the beginning of December. I'm pretty sure every board in the thing has been replaced no less than three times.

It's newest trick is stopping prints halfway through with the message: ERROR: Print finished earlier than expected. So that's pretty exciting. Nobody seems to know what's causing it. Same thing with the voltage error we keep getting. EFI tech had no idea what was causing it or how to fix it. I was told that the GUI errors were just something we were going to have to "deal with". The guy who was working on fixing the GUI has left the company for a job in Germany. The answer I got in regards to GUI updates to fix the myriad of issues we're having was, "Don't hold your breath."

I'm going on hour fourteen today, trying to get a critical rush job out the door, but the T1000 isn't cooperating. Tomorrow morning's phone calls are going to be cathartic.

 

[Kaiser]

Our T1000 just had its carriage control board replaced for the third (maybe fourth, I've lost track) time since the beginning of December. I'm pretty sure every board in the thing has been replaced no less than three times.

It's newest trick is stopping prints halfway through with the message: ERROR: Print finished earlier than expected. So that's pretty exciting. Nobody seems to know what's causing it. Same thing with the voltage error we keep getting. EFI tech had no idea what was causing it or how to fix it. I was told that the GUI errors were just something we were going to have to "deal with". The guy who was working on fixing the GUI has left the company for a job in Germany. The answer I got in regards to GUI updates to fix the myriad of issues we're having was, "Don't hold your breath."

I'm going on hour fourteen today, trying to get a critical rush job out the door, but the T1000 isn't cooperating. Tomorrow morning's phone calls are going to be cathartic.

Dont hold your breath.

The prints ending earlier than expected. Well. I shifted all my RIPS to an internal disk. Carefull with networking and GUI. In addition, my GUI errors on first print have been avoided by switching on the GUI with the front breaker off, getting the emergency stop enabled error. Restarting with the breaker on. Then start the "normal" day. At least this way I dont get mid print stops.

Also be careful about ANY other software installed on the T1000 pc. Keep it as SIMPLE as possible and allocate ALL memory to the GUI and Fiery. Better yet. Even install Fiery onto your workspace pc BUT rip to the T1000 PC. No Rips on networks at all. Any lag will just stop your print midway.

Another thing. Make sure that your T1000 PC is hooked to your printer supply. Any other power source to your PC other than what comes from the printer itself could fry the T1000 boards via the USB cable. Sounds Far-fetched? It isnt. Make sure you dont have any companies around you that drain power from your local power grid. Peaks in general power could fry boards too.

The negative pressure system on this printer while in idle is also a waste of time and money. Just clamp your overflow lines. ( top of overflow tanks) this will keep the pressure normal overnight. DONT TRUST the backup supply for negative pressure. It doesnt work. Period.

If its any consolation. We're down again after 120m2 of printing but this time tech-support is actually moving LIGHTNING fast. I am currently in direct contact with most of the heads of the intervention teams trying to work out the kinks in this printer. Dont get me wrong. The Rastek without a shadow of a doubt IS a #$%& temperamental cow but when it DOES print, it prints EXTREMELY well for the hunk of scrap metal it is. The fill printing on this printer has absolutely no peppering. It actually looks hand painted.

This printer has shown potential. Its just a pity it doesn't do what it´s supposed to do.

Print.

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

Dont hold your breath.

The prints ending earlier than expected. Well. I shifted all my RIPS to an internal disk. Carefull with networking and GUI. In addition, my GUI errors on first print have been avoided by switching on the GUI with the front breaker off, getting the emergency stop enabled error. Restarting with the breaker on. Then start the "normal" day. At least this way I dont get mid print stops.

Also be careful about ANY other software installed on the T1000 pc. Keep it as SIMPLE as possible and allocate ALL memory to the GUI and Fiery. Better yet. Even install Fiery onto your workspace pc BUT rip to the T1000 PC. No Rips on networks at all. Any lag will just stop your print midway.

Another thing. Make sure that your T1000 PC is hooked to your printer supply. Any other power source to your PC other than what comes from the printer itself could fry the T1000 boards via the USB cable. Sounds Far-fetched? It isnt. Make sure you dont have any companies around you that drain power from your local power grid. Peaks in general power could fry boards too.

The negative pressure system on this printer while in idle is also a waste of time and money. Just clamp your overflow lines. ( top of overflow tanks) this will keep the pressure normal overnight. DONT TRUST the backup supply for negative pressure. It doesnt work. Period.

If its any consolation. We're down again after 120m2 of printing but this time tech-support is actually moving LIGHTNING fast. I am currently in direct contact with most of the heads of the intervention teams trying to work out the kinks in this printer. Dont get me wrong. The Rastek without a shadow of a doubt IS a #$%& temperamental cow but when it DOES print, it prints EXTREMELY well for the hunk of scrap metal it is. The fill printing on this printer has absolutely no peppering. It actually looks hand painted.

This printer has shown potential. Its just a pity it doesn't do what it´s supposed to do.

Print.

Yeah, the print quality is amazing when it's working properly. Which for us is about two weeks out of every month.

We currently have Fiery and the GUI running on the T1000 PC, which we're now being told (after two years) is a bad idea. So we're in the process of shifting Fiery to another PC. All of the ripped files are currently stored directly on the T1000 PC. We had been ripping and printing at the same time with no issues, but this seems to have cropped up all the sudden and the only way to prevent it from happening is to rip and then print. Which is kind of a pain in the butt, since some files take a long time to rip (generally about 10 minutes, but we've had up to 48 minutes). It is, however, a lot better than wasting time and materials when it stops mid-print.

I'll have to check to make sure the PC is on the same power source as the T1000. I'm pretty sure it is, but I'm not 100%. A while back EFI put a power monitor on the printer and everything looked okay, so I don't think that's the issue, but at this point I'm not going to rule anything out. Anything we can do to get this thing working, I'm willing to try.

I'll give the "emergency stop" thing a try. Do you shut your T1000 down every night? We were told to leave ours running, so it's on 24/7. Our GUI is always on (except when it decides to shut down for no apparent reason), so we don't every really have to rely on the idle system to keep the negative pressure consistent.

Thanks for the help, Kaiser!

 

[mattready]

Our rastek has been our $100k material shelf for years now. It was a nightmare out of the gate, and is the biggest peice of crap. We finally bougt a Oce Arizona and have since paid for the old rastek and the new oce in a matter of months.