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SP540V alignment / stair stepping problem? photos attached

B

BlueDuck

New Member
Encoder Reader problem

BlueDuck said:
Hi NCR & others
I am having an almost identical problem with my SP300.
The printing is drifting. It is not consistant, sometimes to the left then straight for awhile and then in bigger steps to perhaps the right for awhile.
Even the test print will be out between the two passes (which are one directional.)
Turning the machine off & unplugging the power cord sometimes seems to reset it for awhile
I did one job (600mm x600mm) last week that initially looked perfect but when I put it on the sheetmetal it was out of square by 5mm. It had drifted a little all the way(I got away with it - just.)
The problem seems to be too bad to get any good prints out now.
I did have the same issue about 6 months ago. I had a tech out (several times) who replaced the encoder strip, the long loop ribbon cable & fiddled with alignments etc. I do not think he "fixed" as it continued sporadically after he left but it did settle down (I got a bit used to the odd print drift failure) until just this last week when it is now near impossible to get out a larger print.
Click to expand...

Update on this problem.

Got a Tech in today.
After running the encoder test (in service mode) multiple times & and getting various "not zero results"(test fail) he put in a new encoder reader.
Problem Fixed.
So in summary print drifting/ stepping is caused by a loss of position data and apart from as in my case a faulty encoder reader, the problem could also be a dirty/damaged encoder strip, or a faulty long loop print carriage ribbon cable.

Might also add that we cleaned the encoder strip (again), but put it back in the original orientation. The tech suggested that the strip has a front & back so if you want to turn it upside down to get a second life out of it you should als flip it end for end as well. Having said that, I flipped my original strip some years ago and it worked ok for another couple of years.

NCR - hope you have your problem fixed by now as well.
 
artbot

artbot

New Member
although this was an electronic issue with the sensor, the sp model line does have some electrostatic build up issues. the best way to discharge the capacitors is after unplugging, press the main/front power button about four times. this simple procedure has cured some pretty odd sp*** behavior in the past.
 
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