Random cuts all over jobs

[Chris Wool]

used to come across this years ago on a serial driven plotter, the lead may be faulty, and not controlling the flow of data. other was the serial setting on the computer not set to hardware

[David Rogers]

Thanks Chris,

Have read ‘faulty lead’ before on USB / Serial driven Pcuts and the like.

Will see if I’ve got a spare floating about.

In the meantime have just reseated the ends.

’tis the problem with intermittent faults…never know if it’s been cured or not!

Tried to describe what happened to somebody earlier.

"Think R2D2 when he was accessing a data port but shoved his doohickey into a power outlet….did a dee-bee-dee-bee-de-be-de-be-DE-BE-DEEDLE-DEEDLE-WHEEE and shot across the room smoking…well, yeh…that’s what the plotter did"

Dave

[Colin Crabb]

quote :

“Think R2D2 when he was accessing a data port but shoved his doohickey into a power outlet….did a dee-bee-dee-bee-de-be-de-be-DE-BE-DEEDLE-DEEDLE-WHEEE and shot across the room smoking…well, yeh…that’s what the plotter did”

Use the Force young David !

Has the computer updated lately (windows etc) – I only ask as I know with Mimaki’s they say not to allow windows to update as it can cause problems.

[Chris Wool]

dave

remove the knife and set it up send the same file, whilst it thinks its cutting very gently lift the wire half a inch on the plotter end of the lead then the computer end, then any where where it could be walked on etc.
if the plotter goes haywire then repeat till you can fail it at will.

[Alex Parkin]

I have a similar problem with my graphtec. when dealing with larger files it will occasionally stop and return to origin but it leaves the blade down putting an nice diagonal line across the work. I spoke to graphtec and they also suspect a faulty usb lead that sends the fist batch of data then loosed the cutter, the cutter then defaults back to origin. I am going to try Daves idea and will report back.

[David Rogers]

Cheers guys.

It’ll do jobs all day long but not loads of items on the same job (where it’s failed several times) – definitely related to file size.

The recuts in smaller runs are always perfect.

dave

[Chris Wool]

might even be someting to do with the computer going to sleep

[John Singh]

I have an old Graphtec 1000 with serial to 9 pin

but now I’ve upgraded computer to windows 7 and even upgraded signlab from 7v1 to 9v1

Tried using 9 pin to usb adaptor but to no avail

Seems to do a perfect cut then decides to put a line right through it
If I’m doing one line its fine but try and do say two or more it does a flip

Tried flow rates and on and off in set up but no joy

[David Rogers]

Hmmm. Seems a rather common yet random thing for some with large node counts.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this problem occasionally 2 graphtec, 2 summa, signlab 4. something on a centronics port, the horrible e6 and 7.0 on serial …you just die a little inside .

Turned off the spooler as a trial next week…meh, worth a shot!

[Chris Wool]

presuming its a old serial not usb
the problem is to do with the handshaking and it used to happen a lot, the lead has to be high quality and screened from interference manly from mains electric other things switching on or off, flow control set to hardware. early plotters had such a small memory that the fault showed up almost instantly latter plotters with bigger memories the fault can occur minutes before it shows up.
if the plotter has a std printer port use that but you will lose the polling command.
cutting a box requires 5 x-y coordinates a arc is made up of x-y coordinates every point 1mm software does vary that with size else a 1000mm circle would take to long to cut.

[Karl.Moss]

I am using two USB extension cables, could this be why it puts a line from the end of the design back to the origin?

[Chris Wool]

I think most usb ports can go to 5mts

[David Rogers]

Arggghhhhh FFFFFFlippin’ heck!!
Doing a run of 1000 urls for a car website I support. ..sent off a 100 and it did about 90 then freaked out doing random cuts and spooling material through as it did so.
Ah ha! Says I. Spotted that the data feed had stalled rather than all go through ( took it off the spooler a few weeks ago).

So…figured it may have something to do with it, buffer overun.
Dropped the baud rate to a paultry 9600 instead of the default 19200 and so far…so good.

Dave

[Chris Wool]

good move think you are on the right track

[Andy Coles]

Going back some 20years we had the same problem on a graphtec plotter which odly enough was caused by a screen saver. If you have an active screen saver try turning it off. It certainly worked for us!