My 9+ year old Mini-18 was having lens carrier slop on the right half of the machine. This showed as some ghosting around images/text.
Worked fine on left half. Like many of us I do a very high percentage of my work on the left side of the table. I wondered why did the right seem worn out and the heavy used left run OK?
Check encoded strip, belt, x- motor and pulleys.
Lens carrier would move a little in the up/down direction with a very light push but did it evenly across it's whole length.
Replaced linear bearing and fixed everything.
Once I could hold the old and new bearing in my hand the difference was very obvious. The old one had a lot of slop in all directions. The new one zero slop.
Reason I think it worked on the left half of the machine -
I think the air assist hose kept a little pull on it in a constant direction thus keeping it seated. As it moved to the right the air assist hose shrinks up and the pull is not constant on the lens carrier letting the lens carrier move throughout whatever slop is in the bearing.
Yes I greased and cleaned the bearing track every once in a while over the years. Bearing life of 9+ years -- I have no problems with that. I have put a lot of small particles (marble, granite, anodized aluminum, rowmark, glass and more) all over that track for years. Given time and movement they will take a toll.
Glad it was an easy fix.
On the first picture at the 16-18 you can even see where the straight line has a loop falling out of it.
Second picture lines and text are straight edged.
lasertest.jpg
poor quality picture but the #4 and #2 font are readable in both. the 1-2 and 16-18 are positions on x axis.
lasertest2.jpg
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