I have been using a Gravograph IS400 rotary engraver for a little over a year. I regularly use the matrix feature of Gravostyle '98 for part serialization (with multiple parts secured in a fixture to match the layout of the file). Recently, the head of the engraver has been causing the text to drift unpredictably in the y-direction. Even though the spacing in the file is uniform, the spacing of the text actually engraved increases as the head progresses through the job. When it comes time to start the next batch, the text in the top row of the next set begins nearly below the part. If I cancel the job and reset the z-reference between every batch, the text drift is minimized, but this is a huge annoyance when we're doing hundreds of parts.
The image below shows a sketch of what I'm generally finding:
It's worth mentioning that this same file and fixture setup has been used before with consistent results. The text on the right-hand column of parts seems to be affected more than the text on the left-hand column.
Has anyone seen this problem before? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
I am afraid it may be a mechanical issue with the y-axis -- we bought our machine used through a third party. Apart from my experience with this machine, I am relatively new to engraving.
Thanks everyone!
PS - another post in this forum was a HUGE help with getting GravoStyle '98 to run on a Windows 7 machine.