My Fiber's at it again...

[Kev Williams]

Started 2 days ago again, on customer parts, not good.
This at least in my own SS. The top half was done first, the "N"A started off bad, everything aftwards was as it should be.
The bottom was just a test, I shut it down before it got done with one pass, lots of screwups--
DSC05765.jpg

results of some testing, there's lots more of these--
DSC05769.jpg
DSC05774.jpg

This one I made a video of it as it did it. https://youtu.be/kGgJNXxKILc
The machine does nothing out of the ordinary other than engraving things wrong, or in the wrong place.
Usually the errors happen at the beginning, then continues correctly. This shows the whole first pass was in the wrong place...

DSC05783.jpg

This is the end of a fork. The second engraving above is my doing, as I put the fork back in place, but missed.
The lower USM"C" was the original, and the "C" was the start of the job...
DSC05782.jpg

And here's a pic of 2 knives, note "STATES" is screwed up on the upper one.
This happened mid-stream, about 1/3 into the entire engraving.
So, it's not just confined to the beginning of the engraving...
f1.jpg

This morning I tore into the machine, checked every screwed wire connection, all were good,
pulled and replaced every plug, all seemed okay to start with, checked every external plug, all's well.
Had all green lights. And I even bypassed the machine's internal USB cable and connected mine direct...
DSC05793.jpg

This is one of several failed tests after all the above...
DSC05794.jpg

=============
I've pretty much done all I can do. Waiting to hear back from Triumph, they're in the middle of prepping for a big China trade show at the moment...

I'm a bit spooked because when I contacted Triumph about this the first time, they were clueless as they've never seen one of these machines act like this. I can't find anyone else who has either (although I haven't looked all THAT hard yet! )

There's only 2 moving parts in these things, the mirrors. If only one mirror was messing up then this would be easy, but the mirrors are working just fine, they're both doing exactly what they're instructed to do. But the instructions are wrong! Something is getting lost in translation between the computer and the mirrors.

The ONLY thing I haven't done in this equation is to try a whole different computer. I have my old garage win7 sitting next to me, guess it's next on my to-try list.

So here I sit with a weeks worth of work for the fiber, and it doesn't want to play.
This is EXACTLY why I have at least TWO of everything around here ('cept wives), so I'm not dead if something breaks. I'm not used to this.
I told the wife when I got this thing I should just get a 20 watter too, for good measure. Shoulda listened to myself...

If anyone has any ideas on something else to try, I'd love to hear 'em!

[Kev Williams]

FWIW, a complete computer change made no difference. Within 4 tries I got it to mess up at the beginning of engraving...

[Bill George]

It looks the big enemy of the focus system and mirrors is dirt. Even the act of changing lens which I just did, can introduce tiny specks of dust.

[Naseem Khan]

Is the issue just in a certain area of your marking field or does it move around? Can you adjust your jump delay?

[Gary Hair]

I would check the connector that goes to the galvo head. There are three connectors on the driver board, one of them is for the galvo - see if something there is loose or has a solder bridge or something out of whack. Short of that, I think Triumph owes you a replacement.

[Kev Williams]

Gary- Checked the connector a couple of times... My theory is, since it takes 2 mirrors to make everything line up, if one mirror wasn't working right, then one axis of engraving would be nearly correct while the other axis would be skewed badly. But both axis's seem to be working in tandem. The best example of this is the plate I took video of, all of the engraving itself is perfect, but it's in 2 different places. One faulty mirror couldn't pull that trick off!

Ergo, IMO the mirror motors are fine.

The wiring that drives the motors may be a different story. The connector is a simple parallel port type cable and plug setup, and I don't know how many cables I've had go bad over the years. And other things with wires.

Bill-- believe it or not, the galvo head mirrors are wide open to the elements from the inside of the machine...
Pics-- The laser's snout is clamped down behind what I assume is the red laser, and at the end of that knob thing IS a glass lens, a collimator of some sort I would guess-
--but check that gap, a ferret could fit himself into that hole! And there's no glass or anything, just a tunnel straight to the mirrors.
Now, the just beyond the wide opening the tunnel narrows down to like 1/2" diameter, so no ferret will ever see those mirrors...

tun1.jpgtun2.jpg

...but dust, dirt, ants, spiders, moths, or anything else with legs can just walk right in and call the mirror's 'home'. I've talked to more than person that's had burnt mirrors in these things and they've suspected the problem was the beam reflecting back thru the lens when etching shiny stuff. I've never bought into that theory simply because the beam could never be in in focus enough to burn anything. Your eyes maybe, but not the mirrors. The vent holes on these machines are pretty big, and I'd bet a buck the burnt mirrors were the result of some bug or moth or something that thought the red light was pretty and got itself torched onto the mirror. I had that happen to my other Triumph, caught a stupid miller on fire that was camping in the lens tube. His burnt self eventually cracked that lens...

So word to the wise, DO NOT BLOW THE DUST OUT OF THE MACHINE with an air hose with the covers on! You'll likely blow dirt right into the galvo head...!
(I've been going to tape some Scotchbrite pads over my vents as filters, I should do that)

Naseem, the machine doesn't seem to care where it goofs up. On that one piece of SS with the -20 and 275 messed up, those are 3" apart. And the doubled-up text takes up nearly 4" x 1.25", that's over half the working area--

I've checked all the wires and connections, most of them twice-
I've used 4 different USB cables and bypassed the internal-
I've used a totally different comptuer...

All to no avail...

According to Occam's razor, I probably got a bum controller...

[Naseem Khan]

For that open space our manufacturer made an acrylic tube out of .25" acrylic. It was slotted on the top so that it has a little bit of play to pull it apart and fit around that tube. They glued several pieces together to make it long enough and seal that area off. It's not air tight but better than having it open like that. You could cut and fabricate that easy on your co2.

Who is the manufacturer of that scanhead? My guess is that there is a mechanical error with the way the mirrors are moving.

[Kev Williams]

Good idea to cover that hole, I was thinking of maybe just taping a section of paper-towel tube around it -- if it'll keep the bugs & dust out--

Speaking of bugs & dust & scanhead issues you and Gary brought up, seems Triumph feels the same way-- just got an email from them, their engineers also think the scanhead is bad and they're sending me out a new one!

Meanwhile, I'm still using the thing. Just won't be using it on anything I can't afford to replace!

[Naseem Khan]

Glad to hear they resolved that quick! I'm with you on running it till the wheels fall off lol. When you got work to do, by any means necessary!

[Gary Hair]

I don't mean to check the connector, check the wires going into the connector. Remove it from the board and take the plastic cover off to see if there is anything wacky inside. I'm hoping the scanhead they are sending will fix it but I'm betting on an intermittent open or short.

[Kev Williams]

pg1.jpgpg2.jpgpg3.jpg

-- looks okay to me, all seem firmly attached, snug & not loose or broken...

[Bill George]

I'd bet the scan head does it and it contains the mirrors and motors, correct?

[Gary Hair]

Except for the fact that they reused the connector and the huge solder booger hanging off the end, it looks ok. If the scanhead doesn't fix it I'd still be inclined to buy a new connector and solder the wires on yourself.