I have a LaserPro M 30 laser and am having a little trouble with it. In a nut shell I have no power if I use the Ramp function. I do a lot of vector cutting and it would be nice to use at least I think it would. Let’s say you are cutting paper at 100% speed and 20% power, No problem with out using the ramp setting.
If I use the ramp all I get is a light score line. I am using Corel Draw 12 with color management turned off and the latest firmware and driver. I have had the laser tube sent in and it was fine I have replaced the mother board and still seem to have the problem. The other odd thing is some time in the middle of a job with the ramp function off it will revert to this low power mode. Turning off the laser will return it to normal. I have had good response from the dealer trying to solve this but I think it has us both stumped. The next step it to replace the power supply. I am wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem and also if other use the ramp function. There has not been any mention of it on the board.
I’ve got the laserpro explorer and it doesn’t not have a “ramp” function, but the sorts of problem you having is typical of the sort of problem I’ve had with the explorer. The biggest problem is that questions never get answered. It seems to be a communications problem with the folks in china.
The only thing which ever fixed my problems has been a new release of the driver and firmware.
Thanks for the reply. You bring up an interesting point. Communications, I guess it probably means I have to live with it after the warranty expires, if it cannot be communicated with whom ever that it does not work. It is covered under warranty but I have to pay shipping for parts. Maybe that is why it is not found in the explorer driver. They can not get it to work. I have the latest firmware and driver.
What problems are you having with the explorer? We run 3 of them. We also had Mercurys before that so any issues with either I am familiar with. We have had nothing but excellent support via our local dealer and I have personally spoken to Alex and Leonard (vice pres and president of GCC) and had no communication problem at all with them. I’m not a dealer or anything, but perhaps I can help?
The problem is a sudden loss of power. I can be cutting a job and all of a sudden it looses power and will only score a line. I can reproduce the power loss by using the ramp function in the driver. I have reinstalled the driver, installed a new system board and had the laser tube checked out. but I still have the problem. I to have had excellent support from the dealer and have no complaints with them but I feel that it has us both stumped. It also makes a squeaking noise when it goes into this mode, hard to describe, kind of like rubbing nylon swishy pants together.
The loss of power can be a driver/firmaware issue or an overheating issue, sounds more like a driver/frimware/design package issue. The squeaky sound is the sound of vector engraving , this often happens when the driver does not recognize a colour as a cut line with cutting speed and power parameters , but the line is very thin and it still recognizes it as a vector and defaults to 50% power and 50% speed for colours - ie very fast vector cutting. If it were a tube issue, the loss of power would be noticeable as the failure to cut thru and not the machine defaulting to a faster speed.
Overheating will generally shut the machine down during heavy vector cutting, IE you will have NO power whatsoever. A RF board gone west on your source will be indicated by losing 1/2 your power. I would suggest you load the latest drivers, but ALSO load the latest firmware into the machine if that doesn’t work, load an earlier version of the firmware.
I would also reseat the memory and would check the design package as to making sure colour correction is turned off. The fact that it defaults to this mode when using the ramp function indicates that it is far more likely to be a firmware/driver issue than anything to do with hardware.
Good points. I kind of agree on the driver firmware and that is where the trouble shooting begin. Gcc sent me the latest Firmware/driver to use. When I loaded it it all went south. Could not ever boot the machine. Not sure I want to try that again. I replaced the entire board and new eproms loaded with the latest firmware. Still the same thing. I tried a little experiment after that. I took a piece of Card stock paper and drew up a series of strait vector lines to cut. Then I set the power to 100% speed and 20% power. Normally this would cut the card stock. I set the line color to black and hairline line weight and turned on the ramp function. All I got was a very faint scoreline. I then ran the same job again this time increasing the power 10% each time all the way up to 100% power, still only score lines not even enough to cut through the paper going over the same lines. Ok I thought got some thing here at least I can reproduce it. So I decided to quit messing around and get some work done so I sent another real job this time with out the ramp function and it started out same way, no power, then about 15 seconds into the job, bam, the laser powers back to normal and it is cutting fine. I can live without the ramp function if it is not going to work,. the frustrating problem is this suddenly happens in the middle of a job and usually I have to turn off and back on the machine to get it to return to normal. The other thing that tends to bother me is it should work. Can anyone else using the Mercury 30 watt laser reproduce this?
Interesting thing you mentioned about the squeaky sound, sounds logical but I would say mine is not defaulting to 50/50. The speed does not seem to change and the power is less. On another note the display panel does not change out of the ordinary. In other words it seems to recognize and display any power or speed setting changes sent to it. I am not at the laser or I would included the driver and firmware numbers for you. but I can tell you it is the latest they have out.
Thanks for all the suggestions and observations. They really help trouble shoot this issue.
Not to start a new topic but…….. Does anyone use nitrogen gas as an assist?
How old is your GCC? Is it a Mercury? Just curious. I have a Mercury M25 and I don’t want the same thing to happen to me :) (who does…). Maybe stay away from firmware and driver updates? What driver version do you have? I can’t find the latest drivers on their site apparently.
My Laser is about two years old. It is a GCC Mercury 30 watt. I can’t tell you at this time what driver version it is because I have a real job, meaning it pays more at the time, and am not at the laser. I will try and post that tonight. Does your drive have a ramp check box along side the vector and raster ones from under the pen tab in the driver setup? This is where I am referring two when I talk about using the ramp function. It can be turned on or off for each assigned color. I think it only works when doing vector cutting but I am not 100% on this. It was a sickening feeling when I tries to update the firmware. The instruction said I should see some text scroll across the display and it would tell me when it was done, But when I look all I saw was a bunch a garbage characters and then that was it. Power it off and on and it was dead. A new board later and I was up and running. Make you think twice about trying it again.
On your second post about the mate board, I have tried it a little but have noticed if you raster out a very large area it has a slight brownish tone from the heat. I have used masking tape to limit smoke damage. I prefer the blue painters tape because it releases better. I went out and looked at the site for the computerized matte cutter. Looks like a very nice setup.
It has two sliders, one for Speed and one for Power, that go from 0 to 100%, and two checkboxes for raster and vector. I have driver Version 3.42.
I think something went wrong during your firmware update. When that happens the machine is left with only part or the firmware, or none at all, neither of which is good. It’s like waking up and not knowing who you are (happened to me a couple of times but since humans are better equipped than laser cutters I was able to “reinstall” my own firmware using liberal amounts of coffee… It appears that coffee is the best way to reinstall firmware damaged by the late night activities…). That’s why Starbucks is doing so well: lots of people with damaged firmware… Now that’s a joke, I don’t want any Starbuck customer saying that I am putting down anyone. It’s still legal to have a sense of humor and to crack jokes. If you sue me for that I’ll sue you for not having a sense of humor and that is a misdemeanor. Just kidding again. Gee, those damn disclaimers we have to add after saying just about anything that has the remotest potential to tick off someone!
But I digress.
I’ll have to try the blue tape. Does it come in wide rolls, 2 or 4″ wide?
Yes, once you have a computerized matcutter you don’t want to go back to a hand operated one… problem for most people is it doesn’t make any sense at all to own one unless you cut lots of mats. Even if the cost isn’t a problem (it is for many but not for everyone) you still need to give it the space it needs, at least a 10×10 room…
The blue tape comes in 2″ and down as far as I have seen. It is some time referred as painters tape because you can leave it on something longer with out having to scrap it off later. I think it is a type of masking tape. Since I am not a coffee drinker I guess I was just out of luck fixing the firmware :) I agree that without a little humor in our lives this stuff would not be very fun at all. I spend all day working on computers and as weird as it sounds I enjoy going home and creating things and cutting them out. I could really get into the matte board thing if Work did not always get in the way of all the fun.
Yes, humor is important. We’re becoming way too serious due to PC, fear of lawsuits, ever increasing anal retentionism, constant reduction of the importance placed upon art and so on, in no particular order. I use to keep all this to myself until I realised it’s not illegal to disagree and share my opinion. In fact, that’s what being an artist is all about. It’s not possible to express oneself while at the same time censor everything you say.
So anyway what do you cut on your laser? Just curious.
Hello - Let me start off by saying that I don’t have a LaserPro, I have an Epilog. This may seem funny but have you taken the back off the machine and blown it out with an air compressor lately? We thought we were having power supply problems once and although embarrassing to admit, the machine was dirty. Once cleaned, it worked like a champ.
Good thought but yes I have. I had to send the Laser tube to have it checked out so I have almost had every part out. I am amazed on how few parts there actually are to these machines considering the work they do and the cost of the systems.