New member here trying to get our lightly-used (2 years old) GCC Explorer 30 Watt Machine (38″X20″ Table) to work properly…MANY new parts including table screws, X Motor, Lens, X board/cable etc. etc. It’s a looooooong story about it needing all of the above but it’s now just about perfect except for the following problem!
After powering-up and initializing, the machine always goes back to the 10.5 X position…that’s right, will not go back to the 0 X origin or extreme left. Have confirmed that Carriage Lock is (OFF), have done (USER RESET) and (SYSTEM RESET) and of course attempted to do an Origin Set but while in Origin Set mode I cannot get the cutting head to move to the left (or towards 0) beyond the 10.5′ inch mark; What could be the problem? Maybe wrong firmware (for a smaller machine) or is there some other software setting done at LCD that will fix this? Could it be a mechanical problem or adjustment? NOTE: If I manually push the head to 0 X position while the machine is off, when it repowers it will stop at the 29 inch X position! Basically, it seems like it wants to start or stop about 10.5 inches beyond or shy of either X extreme (left to right), hope this makes sense?
Thanks in advance for ANY help.
To readjust your “Home Origin”, follow these instructions?
The steps below are the GCC instructions to reset the machines x/y. I did it myself a year ago and seem to remember being confused as to what keys to hold down, I don’t remember exactly, but I did get it to work.
1. Run position test first. Create a 1″x1″ layout with a ½” square w/ no fill, red outline at .004″ thick and locate in the center. Laser in vector mode only on preferably anodized aluminum (Spd-100%/Pwr-35% on L30). Using digital calipers for best accuracy (or ruler if not available) determine where and how much you are off. Your square should have falling at the ¼” mark down (Y axis) and ¼” to the left (X axis) of your lasered sample/test plate.
2. Turn off your laser engraver, wait 10 seconds.
3. Hold down the two (2) red control panel buttons, i.e., Enter & Start/Stop, while powering on your machine. Do not release the red buttons until you see the “Initializing…” screen.
4. Using the left arrow (on your machines control panel), cycle to “Set Origin”, press Enter
5. Adjust your lens assembly w/ the arrow keys Start w/ red beam at horizontal and vertical ruler intersection
6. Enter to accept new home origin, then power off laser to permanently apply this new origin setting to the machines firmware. Ignore the message on the control panel, as you MUST restart your machine to apply (”burn”) this new setting to the lasers motherboard EPROM chips
7. Restart your laser engraver after another 10 second wait.
8. Run a test and re-measure with your calipers to reassess location. If you are off (digital calipers give the best accuracy numerically) then figure out mathematically how much you must move the lens assembly to dial in the home position. With the correct amount add or subtract on the control panel using the arrows to move the lens assembly to the correct location.
9. Repeat as necessary to dial in your home origin position. Keep the correct numbers written down below for future reference. If Origin needs to be set again in the future you can use these numbers rather than using the Red Diode method as above.
10. DONE!