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Gravograph LS100 Repair
Gravograph LS100 Repair
I bought this broken laser cutter in hopes that I can get it working. It was described as having a power fault. When I got the machine, it was clean and well maintained but the problem was worst that I first thought/described. I thought that the system could boot but showed a power issue.
When I turned the machine on for the first time, there was nothing. there was no sound or no lights. This could be many different problems and most likely would be something wrong would be the power supply or a short. I turn on the power supply and tested the voltage while plugged in and removed. The voltage plugged in was 0 and the voltage removed was 27V which means it's most likely a short. This was confirmed when i meaered accross the turminals but this could be by design.
I started tracking down the short by removing modules and checking if the short went away. after removing all the modules, the short was still there on the mainboard. I then started looking for blown and damages to the components or PCB. I could not find anything.
After finding nothing, I starting doing resistence tests to try find the short. Everything has resistence and longer the wire the more the resistance. It took me a while be finerly narored my seach down to an area around the heat sink/transistors. Flipping the board, there was some damage that i missed before. I check the transisors (without de-soldering) and found one that was not showing the same as the others. I desoldered and the short was no there any more. I replaced the transistor, put it back together, turn it on and it worked.
I did a lot of research into finding the software and the drivers and could only find 1 old driver from the manufactures website and 1 bit of software from a doggy website. I only installed the divers to see if I can get the machine to work and receive data from the computer. I tried a few times to get the data to get sent to the machine but it only worked the first time, the rest was taking too long to calculate.
It turns out, the software and the hardware were good for the time but is a bit dated now. I could try to get the software and hardware to work more but it has taken too much time to get here. Instead, I will be replacing the electronics with my old system from my K40, the AWC608 laser controller.
I bought this broken laser cutter in hopes that I can get it working. It was described as having a power fault. When I got the machine, it was clean and well maintained but the problem was worst that I first thought/described. I thought that the system could boot but showed a power issue.
When I turned the machine on for the first time, there was nothing. there was no sound or no lights. This could be many different problems and most likely would be something wrong would be the power supply or a short. I turn on the power supply and tested the voltage while plugged in and removed. The voltage plugged in was 0 and the voltage removed was 27V which means it's most likely a short. This was confirmed when i meaered accross the turminals but this could be by design.
I started tracking down the short by removing modules and checking if the short went away. after removing all the modules, the short was still there on the mainboard. I then started looking for blown and damages to the components or PCB. I could not find anything.
After finding nothing, I starting doing resistence tests to try find the short. Everything has resistence and longer the wire the more the resistance. It took me a while be finerly narored my seach down to an area around the heat sink/transistors. Flipping the board, there was some damage that i missed before. I check the transisors (without de-soldering) and found one that was not showing the same as the others. I desoldered and the short was no there any more. I replaced the transistor, put it back together, turn it on and it worked.
I did a lot of research into finding the software and the drivers and could only find 1 old driver from the manufactures website and 1 bit of software from a doggy website. I only installed the divers to see if I can get the machine to work and receive data from the computer. I tried a few times to get the data to get sent to the machine but it only worked the first time, the rest was taking too long to calculate.
It turns out, the software and the hardware were good for the time but is a bit dated now. I could try to get the software and hardware to work more but it has taken too much time to get here. Instead, I will be replacing the electronics with my old system from my K40, the AWC608 laser controller.
