Need help with my CE3000-40...

[bean-design]

First off, let me say that I use this machine for mostly hobby type stuff (banners for church and a couple of local civic organizations). I'm a graphic designer by trade, and know how to use the machine fairly well, but it only gets used maybe once every other month or so -- not often.

Anyway, I was cutting on it last week and it made a weird noise and then stopped cutting. The carriage/blade holder acted like it was still going through the right motions (i.e., tracking as if it were still cutting) but the unit wasn't cutting. I tried a few test cuts, tried to adjust a few things and it would cut maybe once out of every 5 times I tried, and then eventually not cut at all. All this time though, the carriage still worked and looked like it was getting the correct info from my computer.

Then my husband, in his infinite wisdom, decided to open it up "just to take a look." He really didn't do much, other than take a panel off (over my protests!) look and put it back on. But that was enough -- now when we turn the power on, it makes a horrible screeching noise, the carriage stays over to the left and you have to shut the power back off to get it to stop.

Am I hosed? I had found someone's post on this board with a similar problem (to my first problem) that said it was a bad solenoid. Does anyone have any experience with this second, more serious-sounding problem? It's going to run me $250ish to send it off to Graphtec to even have them look at it -- I'm trying to get a gauge on how much repairs would be because at this point, I'm thinking it may be better just to sink that money into a new machine.

I know this was long but any thoughts or help would be MOST appreciated.

thanks,
Ramona

 

[TresL]

Did the rollers keep moving when it acted like it was cutting?

 

[bean-design]

yep...

everything *looked* like it was doing just what it should, except for the carriage/blade holder.

that is, until my husband got a hold of it and opened it up. He said that he might have nudged the carriage while it was apart and it was "acting like it didn't know where the carriage was supposed to be now." (his highly-technical description)


is there any way to reset the machine (other than turning the power off) so that we could see if that's indeed the problem?


thanks,
Ramona

 

[TexasBob]

The tool carriage solenoid is more than likely the source of your problem. It's a fairly common problem with the CE3000 series cutters. The easiest way to tell is to take the tool carriage cover off and examine the solenoid coil, if there's a gap in the coil wires then the tool carriage will need to be replaced.

As far as the "horrible screeching noise", it sounds to me like the control panel cover wasn't put back on properly. If it is set too low the tool carriage pcb will drag against the lower edge of the cover, hence the noise. Naturally that isn't a good thing for the pcb card either, so you might check and make sure that it isn't scratched up - if any of the wires on it came loose, it could also be the source of your other problem.

 

[bean-design]

thanks so much for the reply...

the tech person I talked to at Graphtec tried to walk me through looking at the solenoid coil but I couldn't see anything wrong with it -- but it's sounding more and more like that's the problem.


thanks so much,
Ramona