RJ-900X error 084 Y2 current

[andrzejw98]

Hi,

I’m starting this thread as I can’t find another one that fully describes my problem. It’s about the E084 Y2 current error on our Mutoh RJ-900X printer. We have two of those, one was bought around 2016 (firmware version 1.03) and the other one in 2020 (firmware version 1.06). The newer one tends to crash when printing long images. It’s not the locking mechanism as it stops mid-print – the head stops moving and then the error 084 Y2 current comes up on the screen. Rarely it may also stop moving the head, but not display any error (you can only shut it down by pulling the cable then). I’ve read many threads about this error, also the service manual and it seems to be connected with overcurrent of the carriage (CR) motor. There was a period where it would also stop on short prints, now it crashes after printing about 10 to 20 meters of paper, occasionally more often. Things we have done so far:

• Swapped the CR motor from the older printer – didn’t help and the older Mutoh with CR motor from newer Mutoh didn’t start having this problem
• Some technician suggested the machine might be overheating. We removed the rear panel and put two 12V fans inside blowing air on PSU and motherboard. No change at all. The motors don’t seem to heat up at all.
• Swapped the PSUs when the newer printer was having trouble turning on a few months ago. Didn’t have any effect on the error 084, machine started turning back on properly, swapped them back and it still turns on. Old printer was working properly all along with both PSUs.
• Newer printer seems to be ok mechanically. The carriage can be moved by hand without any binding, the CR belt seems to be roughly under the same tension as in the other one. It barely moves up and down on the gear when the printer is working. The guide rail is clean and lubed with the special tool and oil bought from the dealer.
• Cleaned encoder strip thoroughly many times, no change observed. Also used the maintenance mode on the printer to run CR movement tests, PF tests, both at the same time with different speeds. It never crashed during testing. One thing that was kinda “off” is the CR encoder reading – after the head has been moving for a while and is docked again, the value is no longer 0 but drifts off to something like 40 or whatever. Is it possible the difference is growing the longer it prints and it suddenly decides it became too inaccurate?
• I’m thinking there might be a deeper problem with the motherboard. This machine has been behaving in a weird way for some time. Apart from the “not turning on then fixing itself” issue, the manual says it’s supposed to cut off the print automatically when printing from a roll of paper. For most of its life it didn’t do that, a few weeks ago it started, then stopped, then started again. I have no freaking clue how that’s even possible.

To be honest, the error 084 problem has been a challenge for us for a long time already. We used the old machine to print long stuff (like paper for lanyards) and the new one for t-shirts and such. Now the circumstances have changed however, as the old one is currently broken as in “doesn’t print at all” due to some issues with maintenance station. The priority is to get the newer printer running reliably and then keep working on the old one or strip it for parts if not possible – it’s really worn out and old, so there’s that as well. What should we do now? My only ideas left are:

• Swapping the encoder strip and checking if it fixes the problem. I don’t want to do it if unnecessary, as the encoder strip looks rather delicate and easy to break. I printed out a full list of errors from the new printer, and out of the last 64 only 1 was related to the encoder, all others were E084 (Mutoh still recommends checking encoder for E084 though)
• Swapping the motherboards – easy to do for me, but can I do it safely? Won’t it break or lock down or something else? Both machines are the same model – RJ-900X and both have the DX5 printhead
• Updating the firmware – I doubt it’s a software bug, but there’s always a chance. I really don’t want to do it though, as I’m afraid it might stop accepting our refillable cartridges (we use sublimation ink bought in 1 liter bottles).

Thanks to anyone who reads my whole post. I’ll be really grateful for any tips. Despite being a mechanical engineer, I can’t figure it out on my own. I’m pretty sure this is the situation where experience beats learned knowledge or whatever It’s a family business that we run and I’m really trying to fix it myself because both printers are out of warranty already and the service provided by dealer is horrendously expensive – not economically viable for the older printer, in fact.

 

[unmateria]

y2 overcurrent error is about pf motor, not cr motor. Clean encoder wheel in the left side cap. Check u can unroll media easy (some poliesters are very static and difficult to unroll). And check vacuum too. Put it in low or medium vacuum. If it still fails, check all pinch rollers roll free and replace the pf motor if they do. Altough they look like they work ok, if they are above 100x50 meters roll, they tend to fail.

 

[andrzejw98]

Thanks for Your reply. I think we have cleaned the wheel already, but will do it again (it caused problems some time ago). I don't think it's a problem with static - we only print on paper and then the images are transfered to fabric. Didn't even know the vacuum setting could be changed. Will definitely look into the pinch rollers and pf motor then.

 

[unmateria]

Mmm check those little white plastic "not-bearings" were u put the bar with the roll too. They break very easy. Ah! And try with unrolled media to discard all that

 

[andrzejw98]

Sooo, looks like all the bearings are rolling freely (rollers, bearings in the pf motor, bar bearings). We cleaned the encoder wheel. Then we swapped the pf motor from old printer. At first it looked like it fixed the problem, but actually not. Yesterday in the evening it crashed twice while printing long pieces from narrow roll (lanyards), which were like 30 meters long. Today though it threw the error twice or thrice while printing some text from narrow roll (short print like 2 or 3 meters) which also wasn't full already, so very light and easy to pull. The difference was I think that it was only black text on white background so it was printing much faster than normally. This is leading me to believe it's either because the belt is skipping or the encoder can't keep up with the movements. Now it's printing lanyards again and I think with the covers removed I can hear a silent clicking every few seconds on the motor side of the printer. It might have always been there though. Am I missing something here? Should I try installing the belt, wheel and encoder from old printer?

EDIT: I forgot I checked one more thing yesterday. While I had both pf motors out, I thoroughly compared them. It turned out that neither has play in the shaft and both turn freely (the one taken out from new printer even "more freely") - no binding anyway. I also measured their resistance with a multimeter just in case, considering that those are DC motors so like measure-turn one step-measure again until a full revolution is complete. It was interesting cause the older one which is in the machine currently had like 15-30 ohms consistently while the newer one showed anything from 27 to 93 (!) ohms. It got me thinking about the state of brushes and commutator and I was pretty sure I narrowed the problem down to the motor. Didn't turn out to be true, however...

 

[Umca]

y2 overcurrent error is about pf motor, not cr motor. Clean encoder wheel in the left side cap. Check u can unroll media easy (some poliesters are very static and difficult to unroll). And check vacuum too. Put it in low or medium vacuum. If it still fails, check all pinch rollers roll free and replace the pf motor if they do. Altough they look like they work ok, if they are above 100x50 meters roll, they tend to fail.

Not correct. E084 Y2 it is about CR axis. For sure.

 

[unmateria]

I never seen y2 errors with the cr axis on those machines. Would have to look the manual.

Anyway... Can you to choose the option "spit on media" (i cant remember the name in menu sorry) and try again in that little roll?

The noise is coming from a non-tensioned belt or if its spitting outside the media every X passes and is hitting the carriage block spring (but thats on the right side)

 

[andrzejw98]

Not correct. E084 Y2 it is about CR axis. For sure.

That's what I thought as well since it says so in the service manual, but went with the PF motor idea anyway because of no success with CR motor.

I never seen y2 errors with the cr axis on those machines. Would have to look the manual.

Well now that I think of it, can certainly happen and does happen. Coincidentally, I bumped my finger into the moving carriage like 3 minutes ago (I'm still printing short but wide prints in the meantime and no faults now) and it stopped with the same error E084 Y2Current. Ok, it took a while but I decided to cause the errors manually to know what I'm actually dealing with. Here goes:
stopping the carriage with your hand while it's moving either way - E084Err Y2 current
disconnecting the CR motor so the requested value of movement doesn't equal the one read by encoder - also E084Err Y2 current
stopping the paper feed motor - this one is REALLY STRONG and the only way to stop it is to grip the PF motor shaft with pliers. I seriously doubt any roll of paper could overload that thing. That causes E065 X Motor error
disconnecting the PF motor while it's feeding - also causes E065 X Motor error

The conclusion is it's definitely related to CR axis. The question is, what exactly goes wrong. As we tried another CR motor, I doubt it's broken - especially that both worked in the older printer while it was operational. My ideas right now are:
1) belt is too loose and skips due to that - which causes the machine to throw an error code - solution: tighten
2) belt is damaged and skips - as above - solution: remove, check, replace if necessary
3) encoder reading is wrong when it's going fast - solution: swap encoder and strip to test
4) it's an error that doesn't really have a cause - solution: swap motherboards to test

I guess it would be wise to start with the belt, but correct me if I'm wrong or there are another possibilities out there.

Anyway... Can you to choose the option "spit on media" (i cant remember the name in menu sorry) and try again in that little roll?

Can you say something more about that? I don't know which option is that.

The noise is coming from a non-tensioned belt or if its spitting outside the media every X passes and is hitting the carriage block spring (but thats on the right side)

Will try to check. Thanks everyone for ideas.

 

[unmateria]

Printer do some printing on media and then spit all heads on the sponge. To go to the sponge maybe it crashes into the blocker (that little triangular thing that blocks the carriage into the capping station). If u tell the plotter to spit on media it wont go there. In the main menu (the one with 27 option or something like that), in the first option, look for something like "spit" and change it to "media". It will make 2 vertical lines in your printed media (on full left and right sides)

 

[andrzejw98]

Printer do some printing on media and then spit all heads on the sponge. To go to the sponge maybe it crashes into the blocker (that little triangular thing that blocks the carriage into the capping station). If u tell the plotter to spit on media it wont go there. In the main menu (the one with 27 option or something like that), in the first option, look for something like "spit" and change it to "media". It will make 2 vertical lines in your printed media (on full left and right sides)

I don't think it's that, it stops in the middle of paper, not when docked...

 

[unmateria]

Ok, then check for 24v on dx050 motor. Maybe is less and that would increase current too.

 

[unmateria]

I have checked now a defective one with coils from 30 to 100 ohms. Works perfect for any application but in the printer failed to that way. (With different error, thats true). Tomorrow i can check for a good working one, i will tell you

 

[7_nebo_7]

On what print speed Y2 current appears? slower or faster? Have you tried to replace encoder strip, check position between cr encoder sensor and the encoder strip. Try loose carriage belt for 1-2 rotation of the ajustment screw. if problem appears try another way.
Y2 current could be tricky one.
Is the CR cables have been replaced? how much printer is printing?

 

[andrzejw98]

I have checked now a defective one with coils from 30 to 100 ohms. Works perfect for any application but in the printer failed to that way. (With different error, thats true). Tomorrow i can check for a good working one, i will tell you

Thanks, I would appreciate that. Are these motors for CR same as for PF? I didn't measure the CR motors yet but will if I don't find another solution.

On what print speed Y2 current appears? slower or faster? Have you tried to replace encoder strip, check position between cr encoder sensor and the encoder strip. Try loose carriage belt for 1-2 rotation of the ajustment screw. if problem appears try another way.
Y2 current could be tricky one.
Is the CR cables have been replaced? how much printer is printing?

Yesterday it kept popping up on fast prints. Then I run some more as fast as I could to test and couldn't get it to appear again. Earlier it also appeared on slow but long prints. CR encoder parts weren't touched yet. I was thinking that maybe the belt is skipping, so i made some marks with permanent marker on the belt and the gear to see (they align perfectly when the head is docked, and should stop aligning if it skips). I can't tell tho because the machine is being mean to me and doesn't want to error out when I'm actually trying to diagnose it... Since I made the marks I have been printing for like 10 hours constantly without errors, but those were like 1-2 meters long pieces. The printer wasn't even used that much, it will be 3 years old in June I think. I don't think anybody touched the CR cables either, maybe when replacing the printhead once.

 

[7_nebo_7]

Just littlebit theory how the system works there. Main board send PWM voltage (41V 25Khz) to the motor via driver located on the main board to DC motor. Motor rotating pulley, pulley moves the CR belt and carriage. Then CR encoder attached to carriage reading encoder lines and passing to the main board qadrature encoder signal via CR board and CR cables. Main board calculating diviation between expecting encoder values and real and ajusting PWM output to the motor acordenly. I am not sure 100% what error alowns on this model I beleve about 5-10%. If error apears larger tan this value then main board stops and generate Y encoder error codes.
By knowing this and you mention previously that your encoder values drifting it make sence that issue could be related to the CR encoder reader and encoder strip.
Hopfully it helps in finding problems.

 

[andrzejw98]

Wow, I haven't posted for a little while as the problem seemed to fix itself and then the holidays came. Spoiler alert: it didn't Yesterday the printer threw the error code after printing like 20 or 25 meters of narrow paper. I checked my marks on the belt - it didn't skip a single tooth. The carriage could be smoothly moved by hand. It then proceeded to throw the error code repeatedly for a few times, also after like 50 cm of paper. The motor was warm (could still keep my hand on it though), put a floor fan blowing air on it, it kept cold, no change. I suppose that leaves us with either the encoder or motherboard...

 

[andrzejw98]

Keeping this thread alive because not entirely sure if it's fixed or not. We replaced the motherboard with the one taken out of older printer. It printed like 3x 50 meters without a problem, today it crashed once, it's printing again ok. By the way, does anyone have an idea how to store a used printhead so it doesn't dry up? If it continues to work, we would like to leave the other printer for parts when the ink runs out (different supplier than here). What is the best way to flush ink out of the printer and keep the head from going dry over months of storage? The old printer is essentially near-dead, makes a horrible noise when moving the carriage now and the maintenance station no longer works on it but if you connect a syringe to the station tubes and suck air out it will (sometimes) clean the head so it - at least partially - cleans and prints something.

 

[andrzejw98]

Hi everybody. Unfortunately I have to ask once again for your advice and insight. The printer is STILL having the error, so we kept on swapping parts for known working ones. To sum up, it still continues to throw the E084 error while printing.

Things that DID NOT help:
1) replace motherboard with a known working one, with older firmware
2) replacing PSU
3) replacing both motors
4) replacing the LCD and CR board
5) cleaning the PF encoder wheel and CR encoder strip

Things that apparently DO HELP and the error doesn't pop up:
1) using wider paper rolls instead of the 21 cm ones
2) printing on the narrow rolls with 1440 dpi resolution so it prints slower

Right now we continue to print lanyard paper with high resolution, but it's a bad workaround because this way it takes awfully long. I appreciate anyone reading this and coming up with some suggestions.

 

[unmateria]

Replacing encoder sensor? (Both)

 

[andrzejw98]

Well, we might try that. I was thinking either that or replace the whole wiring loom (we parted out the second printer and have a whole box of electronics, but already tried most of those).