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VG series fuses

emhmotorsports

New Member
Hi everyone, I just wanted to share some information from one of my latest adventures. I bought a used VG-640 that was sitting awhile, cleaned it up, and somewhere in the process it started setting a 0250 service code. I bought a new print carriage board from a dealer, installed, and no luck. I was fortunate that someone keyed me onto that this can be caused by a blown fuse (said party shall remain nameless to avoid the wrath of Roland, but sincerely thank you!). So I grabbed my trusty multi-meter and started checking continuity of all the fuses - all seemed to be fine - or so I thought. I was nearly ready to plunk down for a new main board as well, but a thought occurred to me. These fuse holders looked pretty fragile, so instead of checking continuity across the fuse, I checked around the fuse holder itself. Viola! The fuse holder itself was damaged and faulty. I don't know how that happened, but it did. In most cases because these are soldered directly onto the circuit boards, it would usually still mean a main board replacement; however, since I have circuit board repair capabilities, I was able to order a new fuse holder for a couple of cents and stick it onto the board. Issue was solved!

So the lesson I wanted to share with everyone, is that if your Roland has this style of fuse, be sure to inspect the fuse holder carefully when checking fuses. I don't know how long Roland has used this style of fuse, so this could apply to older models as well as the newer VG2 and VG3. The fuse might test out fine, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have no issue. If you're electrically handy or know someone that is, this can literally save you thousands of dollars and not have to throw out an otherwise perfectly fine board.

I've attached some pictures. The original has gold ends on the fuse, and you can see that even this one is missing a contact. The other photo is of the fuse/holder that I successfully replaced, and you can see all contact points are present.
 

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emhmotorsports

New Member
Would it print at all with this fuse blown?
Annette
Hi Annette, in this case the printer was setting an error code 0250 almost immediately upon power up, which meant it pretty much did nothing but take up space in the shop at that point. The machine does not allow you to perform any functions at all, it just flashes red in the print bay until you turn it off. Since I run white ink, I was very worried about not being able to circulate the ink and clogging an otherwise brand new head! I really wish Roland would allow you to run other critical functions that don't require use of the print heads, but...

There were actually a few fuse holders that were suspect, so I can't say for sure which one is related to the print head error - I just replaced them all to be safe. But I want to say fuse 'F2' is related to the print heads, someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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