Table of Contents
- Side Play in the pen holder?
- Plot is good at the
center but bad at the edges?
- Plotter calibration (LP4000)
- How to perform a
Micro-Calibration?
- How to create a custom page set up (
80 inches)
- Pen-height adjustment?
- How to
reset the memory of the plotter through the keypad (LP3700)?
- How
to reset the memory of the plotter through the keypad (LP4000)?
- How to erase the autoview?
- Dashpot adjustment?
- Adjusting the pen force?
- The plotter will
not respond to the host computer?
- Pen-change height adjustment?
- LP3700 Optical limit switch
adjustment?
- Registration
is poor or there are shifts in the media?
- Program user
parameters for the LP3700/LP4000?
- Cuts not
closing circles or rounding 90 degree angles?
- Line quality is poor
when cutting vinyl or rubylith?
- Knife is dragging between the
letters?
- Plotter to computer
interface
Indications of side play are:
- Letters not being finished completely or not being cut completely, beginning or ending
of cut not matching, and leaving a gap in the cut.
- Pen appears to sway or tilt slightly.
There should be no side play in the pen holder. If there is, it can be corrected by
tightening the cone point bearing screws. Using the allen wrench provided with the plotter
(size 3/32), carefully tighten each screw equally. The point of each bearing screw should
engage the mating hole in the carriage. When properly adjusted, the empty pen holder will
fall under its own weight.
CAUTION: Care must be taken not to over tighten, as this will damage the pen carriage.
The traverse rods could be bent or the carriage is cracked. To check this, turn the
round, stainless steel traverse rods manually. When they rotate, does the carriage rise or
lower slightly? Move the carriage to different locations on the rods. Rotate the rods. No
matter where you locate the carriage, it should not rise up or lower when you turn the
traverse rods. It if does, the rods are bent and need to be replaced. You can contact techsupport@ioline.com or a Authorize Service Center.
To calibrate means to check against a standard and adjust it for accuracy.
Plotters can have variations in drawing accuracy in both the X and Y axis, due to
variations in the paper drive mechanism, paper density, humidity and temperature.
Typically, the accuracy of a plot is within 0.2% overall. Note: The
scale commands operate independently of the Micro-calibration resolution.
The calibration can be done as follows:
NOTE: When you perform the following sequence on your keypad, the settings on
the plotter will default back to factory settings. If you have any special settings you
want to keep, please use the Utility Program for your machine and record any information
you may need, since you won't be able to recover them after the keypad memory has been
clear.
- Press the following keys to clear the keypad:
ALT - UR -
DOT - DOT - DOT - ALT - 1 - RESET - ALT - RESET. Turn the plotter off
for about 30 seconds.
- The X and Y calibration values are on a white sticker by the plotter keypad.
To gain access to it, remove the right end plates and write down these values on a piece
of paper. If you don't have this information, or the label with the calibration settings
are not there anymore, please go to the Micro-Calibration
procedure.
- Turn the plotter back on and press ALT. After the carriage stops moving, enter
the calibration as follows:
ALT - UR - DOT - DOT - DOT - ALT - SCALE - enter the X value - ORIGIN
- enter the Y value -SCALE - ALT - 1 - RESET. Turn plotter off.
Example: If the X axis calibration is 40.125 and the Y axis
calibration is 30.001, it must be entered as follows:
ALT - UR - DOT - DOT - DOT - ALT - SCALE - 4 - 0 - ORIGIN - 1- 2- 5 - ORIGIN -
3 - 0 - ORIGIN - 0 - 0 - 1 - SCALE - ALT - 1 - RESET.
NOTE: When you perform the following sequence on your keypad, the settings on
the plotter will default back to factory settings. If you have any special settings you
want to keep, please use the Utility Program for your machine and record any information
you may need, since you won't be able to recover them after the keypad memory has been
clear.
Press the following keys to clear the keypad:
ALT - UR -
DOT - DOT - DOT - ALT - 1 - RESET - ALT - RESET. Turn the plotter off
for about 30 seconds.
- Load the paper into the plotter. For maximum accuracy, the paper should be the same
size, and at the same location on the platten as the final intended plot.
- Set the lower left (LL) corner, the upper right (UR)
corner (or Size).
- Press ALT - 4
The plot is always in the normal orientation (not affected by rotation settings), with
lines drawn from origin (0,0). Two sets of connected lines are drawn: one for measurement
in inches and the other in centimeters. At the maximum x and y
locations, there are short lines perpendicular to the x and
y axes. Pairs of measuring marks for both x and
y axes are indicated on the plot in either inches or
centimeters. The measurement between the parallel lines are intended to be in whole inch
(or centimeter) increments, as will fit within the plotting setting limits.
- Measure and write down the distance between any marks in both the x
and y directions (inches or centimeters). The
difference between the measured distance and the nearest whole inch (or centimeter) should
be small. Remember, the x direction is always in the paper
motion direction, and the y direction is always the pen motion
direction. All measurements must be accurate to three decimal places.
For example:
x = 40.125 inches or x = 101.918 centimeters.
and
y = 30.001 inches or y = 76.203 centimeters.
- Here's a sample calibration for x = 40.125 inches and y = 30.001
inches. Enter the calibration measurements using the keypad as follows:
ALT - SCALE - 4 - 0 - ORIGIN - 1 - 2 - HOME - ORIGIN - 3 - 0 - ORIGIN - 0 - 0 -
1 - SCALE.
Note: Up to three digits after the decimal may be entered for each
measurement.
The new microcalibration setting remains in the plotter memory until a
new calibration setting is made, the plotter is reset or the plotter power is turned off.
These values may also be stored in the plotter non-volatile memory. See "Storing Plot
Parameters", located in your User's guide.
- Turn the plotter on, press ATL. Carriage will move all the way to the right endplate and
kick back.
- Move carriage as close to the right endplate as possible.
- Press: ALT, UR, 1
- Press: LL
- Press: ALT, GO TO, 32000, ORIGIN, 14200, GO TO. At this point the grit
shaft will start turning.
- When the grit shaft stops, press: UR.
- Press: ALT, 5, to bring the carriage back home.
- Press: ALT, 1
- Press: ALT, SIZE, 1, 5, SIZE, ALT, ONLINE.
Now you are ready to plot up to 80 inches.
To access the custom size press the following keys: ALT, UR, 1, LL, SIZE, 1, 5,
SIZE.
When the pen is up on the LP4000 or LP3700, the centers of the two sprockets on the
lift plate assembly should form a line perpendicular to the traverse rods. The pen
solenoid should also be approximately parallel to the plotter's right end plate. If that
is the case, proceed to the Fine Adjustment Section.
However, if the pen lift belt has been forced past a tooth on the pen lift plate assembly,
large changes in pen height will be required. Proceed as follows:
Coarse Adjustment
For both the LP4000 and LP3700:
- Remove the dust cover (two tan screws).
Note: The pen carriage assembly has two spring-loaded damper
assemblies that contact the dust cover. When removing (or replacing) the cover, use
caution to move it slowly in the vertical direction, rocking gently to engage (or
disengage) the two damper wheels.
- Remove the right top cover (four tan screws).
- Turn the pen height adjustment screw (hex type, located at right end plate) until the
pen lift actuator assembly right edge is parallel to the plotter's right end plate.
- Remove the hitch pin retaining the rear idler wheel on the pen carriage.
- Raise the rear idler wheel to clear the pen lift belt and rotate the pen lift plate
assembly until the centers of the two sprockets form a line perpendicular to the traverse
rods.
- Engage the nearest tooth of the lift belt, lower the idler wheel, and install the hitch
pin.
Fine Adjustment
For both the LP4000 and LP3700
- Turn the plotter on.
- Press the 6 key to move the pen to the right limit.
- Lower the pen and note the clearance between the pen holder arm and the pen lift plate
assembly. The desired clearance is approximately .01 inch, which will insure that the pen
lift plate assembly is completely clear of the pen holder arm when the pen is touching the
paper.
- Raise the pen.
- Repeat Steps 3 and 4 at several points across the plotter, noting the pen location that
produced the smallest clearance. Move the pen to this location.
- Set the clearance to approximately .01 inch when the pen is down, using the pen height
adjust screw (see section "Coarse Adjustment).
- Check the height of the pen in the raised position at the right, center, and left
limits. The pen should lift at least .05 inch, measured at the pen point.
- Replace the dust cover, taking care to compress the pen carriage damper wheels inside
the dust cover before lowering it into place.
- Replace the right top cover.
If the plotter is exhibiting unusual symptoms, this procedure will clear out any
"garbage" that may be confusing it. This procedure must also be done if you
change the logic board or the keypad.
The memory of the plotter will be reset back to original factory defaults by the
following procedure:
Turn the plotter on and move the carriage to the right endplate.
Press the following keys:
ALT - UR - DOT - DOT - DOT - ALT - 1 - RESET - ALT - RESET
Turn off the plotter for approximately 15 seconds. Repeat the above procedure 2 more
times.
If the LP3700 does not operate after this, please contact and Authorized Service Center.
The plotter can be set back to its original factory defaults by doing the following:
Turn the plotter on - Press ATL - wait until the carriage goes all the
way to the right and then moves back to the left, after that, press the following keys:
ALT - UR - DOT - DOT - DOT - ALT - 1 - RESET - ALT - RESET
Turn the plotter off for about 30 seconds.
The plotter is now back to its original defaults.
- Turn the plotter on.
- Pess: ALT
- Wait 5 seconds, then press:
- ALT - UR - 1 - ALT - 1 - ALT - VIEW - 0
- Turn the plotter off. Wait 10 seconds.
- Turn the plotter on. Bring the pen all the way to the right hand side of the plotter.
- Press: ALT - UR - 1 - LL - SIZE - 4 - SIZE - ON LINE
You are now ready to plot with the autoview off. The size 4 shown in item 7 is only a
sample. You can go anywhere from size 1 to 15.
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Pen-down motions is damped by an adjustable dashpot located next to the pen solenoid.
The procedure for both the LP4000 and LP3700 is as follows:
- Remove the right top cover. (Four tan screws).
- Turn the plotter on.
- Check the dashpot adjustment by pressing ALT 8 on the plotter keypad,
which causes the plotter to move the pen up and down rapidly while continuosly stepping
both drive motors. You do not need to install pen or paper for this test, as you are only
going to observe the action of the pen lift mechanism.
Watch for full back-and-forth travel of the right rocker arm between the two rubber
bumpers. The adjusment screw for the damping action (slotted 1/4 inch hex type) on the end
of the dashpot piston closest to the rear panel.
- Increase the damping by turning the screw clockwise until the rocker arm is no longer
being pulled all the way toward the pen solenoid.
- Decrease the damping by turning the screw counterclockwise until the rocker arm is fully
traveling between the bumper pads with each stroke.
- Finally, turn the adjustment screw and additional 1/2 to 1 turn counterclockwise,
further decreasing the amount of damping. This should keep the pen from striking the plot
media too hard when lowered, yet allow the pen to fall fast enough to reach the plot media
before any pen or paper movement occurs.
If, during subsequent plotting, this adjustment proves to be inadequate, one of two
problems may occur:
- If the damping is set too firm, the pen will not reach the paper before movement starts,
causing late line starts, incomplete text, etc. The adjusment screw should be turned
counterclockwise during plotting until the problem is solved.
- If there is not enough damping, the pen will strike the plot media with too much force,
causing spots or even holes at the line starts. The adjustment screw must be turned
clockwise to increase the amount of damping. The fine tuning of this adjustment is
preferably done well into a long plot to make sure that it will perform well under most
conditions.
- Replace the right top cover.
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The force, the pen or knife exerts on the plotting media may be varied by adjusting the
pen-down adjustment spring tension. Five settings provide knife/pen forces from 20 to 60
grams. The optimal force setting depends on media thickness and sharpness of your pen or
knife.
If the cut is good when the vinyl is moving toward the front of the plotter (positive
x-axis direction) but is cutting too deep when the vinyl is moving toward the rear of the
plotter (negative x-axis direction), add more downward force to the cutter
"foot". This will provide more support against the blade digging into the vinyl.
Find the pen force adjustment level under the dust cover. Push the adjusment level up
or down to increase or decrease the pen force. Each new downward position of the lever
increases the force by 10 grams.
If you are cutting with an Artpro cutter, you must balance the cutting depth of the
blade with the pen force. Without balance, cutting quality diminish as letter size gets
smaller.
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Verify that the plotter is connected properly to the communications port. The data
cable from the host computer should be connected to the port labeled
"Host/Modem" on the plotter. If this is correctly done, continue to the next
step.
Verify the cable configuration of your cable is the same as the one located in your
user's guide.
The communication protocol for this plotter is:
- 8 data bits
- No parity
- 1 Stop bit
- Baud rate of 9600
Check to ensure you have the correct driver installed from your software to run the
plotter. The default language is DMPL..
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- Remove the dust cover ( 2 screws).
- Install Pen Rail with pen trays located in stalls 1-8.
- Power up plotter.
- After the power up sequence of lights, put the plotter in the internal diagnostic mode
using the following key sequence:
Press and hold the ALT key. Before
the carriage moves to stall # 3, press and hold the RESET key while still
holding the ALT key down. Hold until the carriage stops at stall
# 3. The VIEW, ON LINE and SPEED
lights will be on. Press VIEW to enter the diagnostic mode. The VIEW,
SCALE and ALT lights will be on.
- Press SIZE. This will move the pen rail in and out. The SIZE
light indicates the state of the home position limit switch (2 blinks per pen change
cycle). The ALT light shows the state of the travel limit switch (1 blink
per cycle). If the pen does not make a clean exchange, insert a 7/64 allen wrench into
bottom hole located rear of keypad, above the serial cable. Turn right to raise height,
left to lower, approximately 1/4 turn at a time.
- When a clean exchange is reached, press RESET key twice.
- To check adjustments for other pen locations, press ALT, CHARTHOLD,
n (Pen number to be picked up), CHARTHOLD. The
carriage will pick up the chosen pen and return to position # 3.
- To replace the pen, press ALT, CHARTHOLD, CHARTHOLD.
- Repeat steps 7 and 8 for other pen positions. It is not necessary to make adjustments
for each pen position, however, it is a good idea to check various positions accros the
width of the plotter.
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- Remove dust cover ( 2 screws).
- Remove pen tray carrier.
- Power up plotter; when the self-test sequence reaches the point where all yellow
indicator lights are on, press and hold the plotter's ALT and RESET keys simultaneously to
enter the diagnostic mode.
- Using the 6 key, move the pen carriage to the right end plate. Press the 0 (slow) key.
Press the 6 key again and "bump" the end plate, confirming that the pen carriage
has reached its extreme limit of travel. The ALT indicator light should be off (the
optical switch is blocked by the position tab on the Y-axis drive belt).
- Press the VIEW key once. The pen carriage should move approximately 1/2 inch to the
left. Adjust the optical switch by loosening the mounting screw and moving the switch back
and forth - holding it to mantain centering the Y-axis drive belt - until the switch is at
the exact point where the ALT indicator light goes on. Tighten the mounting screw and
verify that the switch does not touch the belt on either side.
- Test the adjustment by moving the pen carriage into the end plate with the 6 key (ALT
indicator is off); then press the VIEW key. If the ALT light is on, press the 4 key one
step at a time; the light should go off in four or fewer steps. If not, readjust the
position of the limit switch.
If you cannot adjust the optical switch to within four steps of either arrow key (with
plotter in slow mode, see step 4), do not attempt to bend the bracket switch to adjust
further. Adjust as close as possible, then exit the test mode by pressing the RESET key or
turning the power off and back on. Then, test the multi-pen operation by installing the
pen tray carrier and requesting pen changes. If the pen carriage does not line up properly
with the pen stalls, further repair will have to be made. You should contact one of our Sign Cutter Service Centers for
repairs.
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- Check the set screws on the gritshaft to assure they are tight.
- Check the set screws on the coupling between the motor and the gritshaft.
- Are the chartwheels delaminated, installed backwards or have flat spots on them? When
the media hits a flat spot on a chartwheel, the media slips.
- Are the chartwheels tight? Lock the wheels and tug the media. Can you get it to slip?
- Check the carriage that holds your pen or artpro knife. Does it look cracked?
- Is the pen jaw loose? The plate that holds the pen jaw should be tight.
- Remove the left end plate and check all the set screws on the Y motor.
- Visually inspect the Y axis belt for cracks or damage.
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The easiest way to program the memory of the plotter is by using the Plot Utility Disk.
If you do not have this disk, you may obtain it through one of our Sign Cutter Service Centers or by
downloading it from our Disk Utility
Area.
The following steps should make it possible for you to program your plotter to power up
with the parameters you desire (i.e., HP-GL or DMPL, paper size, speed, etc.)
- Turn on plotter.
- Put plotter on-line by pressing ALT, 6, without pens or paper.
- Insert the Ioline Utility Disk into computer.
- At the DOS prompt, type README <enter>:
The following message will appear on the screen:
Your plotter is now configured to power up with the parameters you have chosen.
Change the degree of offset from 15 degrees to between 20 - 27 degrees in your Host
Disk to improve the cut quality. Sometimes when you change from one software package to
another, offsets need to be adjusted.
This parameter is the amount of "blade offset" or the distance from the tip
of the blade to its center of rotation. The term "mils" refers to .001"
(1/1000 of an inch) units. The blade offset for knife blade from Ioline is marked on the
package in which they are shipped. There are knife blades with two different offset
distances available, 47 mils, and 15 mils.
ALT . n . (ALT dot {number} dot ) where the {number} is the offset distance, to turn
correction on and set the offset distance. The default is set at 15. If the cuts are
not closing, the number should be changed (18 would be a good choice).
If you will be pen plotting, the knife correction must be turned off with the following
key strokes: ALT 0 . 0 . {ALT Zero dot Zero dot).
If you do not know how to make these adjustments, refer to your owner's manual, Section
8.
If the line quality continues to be poor, there may be something mechanical wrong with
your knife assembly. You can contact techsupport@ioline.com
or one of our Sign Cutter Service
Centers for further troubleshooting.
The tension of the spring must be increased. To do this, unscrew the top of the ArtPro
knife and remove the plunger, turning counter clockwise. After removal, stretch the
spring. Stretching the spring gives the knife more tension so the knife responds faster to
picking up the blade off the media.
The plotter default communication setting is 9600 baud, no parity, 8 data
bits, 1 stop bit, and either software (XON/XOFF) or hardware handshake (RTS)
protocol. The plotter is a DTE device, and requires null-modem cabling, with a
DB25P (male) connector at the plotter end. The following is recommended:
