Working principle and common fault analysis of ULTRE series laser imagesetter

- Mar 08, 2019-

Working principle and common fault analysis of ULTRE series laser imagesetter

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ULTRE is the world's leading manufacturer of laser imagesetter movements, and it is also an important production base for small-area (eight-open, four-open) winch-type semiconductor laser imagesetters in the world. The 72P/E and 94P/E series imagesetters produced by the company are light in weight, easy to operate, low in failure rate and simple in maintenance. It has a large market in Europe, America and Southeast Asia. There are also hundreds of machines in China, and if there are domestically, there are nearly a thousand similar machines. Therefore, it is necessary to make a brief analysis of the working principle and common faults of such machines for reference by such users.


First, the mechanical optical structure


1. Film drive


The precision stepper motor transmits the drive to the drive roller through a special worm gear, and the film is fed from the film cassette to the cassette under the cooperation of the pressure roller. And realize the Y-direction feed of scanning, as shown in Figure 1. Because this drive is similar to a winch conveyor. Therefore, such machines are called winch imagesetters. It can be seen from the transmission principle that the transmission accuracy of such machines depends, in theory, only on the accuracy of the stepping motor, the worm gear, and the driving roller. However, in order to ensure a certain roughness and not scratch the film, the driving roller and the pressure roller are all rubber rollers, which complicates the factors affecting the transmission accuracy. In addition to the above factors, the pressure of the pressure roller, the resistance of the supply and the cassette will affect the transmission accuracy, which is the main reason for the poor accuracy and instability of the winch type than the drum machine. However, domestic and foreign manufacturers still make many beneficial attempts to improve the repeatability of such machines, such as increasing the CQR, changing the structure of the supply and receiving boxes, changing the material of the driving roller and the pressure roller, and increasing the detection and coding mechanism. Can meet the requirements of medium and high-end color separation film output.


2. Optical scanning


An ultra-precision DC rotating motor rotating at 5100RPM (E-type machine for 10200RPM) drives the five-sided prism to rotate, realize optical spotting, and realize video elements in the X direction. Therefore, such machines are also called mirror-type imagesetters. The quality of the X-direction scan depends on the accuracy of the rotating motor and a sensor called SOL (START OF LINE); the quality of the image depends on the laser collimator, the Fθ lens and the focus.


Second, the principle of electrical appliances


With the Z80CPU as the core, the PROM stores the main program. In addition to controlling the rotary motor, stepper motor and laser drive, the program also completes the following functions: 1. Power-on reset and power-on fault diagnosis; 2. Serial communication and Serial command interpretation and execution: The computer can perform various control such as resolution, laser intensity, filming, slicing, fault diagnosis, etc. by serial command; 3. Low voltage alarm: system voltage +5V, ±15V, + Any voltage of 13V, +24V will be reported incorrectly; 4. Optical path error alarm: laser tube is broken, SOL sensor is bad, card, light path is blocked, etc. may cause such alarm; 5. Recoverable fault alarm: no film , no cassette, blocking alarm; 6. Switching order command interpretation and execution: machine self-test, SOL debugging, laser debugging, fault query, etc. all send commands through the switch row, commonly used switch row command as shown in Figure 4; State feedback after command: The status feedback is displayed through the LED tube row. The meaning of common LEDs is shown in Figure 5. The EEPROM records some variable parameters such as stepper motor, rotary motor correction value, laser current multiplication factor, version number, and so on. Common switch row definition (1=“ON”, 0=“OFF”) Switch 8-6 select “Mode” Switch 4-1 select “Resolution”


 876 switch            Switch meaning                     4321 switch                  Resolution (DPI)


 000                            Idle                                       0000                               1200

 010                       Diagnosis method                     0001                                800

 011                       Programming mode                  0010                                600

 100                   Continuous scale self-test             0110                               1000

 101                       Page scale self test                    0111                               2400

 110                    Continuous tone self-test             1000                               3000

 111                      Page color self-test                     1110                            User defined


Common LED row definition


 8-digit LED light        The meaning of the switch                                    The meaning of the switch

                                    row value = 000000000                                           row value = 00000101


 8 lights                   READY ready light, indicating                                          No cassette

                                 that the machine is ready

 7 lights             PRINT print light indicating that the print                             State timeout failure

                              operation is currently in progress

 6 lights             VSYNC goes through the light, indicating                          VSYNC timeout failure        

                             that the machine is taking the film

 5 lights        VSYNC timeout light indicating vertical sync timeout error      Power-on diagnostic fault


 4 lights    Optical path error light, indicating that the optical path is faulty      Optical path error


 3 lights            Status timeout light, indicating that the machine        Power supply low voltage fault            

                               accepts the command error

 2 lights          Controller power-on indicator, indicating                                      Film jam        

                          that the computer has been powered

 1 light          Fault indicator, indicating that the machine is faulty                    Run out of film


Third, the interface principle


The interface is designed for CANON LBP-CX and ULTRE dedicated modes. The CANON LBP-CX mode is suitable for low-resolution printing, in which the imagesetter prints continuously on a page-by-page basis. Unlike the CANON standard mode, the PRINT* signal remains low until the entire page is printed. The ULTRE dedicated mode is suitable for high resolution printing. In this mode, the imagesetter can be started and stopped, and a vertical sync VSYNC* signal (control strip) should be generated on each falling edge of the BD pulse. This signal should be maintained at least. 0.5ms, its timing is shown in Figure 6.


Fourth, common fault analysis


General: The laser imagesetter is a high-precision machine, light and electricity integrated equipment. In order to ensure its normal operation, the machine should be placed in a relatively spacious and dust-free environment, room temperature 20-25 ° C, air relative humidity does not exceed 85%, With AC purification power supply (due to inductive load, do not connect low-capacity UPS), and ensure that the imagesetter and the connected computer are in good condition, and can not be plugged in any cables or plugs. A few points: For the convenience of description, "/" is separated by one of the possible factors; for reasons of space, only the cause of the fault is listed; the electrical part is difficult to describe clearly due to the number of components of the main control board, please Contact the domestic production and maintenance manufacturer - "Foreground Computer Technology Engineering Company".


1. Mechanical optical failure


Phenomenon 1: The hair is normal, the film image is compressed in the direction of the film (Y direction) / the film Y direction is not moving or the size of the two sides is not equal / the film is inclined.

Cause: The drive roller and turbine coupling are loose / the pressure on both sides of the pressure roller is not equal or insufficient / the cassette is not smooth / the inlet of the cassette is not smooth or full.


Phenomenon 2: film jam or card

Cause: The cutter has not been returned. The position of the JAM bezel and the drive roller is wrong. The film path is not smooth/the cassette is full.


Phenomenon 3: The discharged film is all white or partially white.

Cause: The optical channel is not matched by the F/Lθ lens dirty/film sensitivity wavelength.


Phenomenon 4: The picture is confusing.

Cause: The laser current is too large / the focus is not right / the filter is not selected


Phenomenon 5: Vertical lines are not straight or trembling

Reason: SOL is not adjusted well / Rotating motor is bad / Main control board is faulty Phenomenon 6: "Optical path error" alarm

Reason: Laser tube is broken / SOL is not adjusted or bad / optical path is blocked / film is blocked / main control board is faulty


2. Electrical failure


Phenomenon 1: Insufficient blackness

Cause: The external laser knob R49 is not adjusted at the minimum position/internal laser knobs R59, R63. The filter is not correct / the laser is broken.


Phenomenon 2: The picture is normal, but there is a background or tail

Reason: Modulation tube Q15 bad / R119 potentiometer value is not suitable


Phenomenon 3: Physical left space is too large or too small

Cause: The S1 switch row is not in the proper position


3. Interface failure


Phenomenon 1: Horizontal video primitive compression or amplification

Cause: The horizontal resolution is incorrect, that is, the VDOCLK dot clock is incorrect.


Phenomenon 2: Vertical video primitive compression or amplification

Reason: The vertical resolution is wrong.


Phenomenon 3: Photographer self-test normal, online crash

Cause: The interface card DMA, IRQ, and ADD conflict with other devices. The default DMA=6, IRQ=0D, ADD=100/interface card failure.


Phenomenon 4: The self-checking of the photo-aligning machine is normal, the 286/386/486 computer is on the normal line, and the computer above 586 is discharged.

Cause: If the photo interface card is faulty, the original full-length interface card will be scanned on the high-speed computer for the reason of the scan line, the crash, the photo machine, the "status timeout" or the "vertical synchronization timeout" error. The new short card (RIP) should be replaced. card)

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