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jjowens
02-10-2007, 03:15 PM
I've had my Sears unit for about 2 weeks and have successfully carved several projects with few problems. Any problems encountered have been covered in the forum and easily fixed. However, when carving a project, the LCD unit will occasionally go blank after about an hour of carving. The unit continues and successfully finishes the project, and the LCD has always come back on okay after shutting down the machine and re-starting. However, I don't want this to continue. Any ideas as to what may be happening and how to fix it?

The Bard
02-10-2007, 04:32 PM
put the machine on its back.

undo the 12 screws adn take off the bottom panel

the controller is the black box, the power supply is the yellow board above it. unplug the machine and reseat the plugs on them.

most likely it's just a loose cable/wire/

jjowens
02-20-2007, 02:19 PM
Thanks, Bard. I did what you suggested. Everything looked good, all connections tight. Put it all back together and did another project. The LCD did not go blank this time, but I did do things a little differently this time. I made a vacuum attachment and opened the cover several times to check on how that was performing. Don't know if that made a difference, or what you told me to do worked. As the problem has only been intermittent, I'm still not sure it's fixed.

The Bard
02-20-2007, 03:23 PM
if you added a vaccuum you could easily be causing static electricity... especially if you're sticking it in through the top of the machine.

jjowens
05-15-2007, 06:47 PM
Thanks, Bard, for your suggestions. I did open up the bottom of the machine and re-seat that wiring. It all seemed to be connected quite well as it took a bit of doing to un-seat them. Put it all back together and have not had the problem since. As for the vacuum, I use the machine on a Black & Decker portable workbench. I simply took out the middle "leaf", made a new one with a cut-out that fits one of the attachments on my shop vacuum, and set the machine on top of that. All the suction comes from the bottom of the machine. It works pretty good, considering I'm using a Shop Smith vac with only about 350 cfm of suction!

I just finished a rather large carving in fine mode. The machine ran without stop for 4 1/2 hours with no problems, and the LCD stayed on the entire time. So, don't really know what caused it. I've had GREAT results with the machine, but I'm having problems with the software. I've posted that in the appropriate place.

Thanks again, and keep up the good work!