x700 clone with Ruida 6442 controller - intermittent firing issues

[Glenn Clevenger]

I have an x700 clone with a Ruida controller that has been upgraded to a Cloudray 80w power supply and Reci 75w tube. Russ and his videos has been a tremendous help and I now have both a 2" lens with a delrin extension cone for cutting 6mm plywood, and the original 1.5" lens for cutting and engraving acrylic.

Things ran fine after the initial upgrade but as time has gone on (a few weeks) the machine started having issues. Initially it would just stop at random spots in the program. I found that if I hit the reset button on the Ruida panel and then the enter button to continue where I had left off and I could finish my job. But the number of times it would stop and need a reset started to grow and now it is at a point where it rarely works at all.

When I do a power up or reset, the following info is displayed;
RDC-V8.00.47
HMI-V4.01.20

Initially when the problem occurred it would stop and just sit there. But sometimes it starts jumping in the X or Y direction in 10mm increments. If I don't hit reset it will crash into the end of the travel. Even then a reset would fix things and most of the time I could pick up where I left off. Thankfully in 90% of the cases where it went nuts like this the laser would not fire. But one time it did and ruined my piece with a stray 10mm long cut. Fortunately it was cheap material.

Turning off the key switch and/or the laser rocker switch makes all of the problems go away. The Ruida and the XY stage runs perfectly, over and over again and on any program.

I found tonight that most of the time now it won't even fire the laser with the pulse button on the Ruida panel, or with the manual fire button on the Cloudray PS.

When these issues arise, I rarely get any kind of error message or a change in LEDs on the controller. Maybe 10% of the time I get a "water error". The odd thing there is that the water switch is jumpered and has been from the beginning (previous owner bypassed it).

The only other mods to the machine are the addition of a mA meter and a S&A CW-5200 chiller that replaced the original radiator/fan type cooling unit.

Any ideas or suggestions on what to test and in what order to solve this firing problem? Thanks in advance!!

[Philipp Pap]

You could unplug the laser high voltage power supply, usually it's just pulling two connectors and then turn the laser switch on and test. Beware of the high voltage... and I would try to fasten the screws where the power is distributed, again, with plugging the main power first!

[Gene Uselman]

I think the problem could well be a bad connection. Unplug the machine for half an hour and then test all the connections around the controller and power supplies by tugging or tightening the connector screws. The Chinese mfgrs usually use a metal ferrule with an insulated end for these connections. The wires are not soldered into these metal tubes, they rely on the connector screws to crush the ferrule onto the wire. This makes a nice neat connection [which I use a lot of too] but sometimes is not secure.

[Glenn Clevenger]

Thanks for the suggestions. I tightened up the three screws on the three pin power connector to the laser power supply, and the screws (actually the one on each end is not used) on the six pin connector. The four connections are blue wire to L, yellow jumper from P to G, yellow wire from G to somewhere (I assume the Ruida?), and Red wire to IN. The H and 5V pins do not have anything connected. These were the connections to the original power supply and they seemed to match up to what the Cloudray needed, and like I said, it worked for a while this way. If I screwed up here please let me know. I also checked my connections at the laser tube and they were still tight.

Tested the system again. No change.

I also pulled connector CN5 from the Ruida and tightened all the screws. I checked pins 1 and 4 and had continuity indicating that the jumper on the other end is telling the Ruida that there is water pressure.

In some cases, when I try to fire the laser manually with the red button on the power supply or the pulse button on the Ruida, I get "File Error" followed by "Water Error, Work Paused". It doesn't do this very often but I thought I'd mention it.

A bit more info: When I turn on the laser rocker switch and the key switch, the red LED marked "Laser" on the Cloudray lights up dimly and the green LED labeled "L" is brighly lit. When I press the small red button on the Cloudray power supply to manually fire the laser, the red Laser LED gets a little brighter (still not bright) and the yelllow LED labeled "P" lights up. The green LED remains on. Is all of that normal or indicative of a problem in the power supply?

Thanks again to anyone who can offer suggestions!

[Glenn Clevenger]

In studying the wiring diagram in the Ruida manual, I noticed that they do not show the jumper on the laser six pin connector that goes between ground and P (WP). Am I correct that those two pins are the power supply's own water pressure protection loop?

That jumper would seem to be redundant since the Ruida is acting as the watchdog on the water pressure. But since that jumper is there, it seems especially troubling that the laser will not fire when I press the red button on the power supply. Am I wrong or is all of this pointing to a bad power supply?

[Philipp Pap]

The water protect on the laser power supply is indeed shortened in most machines that have a ruida controller, I think it can be used for other controllers.
Did you unplug the two connectors from the laser power supply and test (with the now useless laser switched to on at the side? put the connectors on an insulation material while testing, just to be save!
I don't have leds at the high voltage power supply, so I don't know if this is normal.

[Glenn Clevenger]

I have not done that yet because the spacing between the laser power supply and the 24v power supply doesn't allow me to pull those. I may pull the laser power supply and try that later this evening. If the Ruida and XY motion runs well with those disconnected (I kinda think it will) what will that rule out?

A couple more things to note. LED #9 on the Ruida is in fact on, and when I disconnect the jumper that is mimicking the water switch that LED goes out. So all is rock solid there, yet I occasionally get a water error.

I have measured 23.8v going into the Ruida and have measured 4.9v where there should be 5v. I assume those voltages are within an acceptable range? The one thing that seems a little odd is that the trigger voltage out of CN5 (I can't recall if it was pin 2 or pin 3) measured 3.6v to ground. When I press the pulse button it drops to 0.2v. Is that correct?

I keep coming back to the fact that with the water protect circuit on the laser power supply jumpered, I cannot fire the laser even with the red test button on the laser power supply. But what is puzzling is how the Ruida would know that the laser isn't firing (and stop the XY motion or in some instances go crazy).

[Jeffrey Aley]

I have not done that yet because the spacing between the laser power supply and the 24v power supply doesn't allow me to pull those. I may pull the laser power supply and try that later this evening. If the Ruida and XY motion runs well with those disconnected (I kinda think it will) what will that rule out?

A couple more things to note. LED #9 on the Ruida is in fact on, and when I disconnect the jumper that is mimicking the water switch that LED goes out. So all is rock solid there, yet I occasionally get a water error.

I have measured 23.8v going into the Ruida and have measured 4.9v where there should be 5v. I assume those voltages are within an acceptable range? The one thing that seems a little odd is that the trigger voltage out of CN5 (I can't recall if it was pin 2 or pin 3) measured 3.6v to ground. When I press the pulse button it drops to 0.2v. Is that correct?

I keep coming back to the fact that with the water protect circuit on the laser power supply jumpered, I cannot fire the laser even with the red test button on the laser power supply. But what is puzzling is how the Ruida would know that the laser isn't firing (and stop the XY motion or in some instances go crazy).

1. If the Ruida works when the Laser power supply is removed, then the Ruida is most likely not defective and does not need to be replaced.
2. Regarding the water protect error - I'd be very interested to see if you get such errors when the HV supply is disconnected. I suspect you won't.
3. 23.8V and 4.9V should be fine.

Do you have a photo of how the HV supply is connected? Do you have a schematic from Cloudray?

[Glenn Clevenger]

Making some progress...

I pulled the laser power supply just now and unplugged both connectors. Fired up the machine and it runs perfectly (except that it obviously doesn't fire the laser). I would have thought that if there was a PS failure that this would be the behavior but either the Cloudray is corrupting the Ruida or the wiring in between has an issue that I haven't discovered yet.

With the connectors unplugged, I measured the voltage at CN5 pin2. It was 4.4 volts at idle instead of 3.6 volts. Would it be expected for the Cloudray to draw that voltage down? When the pulse button on the Ruida is pressed it drops to the same 0.2 volts.

Wiring is as follows;

Ruida CN5 pin 1 (GND) goes to G&P on the Cloudray PS and to the water switch (which is still a jumper at this point)
Ruida CN5 pin 2 (L-On1) goes to L on Cloudray PS
Ruida CN5 pin 3 (LPWM1) goes to IN on Cloudray PS
Ruida CN5 pin 4 (WS1) goes to other terminal of the water switch

I connected just the AC connector to the Cloudray and pressed the red button on the Cloudray. It fired once or twice and then stopped. Does the jumper between G & P have to be there for the red button the Cloudray to fire the laser?

[Jeffrey Aley]

Can you please show the documentation for your Cloudray supply? I'm having trouble accessing their website to look it up. As a result, I have no idea what connection is represented by "G" or "P".

Thanks!