Suprasetter A106 - Diode Failure

[lboyer]

Hello,

I have a Suprasetter A106 that was bought new and has been working well for just over two years now. Just over a week ago we had an error code showing 8 diodes out of 64 are no longer working. Heidelberg went in remotely and tried to reset the error code but it did not work. Heidelberg told us that if some diodes do fail, that efficiency would not be dramatically affected. Prior to the doides failing we were able to push 8 to 10 plates per hour, we are now only able to get 1 plate per hour processed. I don't understand how if 10% of the diodes fail, there is a 90% reduction in production. Heidelberg tells me we need to replace the whole module. We run a small town newspaper and the quoted price for a new module is huge for us. We have a working A105 laser module, Heidelberg says they are not compatible, they haven't given me a straight answer has to how this may have happened and are not giving any other options except to buy a new module. Is this typical of the Suprasetter series? Help! Any info would be very appreciated, thank you.

 

[Kieppie]

I suggest that you look at refurbished module, certainly not as expensive as new from Heidelberg. If you had a maintenance contract this laser module would be under warranty. This is usually longer than three years

 

[ChrisZ]

I would clean the optics first.
Chris

 

[Print Service]

Laser module normally last longer than 3 years. What symptoms are you getting? Take a picture of your laser diode module and send it to me. I have 4 laser diode modules.

 

[Savage]

Well, we have an 10 year old suprasetter, and when the machine was only a few weeks old, we had also a laser diode malfunction (Luckly the machine was still under warranty, and never failed again since then). We also had the speed drastically slowed down. The explanation we got at the time was that the machine speed decrease is directly correlated to how many diodes fail and in wich position on the head. So if you lose diode number 64 you hardly notice the speed decrease, if you lose diode number 1 the machine slows down almost to full stop. We had 1 diode fail, number 3, and each plate took almost 4x longer to burn... Not interely sure about this info, but it was what our dealer explained at the time.
Also, they said at the time that it always needs to be a full head.

Good luck

 

[lboyer]

Thank you for the input. We are now on the service contract so the laser head will be replaced. I will check to see which diodes failed, which could be the reason for the slow processing. Thanks again.