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Expert 24 and a rubber band to the rescue

7K views 67 replies 12 participants last post by  hi-nrg-joe 
#1 · (Edited)
205 shirts and 8 3' x 5' banners due out by the end of the week and the latch breaks on the blade holder housing.... :mad:

One rubber band later, back in business. :D



Replacement carriage is being shipped out over night from GCC tomorrow under warranty coverage. Upcharge for the overnight shipping.

Hopefully the rubber band holds and it gets here on time.
 
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#5 ·
Seems they replace the entire carriage head. $244 plus $85 for overnight freight.

Warranty covers all but the up charge for overnight shipping.

I have redundant equipment. Three more rubber bands waiting in the wings. :)

And an SX-12 that can actually handle the shirt designs but quite a bit slower.
 
#8 ·
just spoke to gcc, My cutter is no longer in warranty as it was purchased by imprintables warehouse over a year and half ago, The warranty date is the date Imprintables purchased date not the date that i made my purchase... Spoke to imprintable's to someone named Zach hes gonna email gcc to find out what needs to be done to get this part replaced for me.
 
#13 ·
Is Imprintables a GCC dealer or just a reseller. If they are a dealer your receipt should work but if they are a reseller then you will need to work it out with them. They should send you the part no matter how it works out.
 
#16 ·
Update: Just got a voicemail from Zach, There still awaiting gcc to contact them regarding the warranty issue but they will be sending me a replacement part for my machine at no charge...there currently awaiting additional info to find out the part number but i will not be required to pay for the replacement carriage assembly.
 
#18 ·
Wait, what broke? The small latch that holds the blade? That is $150?

If that's true that's crazy, it's just a small piece of plastic. Unless you're taking about the entire cut head.

I will have to keep an eye out on my Expert and be careful loading blades. I also bought from Imprintables.com and a bit worried until you said they are taking care of it. They took care of me when I made my order and would like to use them on future orders.

With all your orders for this week alone it sounds like you could get a backup machine pretty easily.
I would if I was as making as many as you are.

Good luck

PS

Any other pictures since I'm trying to figure out what broke? I'm on my phone here and it looks like it's just the blade door.

I actually was expecting to see a picture of a rubberband acting as the belt lol.
 
#22 ·
Wait, what broke? The small latch that holds the blade? That is $150?

If that's true that's crazy, it's just a small piece of plastic. Unless you're taking about the entire cut head.
GCC told me the only way to fix the broken latch was replacing the entire cutting head. The only piece reused was the square plastic cover. Quoted cost was $244 and covered under warranty.

IMHO the blade housing could be installed with a simple pin for the hinge point and be a $4 or $5 dollar part max....

to Jbanuelos85:
Be sure to mount the new carrier in exactly the same spot on the drive belt where the old one is mounted. I didn't and had another weeks worth of pain until I discovered the problem while on the phone with a GCC tech. :(
 
#19 ·
yup the small little latch that holds the blade in broke, I started noticing that my cuts were very sloppy and while watching the machine cut i could see the blade moving alot and not being secured, when i went to check the blade holder i noticed the little latch had snapped loose. The problem is that there unable to replace just that littl latch they need to replace the whole unit holding that part on it.

I will probably be looking for a back up machine in the near future but would rather save up to have this become my backup machine. Really trying to get a roland gx-24
 
#20 ·
I see. Too bad they didn't design it so the latch could just be swapped out instead of the entire head. Some people when they design something like that would make it possible to replace only the broken part.

You should go for that Roland soon and use the expert as a backup.

Maybe it's parts are easier to swap without swapping entire assemblies.Either way you could use a backup.
 
#21 ·
I would recommend Graphtec or roland. I have only had to fix 1 Graphtec (was 8yrs old ,the button wore out). Roland's I haven't had to fix yet. GCC's are not bad cutters But for $500 its the best entry level cutter out there. The PUMA 3 and jaguar are great cutters from GCC.
 
#26 ·
The Expert Pro has a servo motor, 400g downforce, LCD display, and no optical eye. The LX has a stepper motor, 250g downforce, no LCD display (uses VLCD), and an optical eye.

There are other features that go along with the LCD display which include more specific settings controls and such as well.

It's actually easier to think of the LX as just an Expert 24 with an added optical eye and the Expert Pro is identical to the Puma III without the optical eye.
 
#27 ·
Just spoke to Zach, They ordered the replacement part for my machine today and will be shipped out tomorrow, Should be here early next week..As for the warranty issue the director for Imprintables warehouse is going to speak to GCC as the warranty should not work the way GCC is claiming it does. Hopefully the warranty issue will be fixed but in the meantime imprintables will cover the remainder of the warranty.
 
#31 ·
Update:

Got my replacement part today in the mail, Took about 10 minutes to install, Most of which was just making sure i didn't accidently pull any wires loose.

Once installed i was getting a buzzing noise when the unit made it to the far right hand side, loosened up the top of the unit and that fixed the issue, I guess i had the top too low.

All is working well and did a few test cuts with no problem.
 
#32 · (Edited)
Got my replacement part today in the mail, Took about 10 minutes to install, Most of which was just making sure i didn't accidently pull any wires loose.

Once installed i was getting a buzzing noise when the unit made it to the far right hand side, loosened up the top of the unit and that fixed the issue, I guess i had the top too low.
Was that the carrier head you replaced?

If you look at the far right side of the cutter (as you face the cutter) you will see a very small momentary push button switch in the path the cutter head travels. It's very small, black and is mounted close to the guide track on the vertical surface.

When you turn the cutter on the cutting head travels to the far right and taps the button then starts the cycle that reads the width of the rollers.

If the head does not tap the switch you get (surprise, surprise) a buzzing sound like the cutter just went crazy.

That's the issue I ran into when I replaced the cutting head on mine and didn't line it up exactly on the drive belt......

I re-aligned the head on the belt and the problem was solved.

Somewhere I've got a video of the head "sticking" and buzzing. Found it.

http://www.corvettepics.net/images/gcc.avi
 
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