Hi Gjelly,
I'm with Ioline and I'd like to help. First of all, I'm sorry you are having this issue. Have you been in touch with anyone at the factory about the stones not picking up? I'm NOT a tech guy, but I would say there are two possibilities.
First, we would need to know what kind of stones you are running. The CrystalPress II can run many kinds and brands of rhinestones that are not sold by Ioline, but not every kind or brand of rhinestone. Some are just the wrong shape for the cups that hold the stones. Now, if you got the stones from Ioline, that's clearly not the issue, and we need to get with you and get more info to diagnose it more closely.
Regarding the issue of dust, some brands of inexpensive rhinestones are shipped with a lot of manufacturing debris in the bag with the stones. This was the case that caused CCourtney her problem. Though we had built in a filter to deal with dust on the the CrystalPress II, the amount of dust we were encountering in the field was much worse than what we found in our testing in-house, so we have added an improved filtering system since then. If you do not have this update, we need to get that to you. Again, if you DO have the update, get back to us and we will work with you to resolve the problem.
Krusty
Morning Krusty, thanks for your reply.
You asked: "Have you been in touch with anyone at the factory about the stones not picking up?"
My machine was picking up the stones just fine. In my opinion, after it set them on the transfer paper, the sensors were not picking up enough light to tell the machine to get the next stone.
The pick tool kept pushing down on the stone it set, kind of like it did not get the message the stone had been set. It did not matter how many times I pushed the reset button, it would not move on.
Until I removed the stone from the transfer and hit the reset. Then it would move on, get the next stone, set it where it belonged, and start being naughty again.
I talked to the nice tech guys at Ioline and acually, my machine is at Ioline right now getting updated to the newest firmware, filters, etc.
As for the stones, I was running Ioline stones, but thanks for the dust info. I never thought about that, probably because it's so fine we can't really see it. I suppose a blast with some canned air on a new batch would help with that issue. Get the dust off so they will seal to the pickup tool and keep the dust down so the sensors will work at their optimum.
I think the people at Ioline are great. They are always helpful and nice and recognize the frustration experienced when a piece of equipment isn't working as expected. I just figure that any / all the fixes on this machine is going to make their next generation machine and software even better.
That's if for now. I need to get to work. Thanks again for your reply.
G.