TAKE UP RIBBON

I work with Zebra printers daily and I have found several ways to enable a stuborn ribbon motor. The S300 is the hardest to turn on but unless the belt has broken or come off it can be done. The S400 and S600 are much easier, below are a couple step that work for me.

Enabling/Disabling the Ribbon motor

• Turn off the printer.
• Disabling the motor – Press the FEED, CANCEL and MODE buttons while turning the printer on. Continue to hold the buttons until the lower two lights go out.
• Enabling the motor – Open the printhead and retract the ribbon completely onto the supply spool. Leave the printhead open. Press the PAUSE, FEED and CANCEL buttons while turning the printer on. Continue to hold the buttons until the lower two lights go out. When the printhead light begins to blink, reinstall the ribbon and close the printhead.
The printer may or may not print out a ribbon sensor profile, this is normal. Cycle the power and you should be good to go.

Here is the manual, hope it helps:

http://www.servopack.de/Files/HB/S400_S600.pdf

reset the ribbon sensor - its in the manual

Make sure the labels are routed correctly. If the vision system does not see the labels, the take-up roller will not spin. In your case, maybe the vision system is not working.

buy a new one

Thanks for Solution 2 and 3... These do not work. After trying 2 and 3 (and I read the instructions from start to finish) it did not re-engage the motor.

So, I went in and took it apart to verify functionality. The motor works because it will spin when a voltage is applied across the terminals of the motor.

I reinstalled the PC board and the motor but I decided to test the voltage across the PINs where the motor connects to the PC Board. Interesting thing is when you expect the motor to take up the Ribbon there is a 24 volt charge across the PINs.

I reinstalled the motor and when that part came up in the test (where verifiable voltage is moving across the power PINs for the motor) it does not turn.

So I know the motor will turn with a 6volt voltage. I know that the PC Board is passing a 24 volt current to the motor. But when the two are married nothing happens.

I'm ready to turn this box into a door stop...