CJV150-160 Contour cut problem

[Prairie Portable]

I'm having an issue where my contour cuts are not accurate. I'm using flexi19, I add a contour cut line, rip and print with mimaki type 1 registration marks. The printer prints fine, reads the registration marks without issue and begins a cut. But the accuracy of that cut seems to get worse as things progress. For this particular job I printed 6-18" circular prints, the first row of three were passable in accuracy, although not perfect and the second row was off considerably. I was printing in batches of six at a time, and some batches were worse than others even cutting into the red background. Any ideas on where to start with correcting this. These were designed in Illustrator, moved into Flexi where the contour cut line was added.

 

[ewded]

I guess you print - laminate - cut right? If so slow down your cutting speed. If that doesn't help add only 3 circles and multiply the quantity in rip (this way every 3 will have cut marks and the cutter will read them as the first 3 is finished)

Check if cutting error repeats in y or x axis as well, if it's only one axis make sure cutter is calibrated.
Make sure heater is off when cutting, also make sure there's no residual heat when cutting on the heating element.
Try to cut a batch without lam, is your laminator good enough or does it strech the vinyl?

 

[Prairie Portable]

I guess you print - laminate - cut right? If so slow down your cutting speed. If that doesn't help add only 3 circles and multiply the quantity in rip (this way every 3 will have cut marks and the cutter will read them as the first 3 is finished)

Check if cutting error repeats in y or x axis as well, if it's only one axis make sure cutter is calibrated.
Make sure heater is off when cutting, also make sure there's no residual heat when cutting on the heating element.
Try to cut a batch without lam, is your laminator good enough or does it strech the vinyl?

For the purpose of testing these were actually cut right after printing. They weren’t removed to laminate, so the roll never left the printer. The problem seems to be on the x axis? (feed) as the contour is tight on the bottom edge and wide at the top. I know rasterlink has a print and cut origin adjust feature but I don’t have rasterlink and can’t find anything like that in the flexi19 software.

 

[Bingleardicus]

Have you looked at the pinch rollers to see if they are gummed up, warn down, unevenly spaced?

Have you done the TP adjustment on the printer itself ?

 

[Solventinkjet]

Did you run the PC Origin Offset adjustment from Rasterlink?

 

[Prairie Portable]

I

Did you run the PC Origin Offset adjustment from Rasterlink?

I have not as I don’t have a copy of rasterlink only Flexi. I bought this printer used and the PC settings are currently the ones set up with the previous owner that were written on a sticky note and attached to the printer. What exactly is the tc adjust ? I’ve seen it in the menu but don’t see any info about it in the manual.

 

[ewded]

Your printer can print and cut without cut marks (it "remembers" where the print is if you're not removing print for lamination) obviously this will not give you very much accuracy, are you sure you set up your printer to actually read the cut marks?

If it reads the marks:

Without rasterlink you need to guess the actual value for the compensation > on you printer go to adjust - tp offset - and try different values for X with increments of 2 (try -2,0,+2) it'll take you an afternoon probably but it's doable.

 

[Prairie Portable]

Your printer can print and cut without cut marks (it "remembers" where the print is if you're not removing print for lamination) obviously this will not give you very much accuracy, are you sure you set up your printer to actually read the cut marks?

If it reads the marks:

Without rasterlink you need to guess the actual value for the compensation > on you printer go to adjust - tp offset - and try different values for X with increments of 2 (try -2,0,+2) it'll take you an afternoon probably but it's doable.

printer reads the marks. I’ve compared the mark sizes in Flexi to the settings on the printer and they match. Should I just buy a copy of rasterlink to solve this potential adjustment issue easier. eBay has some activation keys for about $300 for raster6plus. An afternoon of playing with the tc adjust sounds like a lot of wasted material.

 

[ewded]

printer reads the marks. I’ve compared the mark sizes in Flexi to the settings on the printer and they match. Should I just buy a copy of rasterlink to solve this potential adjustment issue easier. eBay has some activation keys for about $300 for raster6plus. An afternoon of playing with the tc adjust sounds like a lot of wasted material.

Well my time is obviously not as valuable as yours

You don't need to waist more that 20 inches of vinyl, just print a column of 10 squares 1x1 inches (thin black border with cut line on top of it so you see if it cuts on the line or not) and repeat until you find the correct value, obviously print the columns next to each other not one under the other (I assume you know how to set the print origin point on your printer)

 

[iPrintStuff]

For the purpose of testing, have you tried printing, cutting the sheet off, then putting it back in (straight), reading the marks and trying a cut.

with our CJV30 I always found it liked that method better than just a print and cut, no idea why.

second the pinch rollers maybe being worn and/or unevenly spaced. (what pressure are they at?) and having a look at the cut speed.

 

[Prairie Portable]

So I ended up downloading rasterlink 6plus for the trial period. Ran the print and cut adjustment test where it prints the 2 rows of pink squares that are numbered and cuts each one. The most accurate row was 0 for both which was what the printer was set to in the beginning. My problem must be with the way my media is feeding and it’s somehow getting moved or skewed.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Run the "Scale Adjust" function in the adjust menu. It will print and cut a bunch of pink boxes again but this time it will feed out a certain amount of material in between each box to simulate a job with multiple rows. You just tell the machine which row lines up the best and it adjusts itself. This adjustment is specifically for repeatable accuracy.

 

[Prairie Portable]

Run the "Scale Adjust" function in the adjust menu. It will print and cut a bunch of pink boxes again but this time it will feed out a certain amount of material in between each box to simulate a job with multiple rows. You just tell the machine which row lines up the best and it adjusts itself. This adjustment is specifically for repeatable accuracy.

So I ran this function and it didn’t print boxes instead it printed two registration marks and measured the distance between them. Anyway, I’m still having issues with the feed direction being off on cuts especially on large length runs. The last few cuts are usually the furthest out. I’ve also noticed my media walks side to side about a half inch in 10+ feet. I set my media edge to the edge on the platen and if I manually feed the material out I can see it start to cross over that line on the platen. I’m not sure how much side to side movement has to do with my issue on the feed axis, but it’s another issue I’ve noticed.

 

[Solventinkjet]

So I ran this function and it didn’t print boxes instead it printed two registration marks and measured the distance between them. Anyway, I’m still having issues with the feed direction being off on cuts especially on large length runs. The last few cuts are usually the furthest out. I’ve also noticed my media walks side to side about a half inch in 10+ feet. I set my media edge to the edge on the platen and if I manually feed the material out I can see it start to cross over that line on the platen. I’m not sure how much side to side movement has to do with my issue on the feed axis, but it’s another issue I’ve noticed.

Go to the back of the machine and look on the left side of the media holder. There is a little lever mechanism that puts tension on the media when you load it and then releases when you are printing. I have seen it happen a lot where the lever is actually out of place (bent) so when you lower the pinch rollers they go down just far enough to trip the sensor that they are down but in reality they are not all the way down which causes the media to skew like that.

 

[Prairie Portable]

Go to the back of the machine and look on the left side of the media holder. There is a little lever mechanism that puts tension on the media when you load it and then releases when you are printing. I have seen it happen a lot where the lever is actually out of place (bent) so when you lower the pinch rollers they go down just far enough to trip the sensor that they are down but in reality they are not all the way down which causes the media to skew like that.

Not the issue. Just did some more contour cuts today and everyone was tossed because it cuts into the print on the bottom side and into the white media on the top side. Not sure what else I can test or adjust.