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Contour cut off?

I have an odd problem. I am printing, laminating and cutting runs of three of these designs:

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After I laminate, I load them into my enVision to cut, and line it up perfectly, but they come out with the contour off:

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It's not just a simple matter of too far left or right, it is off in several directions. I am not having this issue with other files, and it also happens when I cut this file on my GS15 plus. When I look at the contour line in Flexi it is exactly where it is supposed to be. Suggestions???
 

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I tried moving the bomb sight down and to the left just slightly on the next run. The first scramble cut almost perfectly, but then it gets progressively further off on the second and third one... this is blowing my mind. A sprocket fed plotter should either be off or not, it shouldn't get worse further down the run?
 

styleyouneed

New Member
try printing one straight and cut it. It looks like you are doing them angled to save material. When things are on angles if its off a little at one spot it can be off a lot at another. We see this with setting up angel design on press for screen printing.
 

ChrisN

New Member
Try printing targets at both ends or 4 corners. A few additional points of registration (especially at the opposite end) might take care of that. I know you can do that with Composer, but I'm not sure about Flexi.
 
I am still having the same problem even after turning the design straight. I see an option for four point registration marks in flexi, but I don't see how this would work with the enVision? It cuts based off of one mark after you line it up with the bomb sight, so how do you line it up with 4 marks?
 

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
I can't help you on this one but we had similar problems with the print cut on Roland printers. We learned to beef up the outline so those cut registration problems weren't as visible. If the black outline was twice as thick it would be a lot less noticeable.
 
I can't help you on this one but we had similar problems with the print cut on Roland printers. We learned to beef up the outline so those cut registration problems weren't as visible. If the black outline was twice as thick it would be a lot less noticeable.

I do have a "bleed" built in so that if it's slightly off it won't be visible. I just don't understand how on the first design the cut will be dead on at the bottom and slightly off at the top, and then by the third one it is completely off on the top and the bottom. The amount the cut is off shouldn't vary on any axis with a sprocket fed plotter- as in if the cut is off by an eighth of an inch at the beginning it should be off by the same amount at the end.
 
To test the problem further I ran the job again, but this time I only did a group of two designs and put 1" square black boxes at each of the four corners of each design. After printing, laminating and cutting the bottom boxes cut accurately and the top boxes were cut too low. When I say bottom and top I am referring to the top of the design being the top, it would be the left side of the material with it loaded in the plotter. So I guess this means that somewhere along the line either the Edge or the enVision aren't calibrated correctly?
 
What if you print on clear and the clear is what will be off?

I can't add another layer, this 280 reflective with laminate is already really thick. It has something to do with this design, because I printed a job with a bunch of 1" black boxes and the contour cut was dead on. So somehow with this one design the contour cut is scaled down from what it should be.
 

ChrisN

New Member
I am still having the same problem even after turning the design straight. I see an option for four point registration marks in flexi, but I don't see how this would work with the enVision? It cuts based off of one mark after you line it up with the bomb sight, so how do you line it up with 4 marks?

I haven't ever done it on purpose, but occasionally, GSPlot will forget the registration mark settings and print 4 marks, each numbered. It tells you to align with the first mark, then hit enter, align with second, enter, and so on. It takes longer to align, but it may fix your cut.
 

jfiscus

Rap Master
Or are you maxed out on height? I would suggest putting a box around all the artwork, but your 4-corner boxes seem to show there is another issue.
I'm betting somewhere the artwork has an error in it, and that is confusing the machine. I assume there is a stray point somewhere causing the issue.
 
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