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Contour cuts off , over 30 inches goes in the trash...

autoexebat

autoexebat

New Member
I've been dealing with this for a long time and I still haven't figured this out.

I'm starting to do big print job for a company out of Canada , I'm printing big UTV Graphics and nested the sheets at 50 inches long , just because some of the panels are huge. I did a big bleed on them and still the cuts are off so bad I have to toss the whole thing in the trash. The printer is a 30 inch printer and I print 25x (50 in this case) 15 mil lamination .

Yes , I also have all new pinch rollers too and use the center ones , so in total 4 .

This has been going on with big prints since 2013 when I got the printer , but I figured I'd ask here to see what others may suggest.

Not sure if it's the weight of the material ? If I set it to do the cuts on a 30 inch part its iffy but that seems to be my MAX . 25 inches long I can do it all day long .

Thanks.
Roland VS 300i
Brand new pinch rollers , it's been doing it since brand new .
 
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L

LearningTheProfession

New Member
We had a similar problem about 2 months ago, and the solution was to upgrade to Windows 10. We were previously running Windows 7 and CutServer started acting weird, I believe it had to do with outdated drivers that they had no interest in updating. As soon as we upgraded to Windows 10, we had no problems.

Hope it helps.
 
autoexebat

autoexebat

New Member
LearningTheProfession said:
We had a similar problem about 2 months ago, and the solution was to upgrade to Windows 10. We were previously running Windows 7 and CutServer started acting weird, I believe it had to do with outdated drivers that they had no interest in updating. As soon as we upgraded to Windows 10, we had no problems.

Hope it helps.
Click to expand...

Wow you're only 5 miles from me , What type of material are you using ?
 
rjssigns

rjssigns

Active Member
autoexebat said:
I've been dealing with this for a long time and I still haven't figured this out.

I'm starting to do big print job for a company out of Canada , I'm printing big UTV Graphics and nested the sheets at 50 inches long , just because some of the panels are huge. I did a big bleed on them and still the cuts are off so bad I have to toss the whole thing in the trash. The printer is a 30 inch printer and I print 25x (50 in this case) 15 mil lamination .

Yes , I also have all new pinch rollers too and use the center ones , so in total 4 .

This has been going on with big prints since 2013 when I got the printer , but I figured I'd ask here to see what others may suggest.

Not sure if it's the weight of the material ? If I set it to do the cuts on a 30 inch part its iffy but that seems to be my MAX . 25 inches long I can do it all day long .

Thanks.
Roland VS 300i
Brand new pinch rollers , it's been doing it since brand new .
Click to expand...


Been there done that with my SP540V. Ruining 30" of material was child's play compared to the prints mine ate. I worked on it diligently, replacing rollers, cleaning grit rolls, adjusting nip tension, alignment, shimming etc... Hours turned into days of tweaking and experimenting.
Got better but still not good enough for the jobs I was doing.

To be clear: Once I had the Roland dialed it was very accurate on short runs. Exceed four feet and you had a 50/50 shot.

One call to Phil at Airmark and a new Summa was delivered. Boom! Done worrying if the Roland would "eat" the print. Load and walk away. Hard to put a price on how relaxed the shop got with a plotter that did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Roland printed great over long spans. Just couldn't track the same distance. Punched out a lot of semi trailer graphics with the Roland printing and Summa cutting.

If you don't want a Summa buy a Graphtec. Either way spend the money and buy a good plotter, not some janky rig no one has heard about. I guarantee your stress level will go down.
 
autoexebat

autoexebat

New Member
rjssigns said:
Been there done that with my SP540V. Ruining 30" of material was child's play compared to the prints mine ate. I worked on it diligently, replacing rollers, cleaning grit rolls, adjusting nip tension, alignment, shimming etc... Hours turned into days of tweaking and experimenting.
Got better but still not good enough for the jobs I was doing.

To be clear: Once I had the Roland dialed it was very accurate on short runs. Exceed four feet and you had a 50/50 shot.

One call to Phil at Airmark and a new Summa was delivered. Boom! Done worrying if the Roland would "eat" the print. Load and walk away. Hard to put a price on how relaxed the shop got with a plotter that did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Roland printed great over long spans. Just couldn't track the same distance. Punched out a lot of semi trailer graphics with the Roland printing and Summa cutting.

If you don't want a Summa buy a Graphtec. Either way spend the money and buy a good plotter, not some janky rig no one has heard about. I guarantee your stress level will go down.
Click to expand...


Issue is I need the HEAT to do my cutting .. When cutting 15 mil lamination you really need that extra heat to soften it up , it really makes it easier to cut . I had a Roland GX-300 that I sold as it couldn't handle the material. So unless they make a heated plotter then that is out of the question .
 
rjssigns

rjssigns

Active Member
autoexebat said:
Issue is I need the HEAT to do my cutting .. When cutting 15 mil lamination you really need that extra heat to soften it up , it really makes it easier to cut . I had a Roland GX-300 that I sold as it couldn't handle the material. So unless they make a heated plotter then that is out of the question .
Click to expand...

No such thing as a heater plotter. In fact you're the only one claiming it's necessary. Good luck, I'm out.
 
autoexebat

autoexebat

New Member
rjssigns said:
No such thing as a heater plotter. In fact you're the only one claiming it's necessary. Good luck, I'm out.
Click to expand...

I'm cutting 6 mil print material and 15 mil lamination on top of that... I seriously doubt your standard plotter would cut it. If you call Substance ( who makes the material ) they actually tell you to use the heat on the printer for cutting.
 
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J

jwlllpl

New Member
I keep this in my arsenal for reference and newbies. It may help others. We cut laminated reflective, sandblast, magnetic and laminated floor graphics. We do have extra rollers on one of our Graphtec plotters (60 blade) to help with the thicker materials.
 

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autoexebat

autoexebat

New Member
jwlllpl said:
I keep this in my arsenal for reference and newbies. It may help others. We cut laminated reflective, sandblast, magnetic and laminated floor graphics. We do have extra rollers on one of our Graphtec plotters (60 blade) to help with the thicker materials.
Click to expand...

Good info , I was always wanting to try 2 or 3 cut passes but I never figured out how much pressure to use. I'm currently at 150 pressure and if I use that for 2 passes it will go right through the material.
 
J

jwlllpl

New Member
I only use two passes for magnetic. Mostly to save on the blade. Everything else plots fine without double pass using 60 blade. I test cut at what I think and then adjust from there. One other little tip is that I tape the platen so the mag glides over it easier. Not really helpful in your situation but may help someone else.
 
J

jwlllpl

New Member
Sorry...should of specified...I use a half inch square that I draw as a test not the test cut that comes with the software. I like half inch square because it is small and accurate.
 
J

jeffkics

Sign Says
I have print cut 52"x12' on my 12yr old SP540 with not much waver. The way I do it is to panel the cuts into 10-13" sections at a time.

Heres the process for versaworks

For the print
1. make sure you export all items in a file. Do not use copies option in versaworks, or something much smaller than the material will panel to because it will want to rotate your file then.
2. goto clip and tile and number of tiles - horizontal - and make it between 10 and 12" however many panels that comes out to
3. goto layout, tile spacing set to 0, then orientation should be the one on the right, with the R set 90deg clockwise, when you do this you should see the print line up in the preview correctly all panels in their right spot.
4. go ahead and print with crop marks

for the cut
1. make sure your laminate didn't stretch the material, so just be careful there to put it on with just enough pressure.
2. use all the pinch rollers and make sure they are straight.
3. make sure the material will go all the way to the floor and back during the crop mark sensor reading without hitting anything, or bumping into stuff.
4. turn off the heat during cutting, either directly on the printer or in the printer controls/heating
5. use just enough pressure to cut the material, also turn down the speed and upspeed to 5-10
6. watch the crop mark sensor readings and watch how the material is tracking. If there is any deviation just start over.
7. watch the first panel or if you can tell by the first few cuts it makes that if it is off just stop it and try again. better to have a few little cuts here that are off you can trim later. If it never seems to line up, I have found that unplugging the machine waiting 30 sec and restart it works then. No idea why. Also I never use the environment setup.

Thats it, its not perfect but very acceptable. The bleed helps. I have done whole sides of dump trucks printed and cut.
 
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