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Contour cutting black reflective?

SellersSign&Design

SellersSign&Design

New Member
I have printed on black reflective in the past using my Edge and contour cut with the Envision plotter (works great). I’m wanting to try something different now though. I would like to print on 3M 680CR black reflective with my HP L25500 and then contour cut with my Summa plotter. I don’t see any issues with the printing, I print on white 680CR all the time. But I doubt the cutter will pick up the registration marks (even though the Summa system is far superior to anything else I’ve used). Has anyone tried this? I’m thinking maybe I’ll have to print the registration marks on white vinyl and then try to line up and stick them on the black reflective... which doesn’t sound fun. Any other thoughts?
 
letterman7

letterman7

New Member
I haven't tried with my Summa, but I know it's limits. Any small variation in vinyl height will mess with the registration. That said, depending on your design, you may be able to contour cut the registration marks with a large enough margin for the Summa to read as a printed mark. If you are going to laminate it, lam after the cut so that the Summa has "less" to read with where the vinyl has been cut. Let me know how you make out :)
 
A

AKwrapguy

New Member
SellersSign&Design said:
I have printed on black reflective in the past using my Edge and contour cut with the Envision plotter (works great). I’m wanting to try something different now though. I would like to print on 3M 680CR black reflective with my HP L25500 and then contour cut with my Summa plotter. I don’t see any issues with the printing, I print on white 680CR all the time. But I doubt the cutter will pick up the registration marks (even though the Summa system is far superior to anything else I’ve used). Has anyone tried this? I’m thinking maybe I’ll have to print the registration marks on white vinyl and then try to line up and stick them on the black reflective... which doesn’t sound fun. Any other thoughts?
Click to expand...

See if you can select a different type of registration mark. When printing on reflective we use 'bombsite' registration marks with our Graphtec. It uses a 'lazer' to and you manual register targets. See if your plotter as a similar function.
 
#racewraps

#racewraps

@printwithspeed
Have also put something over the crop marks in the past like masking tape and drew them on with a sharpie & straight edge. Kind of a long, painful process but it works in a pinch on a smaller job.
 
S

szpion

New Member
Hi.
I'm doing something like that
https://ibb.co/mesCP8
Printing 1 inch square around the Summa registration marks(You must set registration marks by yourself) then printing registration marks like that on white vinyl and applying them over the printed one on reflective. Adding extra white vinyl stripes on the bottom and right side to protect sensor from blinding it by reflective material(without stripes after reading first mark couldn't read the second one).
With Summa S OPOS Cam don't have this problem anymore but still using the old Summa to.
 
C

clarizeyale

New Member
A friend told me that she doesn't use cut registrations marks as much anymore. Instead, she prints a square on the bottom right of the page and uses that to line up the blade.

Pretty much, that square also has a contour cut around it and if you're lined up properly to the bottom right corner of the square and you have the proper margins (or none???), it should cut everything else in place without the plotter needing to find registration marks.

I would even make another square on the far left side so you can make sure your material is leveled on the plotter.

I haven't done this myself as I've never had this challenge come up but definitely worth trying if printing and cutting on difficult to see material.
 
B

bannertime

Active Member
clarizeyale said:
A friend told me that she doesn't use cut registrations marks as much anymore. Instead, she prints a square on the bottom right of the page and uses that to line up the blade.

Pretty much, that square also has a contour cut around it and if you're lined up properly to the bottom right corner of the square and you have the proper margins (or none???), it should cut everything else in place without the plotter needing to find registration marks.

I would even make another square on the far left side so you can make sure your material is leveled on the plotter.

I haven't done this myself as I've never had this challenge come up but definitely worth trying if printing and cutting on difficult to see material.
Click to expand...

I've done this on my 30in that doesn't have a sensor. It can be accurate enough. When we do it, we do plus signs in each corner. We figured out where to print a dot that we line the blade up for the start point and the rest was just getting the material straight.
 
M

Mike Volpone

Trying to survive in this post-Covid world!!!
SellersSign&Design said:
I have printed on black reflective in the past using my Edge and contour cut with the Envision plotter (works great). I’m wanting to try something different now though. I would like to print on 3M 680CR black reflective with my HP L25500 and then contour cut with my Summa plotter. I don’t see any issues with the printing, I print on white 680CR all the time. But I doubt the cutter will pick up the registration marks (even though the Summa system is far superior to anything else I’ve used). Has anyone tried this? I’m thinking maybe I’ll have to print the registration marks on white vinyl and then try to line up and stick them on the black reflective... which doesn’t sound fun. Any other thoughts?
Click to expand...


I have used 2" masking tape over the printed registration marks on reflective material and redrawn them with a sharpie. It works on my Mimaki...
 
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