Contour cutting with Flexi, not printed with flexi

[snewpers]

Hi

I'm absolutely new to the world of cutting. I'm used to send my work to a print and cut company (in illustrator) but lately it takes forever to get things cut with them, plus they upped the charge for cutting a lot. I've used this company for a pretty long time because they used to print and cut fast and for a reasonable charge. If I can cut my self I am also able to choose another printing company. Bonus!
I usually 'box' my designs with a 0.5pt border. This because I want to check if the dimensions I handed them are the same

My main question is this:
Can I have a company print a (as example) 8x8" design, that is boxed/bordered with a 10x10" 0.5pt line and manually set the position of the cutter to the corners of the box?
I mean, in illustrator, if my design is on a 10x10" art board, and I have a sport color cutting vector (design and box), can I import that as a cutting vector in Flexi?

Can I use the border + vector (10x10") that I would import into Flexi to manually set the 0.0 coordinate? Or do I need to specify print marks in Flexi too (and by that probably increasing the document dimensions). If I have to use the Flexi marks it would not be on the printed vinyl.

Oh man, this sounds complex, but I'm sure you know what I'm trying to do. I've read a few topics here but I'm not sure if I need to set crop marks in Flexi.

Any help would be very very much appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

What are you using to cut. I imagine you could set up and print and cut file in flexi. Send the cut artwork to your printing company and then when you get them back you would be able to cut them.....probably. Provided the print was printed correctly to size....exact. And that your prod. manager hasn't deleted the cut file by the time you get it back from the print shop.


The 0.0 thing might work in theory but there is a lot of lining up you will have to do to get cuts that will be any good. Maybe very small runs.

 

[J Hill Designs]

Ive done it (no opos) since my plotter has 2 independant pinch rollers - its much tougher with plotters that raise all rollers at once. set origin, send just the outer square (to test for alignment, and resize if necessary), then once the square cut is true, send the whole thing.

major PITA.

 

[snewpers]

Thank you, BIG EASY DOES IT

The cutter will probably a Roland Camm1. I'm a bit confused as to why it should be in the production manager?

What I wanted to do is:
1, create the design in an art board of 10x10", with the design being 8x8" or something. The 10x10" box is the reference box for cutting.
2. send the .ai file for printing and make sure the box is also printed (10x10")
3. import the ai file (10x10") into Flexi without any artwork but the rectangle and the contour vector.
4. This part is shady… Send the 10x10" file to the cutter with manual positioning (0.0) and line it up to the printed 10x10" border.

I've run the demo of flexi and I saw you could also scale to fit a design. So if the printed file is 11x12" instead of the 10x10" I would set the dimensions of the cutting area as that and have the design fit into it. Would probably not be dead on, but 'close enough'. I hoped.

I'm really confused as to why I should send the cut file to the prod. manager before the print is returned?!

Thanks!

E.T.A.: Do I need to add marks in Flexi to be able to select manual positioning/dimension setting? I've seen a few vids about ti and they got a message before cutting, so I wonder if that message is always there? The demo can't cut