Dialing in cutting?

[FlorenceC]

Good Morning Folks,
I am wondering if anyone has tips as far as how best to dial in the cutter settings to allow vinyl cutting to be more accurate at sizes 1cm or smaller? I am repeatedly coming away with mushy and/or incomplete corners. The font 50pt Arial, but is somewhat non-negotiable with the client. The attached photo is me testing on some offcuts that are a tad thicker than the final material I plan to run; I just have limited stock and don't want to waste it.

So far, I've dropped the cutting speed to 2, tried cutting with both 'Arc' and 'Straight' approximation types with no major improvement between the two.

ETA: I am running a CJV30-160

 

[Gino]

That looks terrible. Your entire letters are all boogered up. It appears you are using illy, but it looks more like some dumb piece of software. What happens if you print it out ?? Are the ends still not meeting ?? Rounded straights ?? Incomplete inner and outer corners ??

 

[Solventinkjet]

It looks like your blade offset setting is not correct and/or your blade is sticking out too far. I would get a 60 degree blade, Mimaki part number SPB-0003, and make sure the offset setting is correct. That should clear up the cut for smaller details. You probably have the 45 degree blade which is more general purpose whereas the 60 degree blade is made for finer details.

 

[FlorenceC]

It's just plain Arial in Illustrator, and I'm using Finecut 9 to export. Have tried both cutlines as curves and fonts. Prints are relatively fine (another bugbear I have at the moment, but will address separately), but this is vinyl only. The ends don't meet. Corners don't match up cleanly. It also doesn't always start and end in a corner - sometimes it'll start at the top or bottom of a curve and *just.not.finish*

At larger scale it's less of an issue because at least i can go back over it with an xacto, but this is pretty fine and noticable.

 

[Solventinkjet]

It's just plain Arial in Illustrator, and I'm using Finecut 9 to export. Have tried both cutlines as curves and fonts. Prints are relatively fine (another bugbear I have at the moment, but will address separately), but this is vinyl only. The ends don't meet. Corners don't match up cleanly. It also doesn't always start and end in a corner - sometimes it'll start at the top or bottom of a curve and *just.not.finish*

At larger scale it's less of an issue because at least i can go back over it with an xacto, but this is pretty fine and noticable.

Those are all signs of improper offset setting and/or the blade is too far out. What's the offset setting set to right now?

 

[FlorenceC]

Currently 0.15, marginal/no improvement at 0.00. Had previously tinkered at 0.2-0.25 and it was slightly worse then.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Currently 0.15, marginal/no improvement at 0.00. Had previously tinkered at 0.2-0.25 and it was slightly worse then.

The offset setting isn't something that needs to be dialed in and is a set number depending on the blade angle. If you are using the 45 degree blade it should be set to 0.3 and if it's the 60 degree blade it should be set to 0.15. If you set it properly and it still doesn't finish corners etc. either it's sticking out too far or the blade might be broken.

 

[FlorenceC]

Thanks, I'll reset the height. I just put in a new blade after starting this thread and it was behaving the same.

 

[Joseph44708]

If this problem just started, change your cutting strip and dial back your blade.