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Do you keep your cutter running all day?

Pat Whatley

New Member
i just don't want to take the chance of losing anything due to lightning


Buy a good surge protector, plug a battery backup into that, and plug your stuff in there. Your odds of losing anything on the computer are less than your odds of being in a car wreck trying to get to the shop to turn the stuff off.

Remember, cheap circuit strips are not surge protectors.
 

Sign Works

New Member
One man operation here too and have always turned off cutter & computers when not in use. Graphtec cutter & computer in use for 8 years now without any problems with the daily on/off. Now I did learn the hard way about leaving the main power on at all times on my digital printer so that it can come on every 24 hours to perform a cleaning cycle when not in use.
 

Matt Cuellar

New Member
We leave ours on all the time, but as GraphiXtreme says, we raise our pinch rollers when not in use so we don't flatten them out...

Matt
 

JT

New Member
What do you get from not shutting it off?

Nothing, very little power consumption at best. On or Off, when lightning strikes, it will still smoke your equipment if there is no surge protector involved. If you unplug the equipment, then you will have protection as well.
 

Matt Cuellar

New Member
I don't really think there's an advantage or disadvantage. We keep our ValueJet on all the time too. Most of the time I just forget to shut them off because we use them for customer demos and samples, not production, so they only get used 3 times a week or so, and I found instead of trying to remember to shut them off along with all the other stuff I do, just leave it on and it's seem to be ok.
 

436HENRY

New Member
I always turn both off when not in use but I dont have as much work as some shop for the cutter.
And I always un plug both. Surge protectors will Not protect from lighning. Ever wake up in the middle of the night big storm going on lots of flashes Have to go out and un plug everything. I had lightning hit a storage shed and caught it on fire you want believe the damage it did where it went in the building. a two fore was blown to smiterines. Better to un plug when not there nothing will protect from a strike Henry Goines Merchant Member
 

DRPSignsNGrafix

New Member
Leave ours on all the time, I might shut them off if i think of it when I go to leave the shop. Other wise it's left on. That's plotter, computer, and printer. 90% of the time the stereo too.
 

Jackpine

New Member
On when I am working, off when I'm not.
When you take the vinyl out of the cutter, isn't the pinch rollers up?
Never had a problem having the pinch rollers down without using the cutter.
 

B Snyder

New Member
I turn my cutters and Edge2 on and off all day. I'd guess that on the average day I power on my Graphtec FC5100 10-15 times. I've always done this and never had any problems. I've been doing this with my cutters for 10 years.
I also turn my computers off when I leave at the end of the day.
 

David Wright

New Member
My Summa now has a fault in the switch which sometimes does not allow it to power on when I turn it on. Summa could fix it for good bucks plus shipping or send me the part to fend for myself.
So now I just leave it on all the time.
 

GK

New Member
cant turn it off when its running all day =P but the other ones we only turn on when in use.
 

Marie

New Member
If I am not going to use the plotter within the next thirty minutes or so, I turn them off. The noise they make when idle (even though it is low) starts to bug me after a few minutes - but, I LOVE the sound of them running!!
 

JERHEMI

New Member
I leave all the computers running which are on battery backups and surge protectors. Also with a network connecting them all together it doesn't make sense to turn one of because then if their is information on that particular computer you need it cannot be accessed through the network. All the computers are setup to hibernate after 10 minutes and save energy as well. Computers nowadays don't need to be shutdown everyday...they only need to be rebooted when needed for automatic updates and such which the computer will tell you when to do it if you have everything configured correctly. Plotters and printers get turned off though every night.
 
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