FC7000-75... bad contour cuts on reflective prints

[SignosaurusRex]

I can't get our FC7000-75 to properly contour cut prints on reflective. The registration is consistently off. Either too far left or too far right (Y axxis) anywhere from 1/16" to 1/4" off. Pinch roller positions and pressure are set properly, the tracking is excellent, cut conditions are correct etc. It only happens with reflective media. Anyone having this problem?
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[Replicator]

Did you try contacting the place you purchased the plotter from for help with this issue ?

 

[SignosaurusRex]

Yep. They haven't been able to help so far. Also called Graphtec....they said its probably a Wasatch software issue. That doesn't make sense. Wasatch has'nt seen this problem before and points to the Graphtec. I've only put about 10 hours of use on this plotter myself. Before that it supposedly only had about 5 hours use as a demo.

 

[techsupport]

contour cut

Have you try to do the contour cut with Cutting Master 2 plug in?

 

[SignosaurusRex]

Have you try to do the contour cut with Cutting Master 2 plug in?

: Not Familiar with that. How? What?....
This problem only seems to exist when contour cutting reflective media. Doesn't seem to be a communication issue as much as a registration detection or processing issue.

 

[signage]

Signosaurus try placing some old registration marks from other print cut file over the reflective ones and see if that works.

 

[SignosaurusRex]

Signosaurus try placing some old registration marks from other print cut file over the reflective ones and see if that works.

Thought of that, haven't tried it though. I'm wondering if there is a problem with the plotter, RMS sensor, or what. When contour cutting regular white 30" media, the contours are right on the money everytime at the start and only slightly off at the end (far left side of the media/print). Thats consistent. With reflective, the contour cuts as a group are out of position with the print. There is no constancy with which direction, left or right and how far out they are. Is anyone cutting contours on reflective from Wasatch and having consistent success?

 

[rcboats1]

Try tracing over the marks with a fine point Sharpie Marker. It helped me a few times.

I sure hope you have better luck getting this problem resolved then I did. I ended up getting rid of the Graphtec and buying a Summa. No more problems.

 

[woolly]

on my old graphtec i have to hide the fact it has reflective loaded. by covering the first 2 ins of material with appl tape, once its set up i can remove it.

second, on the 7000 is a heavy paper setting for the sensor, the arms eye goes right down on to the vinyl to read it, it stops refections and keeps the media flat whilst reading the mark.

i would put 2 strips of application tape over the front and rear marks, and pen in the marks which you should be able to just see. also on the 7000 you can tell the arms how far apart the marks are, so whilst finding the marks it ignores any thing in between.

woolly

 

[SignosaurusRex]

So far we've eliminated the possibility of a broken pully at Graphtecs suggestion. We've also reset the plotter to default factory settings. Tomorrow we'll update the firmware from 1.8 to 1.9, load Wasatch software update as well. We have never been able to successfully contour cut reflective media though I was assured before our purchase that it would work. The Graphtec manual does not have reflective media listed as one of the materials that the A.R.M.S. cannot detect printed registration marks on. All previous contour cuts on reflective have been usually something we can cut easily by hand and so in the essence of time we have done so. Now the more complicated or detailed contour cut reflective projects are taking their toll. I'm hopeful that I don't have to resort to replacing the registration marks with a non-reflective overlay each time. I'll run another batch and try the mask with drawn in registration marks for now. @#$%^&*