FC8600 Calibration

[JonMiller]

Hi Gang,

Are there any guides or things to try in order to get the best performance and accuracy out of the cutter?
I have tried various settings and sensor level/reg test etc but just cannot seem to get it to contour cut accurately.

I have added this to my existing print&cut machine in order to speed things up but so far all I have done is given myself a headache..

It seems a rather advanced piece of gear for a cutter compared to the built in cutter feature on my printer so I am hoping it is just something I am doing / not doing and that I can get it up and running soon.

Any advice or links to guides appreciated.



Kind Regards,

Jon

 

[LittleSnakey]

We had the same problem
here is how we fixed it !!!!!

Hi Gang,

Are there any guides or things to try in order to get the best performance and accuracy out of the cutter?
I have tried various settings and sensor level/reg test etc but just cannot seem to get it to contour cut accurately.

I have added this to my existing print&cut machine in order to speed things up but so far all I have done is given myself a headache..

It seems a rather advanced piece of gear for a cutter compared to the built in cutter feature on my printer so I am hoping it is just something I am doing / not doing and that I can get it up and running soon.

Any advice or links to guides appreciated.



Kind Regards,

Jon

 

[JonMiller]

Haha...

Was hoping there weren't going to being any responses like that.

What model Summa do you get out of interest?

 

[LittleSnakey]

S-140D
Was scary buying after all the trouble we had with the graphtec, but summa guaranteed that it would find the contour cut marks and it did!
I fought with the graphtec for almost 2 monthes before we sent it back to Garston and bought the summa from Drew.

Sometimes the graphtec would work, sometimes it wouldnt. It didn't save us any time. The summa did cost more though but does work.


Sorry I cant help you dial your cutter in, there are many people on here that use the the graphtecs with no problems maybe they can help you.

Haha...

Was hoping there weren't going to being any responses like that.

What model Summa do you get out of interest?

 

[JonMiller]

No problem, I'm sure it is just something I am doing or not doing.. Either way though it sure is frustrating not being able to use it.

When you say sent it back, was this using consumer rights and getting a full refund or did you get a partial refund/exchange towards the Summa?

 

[LittleSnakey]

Yes we were refunded most of our money from our dealer, (we paid for a protection strip and new blade). They resold it to some one else.
That was after the tech came out and saw it not working and replaced the pick up eye. That did nothing to help it kept doing the same thing. sometimes it would find the marks and cut perfect, sometimes it would find the marks and cut off, sometimes it would find 3 out of 4 marks, sometimes it wouldn't even find the first mark, sometimes after sending the same file a whole bunch of times and it didn't find the marks it would magically find them and cut dead on.

Summa doesn't have dealers here you have to buy direct from them so that was a separate deal from the graphtec.

No problem, I'm sure it is just something I am doing or not doing.. Either way though it sure is frustrating not being able to use it.

When you say sent it back, was this using consumer rights and getting a full refund or did you get a partial refund/exchange towards the Summa?

 

[GAC05]

This is probably too obvious but have you been to the Graphtec support site and taken a look at the information there?
http://www.graphtecamerica.com/fc8600-faqs-videos
There are some pdfs & videos to get the best tracking out of your plotter.
I have the poor man's CE6000 and so far have had pretty good results contour cutting out to about 10ft.
If I am doing long graphics on laminated 180 (not ganged smaller decals) I slow it way down, use the panel feature from the plotter's control pad, pre-load the material along with the path sorting option to minimize carriage movement.


wayne k
guam usa

 

[Snydo]

You may have a bad circuit board, hold down FAST and ENTER immediately after you power on to enter Maintenance mode.
Try the Offset test first, that should dial it in if something is out of calibration. Then run the sensitivity adjust, if your gain is below 50%-60% I would contact Graphtec and arrange service. Best of Luck.
P.S. Those are for the FC8000 but I'm pretty sure you have the same menus.

 

[JonMiller]

Some good responses there guys, thank you.
Not checked out the Graphtec site yet but will do. I've just been trying to look through the manual for help so far.



Kind Regards,

Jon

 

[Dennis422]

Some good responses there guys, thank you.
Not checked out the Graphtec site yet but will do. I've just been trying to look through the manual for help so far.

Which printer are you using to print your graphics that you are cutting?
I have the same issue with cut not being accurate and I have been going back and forth with Graphtec tech support for a few days already.
If you did not already, upgraded your firmware to the latest version (I believe 2.4 or something like that)
After that, do the cut calibration.
Mine looked fine but it was still cutting off.

Latest thing from Graphtec support is that it might be the printed piece. I guess there are some issues with heat from latex printers and bowing of the print caused by heat. I have HP L25500 printer. I did one test with a bunch of lines printed with the lengths marked next to them so I could measure after print, it seems fine, very minimal difference from the file to the printed piece. I had some cuts off by a 3/8 off on previous cutts.

If this is not resolved soon, I might ask them to refund my money too. I do not have time or resources to mess with this for much longer.

 

[JonMiller]

Thanks for everyone chiming in.

Fingers crossed everything seems to be ok now so far. I have done a couple A4 sheets of small decals on my inkjet Mimaki (monomeric unlaminated) and also a few sets on the Edge, fluoro vinyl, laminated and they all cut out ok.

I was running an older version firmware so updated to the latest 2.4 along with new driver, then did a factory reset.
Apart from that I didn't change change much, I think I switched sensor speed from IMS? to normal, had to adjust the axis offest by -0.1 in the y direction, but that is about it.

Tech dude said Cutting Master 3 has been a bit funny when communicating with the plotter and Illustrator etc.

It didn't seem to like moving the tool about too much and setting new origins etc. So these last times I tried to keep faffing to a minimum... loaded the media, placed tool in the reg and sent data from CM3 and it went off and did its thing

Again, fingers crossed all stays well from now on.

Hope you get sorted soon too DK - as per previous post have you tried looking at the videos on the Gerber site. The one regarding pre feed in the media menu was something I didn't know. Apparently it feeds the media before cutting to help the rollers make a slight groove in the media in order to help with tracking. Something to look at perhaps if you are doing larger lengths. (although I doubt that would help with cuts being 3/8 off)
Get in touch with Gerber, the person I spoke to here was helpful and if yours is still under warranty then I'm sure they would arrange a visit if they couldn't sort it out over the phone for you.