Flexi Summa barcode next to each other

Plus one to this question...I love my Summa and barcode work flow but the answer to this exact question has eluded me! I've talked to the Summa guys in 2018 at ISA Orlando and they told me it wasn't possible but to check with my RIP software guys...which is ONYX for me. ONYX told me to talk to SUMMA as they claim that's a feature of the plotter vs the RIP. So I went straight to the source, face to face, and got nothing, twice lol. I would love to be able to do this not so much for regular vinyl jobs, but for contour cut magnet. I'm using 15mil thinforce magnet which is within the thickness parameters that the machine accepts, and I can run a full width set of 10-20 small magnets in a single barcode, yielding about 60% success per set of barcode. Meaning that I can't offer magnets at a competitive rate, right now just doing them for local rush jobs, or customers who prefer direct customer service vs purchasing a crap shoot over the internet. The real answer is get a flatbed SUMMA but can't really justify it just for magnets and don't really need it otherwise. Seems to me that SUMMA just needs to add a feature to set it to look left/right for the next barcode instead of just up, and then the user can turn that feature on/off. I used to use a Mimaki plotter and would put 1-2 magnets per set of registration marks and just fill the sheet. Set it to run and good to go. Anybody got any tips/workarounds for us?

 

In Flexi exist a possibility to rotate the job about 90 degrees. So it would be possible to set a bunch of small jobs crosswise over wide media, using nearly the complete width of the media.

 

Thanks Frank, but then you would have to trim out each set and rotate them on the plotter, which essentially the same thing as printing a bunch of vertical columns and having the SUMMA read/cut each vertical column and then manually rewind to the next of the vertical columns and repeat. It's doable but wastes a lot of labor time in trimming and manually rerunning each column. The plotter will only read a horizontal barcode and will only look vertical for the next one. It seems such a simple fix for whoever writes the code for the machine, seems like they just overlooked this...

 

For that in Colorgate you just gang up the jobs into a container so it has one barcode for all the jobs you grouped together. Works great and we use it all the time. Flexi doesn’t have a feature like that?

 

This works 99.9% of the time but on those jobs that need absolute perfect registration, such as decals with very thin borders, or magnetic, it's not a viable solution. As I mentioned earlier we are pushing the equipment to it's limits so I completely understand that the answer is either a flatbed cutter, or alter the designs to not have such tight tolerances. But considering that any other plotter can read registration marks in left/right direction, and the fact that's it's a software fix and not a hardware issue, we feel like the best plotter out there IMO (SUMMA) should have this capability. A capability that would allow us to create designs with tighter tolerances as well as work with specialty materials like magnetic should the need arise.

 

What kind of tolerance are you trying to achieve?

We just printed 5,000 1" x .75" decals and the only deviation was around 1/32", is that too much for your needs?

 

For my concerns it's more for magnetic, i'm not having any trouble with large runs of small decals. With decals I can batch up 100s or more depending on size with the same 1/32" tolerance of which I'm very happy with. I was only including the decals in my explanation in consideration of the original post. For my purposes I'm more curious about a work around for magnetic on the Summa. Which a workaround I've used in the past would be smaller batches within a set of regi marks but the Summa won't allow left/right reading and as a result this is not an option....

 

Oh we have never ran magnets on there. We had horrible experiences with our GCC Jaguar and magnets so we never tried it on the summa. We have a flatbed cutter so all the mags go on there.

Do you use the thick material nose piece and extra pinch rollers? I would assume that would be required for magnets.

 

Yup using all the whistles...aluminum nose for thick magnetic, machine is rated for 15mil and I'm using 15mil. Even keeping the magnetic spaced off the platen on the front/back with PVC two sided taped onto it...this prevents the magnet from sticking to the ferrous components causing less drag and more accuracy, otherwise it will stick and distort the scaling on the y axis.

I'm well aware that magnets on a roll fed is not the way to go, just thought maybe some other Summa roll fed users might know something I don't. BUT I've also achieved it on a much lesser machine (Mimaki w/ drag knife with standard nose and pinch rollers vs our tangential Summa) due to the left/right reading capability. It's a basic feature that any plotter should have, surprised it's not on the Summa. Flatbed cutter is for sure the way to go, but as I mentioned not reasonable for me to purchase one for only this need.

 

I think on the summa, the x bar takes the place of center marks. Are you printing these on solvent or latex? Is there much center deviation?

 

I will offer that the roll cutter is not the correct tool, as evidenced by the inability to get it to work by using all the bells and whistles.

 

Direct printing magnetic on FB550 w/ Summa barcode, Master Magnetics 15mil thin force. The registration marks are centered to the roll within 3/32". The issue happens because there is drag created every Y movement the plotter makes, and so AFTER it's read the regi marks the first one out of the batch of say 10-20 within one set of marks cuts perfectly, the second one still acceptable but slightly off, and so on until at about 60% through the job it's cutting off so much that's it's unacceptable. It has repeatable results, for example I can set it up to start at a different location and no matter where it starts the beginning of the job is good and again at about 60% completion it's out of registration. It's created by the drag on the Y movement, because of the combination of heavy material, thick material, and magnetic sticking to the metal parts adding to the drag. If I hold the front and back of the excess material in the air while cutting it reduces the Y drag and success rate is consistently closer to 80-90%, but agian not viable. If I could line up smaller batches and read the marks problem solved, because by the time it's out of registration it's done and onto the next batch. Used that method many times on other plotters.

 

Completely agreed flatbed cutter is ideal tool for magnets and other similar stuff, mentioned that multiple times here. But also other roll feds are capable of left/right registration mark reading. And I love the Summa to no end because it works great for the real work, not missing much on the few random magnet orders of this type we get requests for

 

Yes agreed, forget my magnet BS, this should be a standard feature of any plotter. I use ONYX not Flexi but it's simply a lack of software setting to set the direction to look for the next set of marks. For example in Mimaki FineCut you can set it to look left until it reaches the end, then look up for the next row, it finds that row, reads the first set of marks and then looks horizontally for the next set, continuing on until it can't find another set of marks. It's a great way to automate batches of low tolerance cuts, or promotional sticker sheets, very common practice. Simply overlooked on the ONYX/Summa workflow. As I already mentioned earlier in this post, I've talked directly to Summa and ONYX with both pointing the finger at each other...

 

Sometimes a "feature" is protected by copyright / patent and cannot be added to a competing product. As for a work around on the Summa, since you are resistant to ganging up the jobs under one barcode, just set the toolhead over a column of barcodes and cut and then reset origin to the beginning of the roll and move the head to the next column of barcodes. I understand that you are making multiple barcode jobs to keep the accuracy as tight as possible, but proper bleeds with in and out feed tables and slowing down the cut will probably produce the same if not better results on a ganged up job.

 

Lol not resitant at all and yup that's exactly what I already said in my previous post. I'm being a little misunderstood here lol....I gang up jobs under single sets of registration marks all the time, actually for every single job other than magnet lol (also mentioned in my previous posts), I didn't create the original post was just trying to help out! Matter of fact I just ran a 40' job under a single set of barcodes and it cut perfectly, I didn't have the need but you can also set the Summa to read marks during cutting instead of just prior to cutting, for added accuracy. And I also already mentioned about proper bleeds and design tolerances, as well as the flatbed cutter. So we are running circles here and not helping the OP at all lol! Please read through before commenting. Matter of fact I run full 150' by 54" rolls unattended, mixed/ganged jobs, with a take up reel, day in and day out, all mixed sized and ganged up in various ways, zero registration issues. I personally don't have any issues was just exploring options per the request of the OP and comparing it to my situation with magnetic. I actually stopped producing large orders of small contour cut magnets in house, just not worth it without a flatbed cutter. I highly doubt that reading marks horizontally is patented, especially since many opposing competitors are doing it already. And I believe patents can only be applied to unique items or significant improvements to existing ones. Copyright doesn't apply here. Again not trying to sound aggressive or anything, just trying to help the OP. It's a known issue specific to the Summa workflow. There are many good reasons to explore this feature....anyway cheers to all this weekend!

 

yes that is possible by generating it in illustrator/corel and then ganging it in your rip of choice.

 

Thanks 2CT. But a Summa still won't be able to read that unattended....we can get it to print the way we want exactly as you describe or via settings in ONYX RIP that's the easy part, but when it comes to the plotter it will read each vertical column and then you'll have to go back and set it to read the first one of the next column, and do that for each column...this is because the Summa/ONYX workflow doesn't have an option to look horizontally for the next set of regi marks. Sounds like Flexi/Summa is similar based on the OP....