FlexiStarter and Signmaker IVB...Tony!!

[amy s.]

Anyone know why the 4b is plotting broken lines, fractured misaligned ovals and straights, when I started using FlexiStarter with it? I selected Gerber HP15 Plus HPGl for the type of plotter and com 3. Its like its lost its brain for the tangential plotting though. I've seen Tony's posts...the Gerber guy....are you out there??? Anyone have any ideas?

 

[James Burke]

Gerber Trouble

I've been down this road with a 4B and SignLab. Are you running off a serial port or a USB/Serial converter?

Slow down the baud rate to the slowest setting and try to output to a plot spooler instead of directly to the plotter. They have nothing to buffer the data and need to be "drip fed" from the spooler.

Jim

 

[Tony Teveris]

Gerber uses a serial port setup of 9600,e,8,1 to drive the Signmaker IVB. May try that.

 

[amy s.]

I've got it set in Production Manager to GERBER, 9600,e,8,1,xon/xoff. I have the HS15 plus HPGL selected (is that right for a 4b?) I can cut from the keyboard on the 4b and the lines are accurate. Does this mean its a software issue or I just don't have a port set right or something?

 

[Tony Teveris]

The 4B no matter what interface you (original Gerber or LMK I/O Card) will support HPGL, what other choices do you have?

 

[amy s.]

It shows GS15, GS Plus, GS 750, GS 750 Plus, GS750 Plus HP/GL among lots of others. Also HS with many numbers after. My 4b has a CAD link card....does that tell us anything?

 

[amy s.]

I've been down this road with a 4B and SignLab. Are you running off a serial port or a USB/Serial converter?

Slow down the baud rate to the slowest setting and try to output to a plot spooler instead of directly to the plotter. They have nothing to buffer the data and need to be "drip fed" from the spooler.

Jim

I've got a serial converter to usb to my laptop. In Flexi I adjusted the speed to slow and that worked. Now the plotter just doesn't draw accurately and the size is not the same as what is set in the parameters in the cut/plot window.

 

[James Burke]

Sounds like you're closing in on the problem. We also had the same issue with the plotter cutting ok all by itself (keyboard input), and then acting up with the software.

It appears to be a scaling issue. Does it consistently produce the same "wrong" results?

Jim

 

[amy s.]

The 4B no matter what interface you (original Gerber or LMK I/O Card) will support HPGL, what other choices do you have?

I've been told I should not use HS but rather GS because the 4B is slow and the HS is "High Speed". Correct?

 

[amy s.]

I've got it set in Production Manager to GERBER, 9600,e,8,1,xon/xoff. I have the HS15 plus HPGL selected (is that right for a 4b?) I can cut from the keyboard on the 4b and the lines are accurate. Does this mean its a software issue or I just don't have a port set right or something?

I used to have this 4b hooked to my old computer with a dongle I got from Gerber and it is still on the line. Do I need to remove that dongle now with this setup? It is in between two serial ports and the end that used to connect to my computer now connects to a converter to usb to the laptop.

 

[amy s.]

The 4B no matter what interface you (original Gerber or LMK I/O Card) will support HPGL, what other choices do you have?

I still had the dongle on the line from when it was attached to my old desktop and I was using graphix advantage. Took that off this morning and it cut great letters now but....they are just too big from the size indicated on the cut/plot page. There is no adjustment on Flexi that I can see..isn't it supposed to cut the same size as indicated on the cut/plot page? Anybody???

 

[Tony Teveris]

The size issue is a Flexi issue, some where in their setup they must allow you to set the "step size" of the cutter, either that or you are going to have to design to some scale factor.

 

[amy s.]

The size issue is a Flexi issue, some where in their setup they must allow you to set the "step size" of the cutter, either that or you are going to have to design to some scale factor.

Yes, Tony, found it under "resolution"....figure that! It was set to 5800 and I put it to 1000 (steps) to 1" and it works fine.

Now how do you slow the plotter down. I've set the software setting to "slow" and the plotter keyboard "SPEED" to 10 (out of 100). The blade moves slowly from one spot to another but it makes the cuts fast. Got any suggestions?

 

[Tony Teveris]

Again a Flexi issue.