Graphtec CE8600-160 Won't Track Straight To Save Its Life

[zillion29]

I've been working with this plotter for almost 3 years and have never been able to resolve the wonky way it tracks material. No matter how straight and taught it is loaded, after more than one or two feet, it noticeably starts to walk off track resulting in bad registration and (on long runs) complete disaster. I used to work at Gerber and I'd watch test friction plotters set up to slew 50yd of material out and 50yd back with little deviation, so I know something's wrong.
I guess my question is, is there any mechanical fix or menu setting that can address this? Is there a calibration issue?

 

[Joe House]

First of i'm going to assume you mean FC8600.
Second, if this is going on 3 years, why didn't you take it to your distributor or back to graphtec and get it fixed?
It's most likely mechanical. With no media loaded, the pinch wheels let the grit wheels and down-aka: lever is up, make sure the pressure levers are all down in back- aka: highest pressure setting, check to see if toky can wiggle any of the pinch wheel assemblies.
My guess is that one of the pinch wheel assemblies is broken.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[mfatty500]

Are the gritty wheels under the blue marks? We had a ce5000 model where the weld didn't hold those in place and would not track either. They replaced the machine. But after 3 years??

 

[zillion29]

I was new to the company and unexpectedly took over for someone who left. I had zero history with this machine and just assumed it was my unfamiliarity that was the problem.
I checked all 4 rollers - they grip with zero play and they've all been cleaned.
I routinely cut 12' Controltac stripes for tanker trucks. Material starts out taught and straight. By end of job, material has become noticeably loose from roll and material has skewed anywhere from 1/8'' - 1/2'' from where it started. The more trips back and forth, the worse the deviation. And that's not even counting for humidity and buckling since we're getting into the summer months.

 

[papabud]

your machine should cut that stuff straight all day long.
the rubber rollers, need to be scuffed up with like a 3m scratch pad or something.
the rollers should be evenly spaced apart
each roller should have the same exact pressure setting
make sure your not cutting to hard or nothing is rubbing the material

 

[unclebun]

On a Graphtec you shouldn't be having it pull material off the roll while it cuts. That will cause mistracking. There's a prefeed function which you use to unroll the necessary amount of material and also check that you loaded the material straight.