Having trouble cutting big decals on SP540V. Like 8 feet long.

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As the title says, cant get this thing to cut an 8 foot long decal for the side of a trailer. The decal is General Formulations 230 with 231 lam. The rollers slip and the print skews. The manual is pretty vague about how big this thing will cut. Looks like about a yard by a yard to me... if I use Roland media on a day with perfect humidity...

I can't see a way to adjust downforce. I did clean the rollers. I thought they were supposed to be black!

My solution is to draw a pale gray line around the thing and cut it out by hand.

To be honest I'm pretty disappointed in this thing as a plotter. Sure it's quiet, but it doesn't cut nearly as well as my 10 year old Chinese plotter. That thing tracks great... and cuts weed lines. I must be doing something terribly wrong.

Adrian

 

[Gene@mpls]

I stopped buying combo printers- I cut 25 ft decals on my GX500 all the time with no problems. The combos are not good
trackers. They are way cheaper also- VS640 list is $24k and RF640 is $17k- main difference I can see is the cutter (also configured slightly
different).

 

[Jacob Singer]

We have the same problem with our 540v, anything over 4 feet you could forget. Ended up getting a dedicated Mimaki cutter.

 

[signmeup]

Thanks Guys. The grit rollers look and feel fine. The rubber rollers seem fine too. I slowed it down to a crawl and it was cutting a loose sheet... not from a roll. The lack of a downforce adjustment seems odd.

I think the evidence in the manual is pretty strong that these things track like rubbish. The specs hint at it being about 1 meter or so if the humidity and phase of the moon is just right... if you use Roland media.(whatever that is). They even have a special function to divide cutting jobs up into little batches.

I guess I'll have to save my pennies for a Graphtec or whatever.

It's funny... I figured if the printer crapped out at least I would have a decent plotter.

Adrian

 

[rjssigns]

Thanks Guys. The grit rollers look and feel fine. The rubber rollers seem fine too. I slowed it down to a crawl and it was cutting a loose sheet... not from a roll. The lack of a downforce adjustment seems odd.

I think the evidence in the manual is pretty strong that these things track like rubbish. The specs hint at it being about 1 meter or so if the humidity and phase of the moon is just right... if you use Roland media.(whatever that is). They even have a special function to divide cutting jobs up into little batches.

I guess I'll have to save my pennies for a Graphtec or whatever.

It's funny... I figured if the printer crapped out at least I would have a decent plotter.

Adrian

My contour cuts were inconsistent then I replaced the encoder strip. What a difference since it placed the ink where it was supposed to be. No skew, you never checked that I'll bet. Do a large print with a solid border. (at least 800mm x 800mm) Now measure from the right edge of the print to the edge of the material. be super critical with these measurements. If it is drifting to the right(head end) it's losing steps. Replace the encoder strip, they don't last forever. You can also check the diagonals and total width. A lot can be revealed with simple measuring.

You can adjust the down pressure of the rollers. It will take some digging though. Start by removing the left side cover.(ink end) Take a flashlight and find a large ribbon cable. Behind that cable is the adjuster for the pinch rollers. What you have to do to get to it is pretty obvious. Would take me longer to type out instructions than to actually do the work.
One thing to think about is the pinch roll housings may be worn from sliding back and forth on the rail. I have shimmed mine since the housings are mega-dollar and I'd rather put the money towards a 54"-64" Summa.

In all I've done a ton of work to get my SP540V contour cutting accurately and its working. But what is that time and effort worth...?

 

[signmeup]

Thanks for posting. The encoder strip is new. I have not checked the accuracy of a printed square.

The thing is I can see the media is running off track because the wheel tracks are visible in the silvering on the laminated print. I will look into the down force adjustment and new rubber rollers.

The crop mark finder is working great BTW.

I had this same problem on my cheapy plotter trying to cut sandblast mask. The drag from the blade would cause the material to skew. The cure on that was tons of downforce and to jam the material against the side frame of the plotter so it couldn't skew... as easily. It seems like the same forces used to steer a toboggan are at work here. (drag your hand in the snow on the side you want to turn to)

Do the fancy plotters have an optical tracking system that steers the media back on course?

Adrian

 

[player]

Did you use all the extra wheels or just one on each side?

 

[Ragnabrok]

It's 100% grip related. If the outside pinch rollers are BOTH new-ish, since one new and one old will cause uneven pull, then we're off to the linkage/arms.

The pinch roller clamp linkage can be adjusted, but only on the left side. If the left side is much looser than the right, again, uneven feed. It may have slacked over time. You can look at the pinch roller arms to see how much they engage when lowering the bar, and see if one bites in more than the other.

The other scenario is if the plastic arm that mounts the pinch roller to the square bar they ride on is cracked, it'll put way less pressure on the vinyl. The cracks are really hard to see usually, especially with the pinch rollers still inside the printer.

Like Pat said, just holding the down arrow to feed, you should be able to pull a good 30-50 feet without it moving sideways at all.

 

[signmeup]

Thanks for the suggestions. I used all the rollers. I looked for cracks in the removable roller brackets and found none. I'll check the non removable ones. The wheels leave the same appearance in the vinyl so I think the pressure is pretty close but I will check.

There is do discernable error on the 2 foot long x 54" wide job I just cut. The wheel marks are dead straight, single track. These are 4" high letters so the speed would be very low. Pat may have the answer... just slow it down more.

Adrian

 

[signmeup]

I just noticed the two outer wheels only press into the vinyl for the outer 2/3rds of their width. A quick Google revealed that this is due to the outer rollers being conical. It sure looks like all the rollers are pressing down with the same force.

Adrian

 

[Sign Works]

Just out of curiosity, have you used 30 mil magnetic material in your printer?
Could running a thicker material weaken the pinch roller arm tension?

SP-300V in use here for 10 years without any print-lam-cut issues ever.