Help, please - Mimaki CG-130 FX - How to read a print file for Cutting from RasterLink6 to FineCut8

[Aaron Gibson]

Hello,

I would appreciate any help with trying to figure out how to print and cut using the step and repeat function wth registrations marks. We are printing with a Mimaki JV33-130 and plotting with a Mimaki CG-130 FX.

For software we are using:

RasterLink6Plus Ver. 1.8 for Printing
FineCut 8 in Illustrator for Plotting

For example, we would like to print 50 small decals of the same design.
I have tried using the step and repeat function in RasterLink and it prints just fine, but I'm not able to have the plotter understand that we used the step and repeat function for cutting, and not able to have it cut the printed items.

The only way so far we have found to print 50 decals of the same design is to set up the 50 decals in a single Illustrator file. Creating all of the cut lines on a separate layer and use ONE SET of Registration marks in Illustrator for the whole page. Prints well, cuts well. Works great, just very time consuming.

I haven't been able to figure out how to do this any other way.

I have read all of the manuals for the Printer, Plotter and FineCut.

Does anyone know of a more efficient way of printing and cutting several decals using a step and repeat function, or do we have to set up each job in Illustrator before hand, because of the printer and plotter used in this case?

Thank you!

 

[Martin Denton]

we have a jv300 and cg160 fx plotter. All we do id either setup one print file on one layer in illustrator, the cut layer on another layer, and then the crop marks which automatically go to their own layer. switch off the layer that the cut marks are in (we do this as we colour these in magenta - old habbit form Roland days...) print the file just tell the rip how many copies. Go into illustrator switch off the print layer, switch on cut layer then in finecut you can tell the plotter how many rows and columns you have. It then looks for the crop marks for each one and plots and then repeats. The only downside is that depending on how big your crop marks are this can burn up quite a bit of media. In which case we would simply copy and paste the artwork for however many copies we need and put one set of crop marks round the whole job. Is a little more time consuming so we only do this if small labels etc and there are quite a lot of them, would probably limit the area the cope marks encase to around the width of the media by half a metre just to play safe on accuracy - Hope that makes sense?

 

[myront]

We use Rasterlink with CorelDRAW. Much the same way. Layout the fifty in corel and use macros to create the cut layer, registration and cut marks. Should be a way one could record a script to do the same in illustrator. Corel has a step and repeat but I use a macro to do that too. We do this at each workstation so as to not tie up the RIP station. That way our print tech can keep things rolling.

p.s. some decals work best to have two cuts. One kiss cut and another offset contour about 1/8" around for the Half Cut.

 

[nlnickolatos]

What I do is set up a 'tile' (about a letter sized sheet) with my decals imposed on that. Artwork on one layer, CutContour on another.

Make a 1% transparency object somewhere on the tile so that you can save your EPS with the option 'Convert All Strokes to Outlines' disabled (on the EPS popup when you save, under Transparency, click Custom). Usually I do a teeny tiny dot in the corner or in an area that gets weeded away.

Take your file into RasterLink. Add your registration marks, space out as many tiles as you can to fill your media/satisfy your count. Make sure your plot options are set correctly on the machine so you have the right cut depth, TP offset, etc.

Set it to Print-Cut, and there you go! Note that you don't want to let it printcut more than about 24" of media otherwise it'll sag to hit the floor while cutting the last row and that can confuse the machine or damage your output.

 

[Solventinkjet]

It's actually easier than that. Make your image, make your cut line and set it to the CutContour spot color, open in Rasterlink, go to the layout screen, input how many copies you want to make, and then make sure the setting on the crop marks is set to Whole instead of Individual. This will put a single set of crop marks around however many copies you made.