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Need Help Is there a pre-feed option for FC series plotters?

signdude1967

New Member
Just got a new Graphtec. Liking it so far, but I was hoping for some features that I don't find and was looking for some expert guidance.

Let's create a scenario. I have a long trailer to letter. I have a new roll of 30" vinyl. I create the design, then I take the various lines of copy and nest them into groups in my software to fit my available material height... leaving me with 5 nested groups under 30" tall of text at various lengths.

I send those nested files into my plot manager software to cut and load my material. Cutting one group at the time.

Here's how that used to go from here...

First group is 118". I had to manually roll out 118" + then roll it back to the origin point. This prevented the plotter from jamming as it tried to pull vinyl off the heavy, new roll. It also visually verified the material was tracking straight. I'd plot the first file, hit the cross cut, then roll up the vinyl to send back for weeding and masking... as the plotter sat there and waited for me to finish.

Next, I'd look to see the length of the 2nd cut... 94"... and I would repeat the process of manual pre-feed.

I used to have an old Gerber FasTrack. When you loaded your material, it automatically fed out a preset amout of length... you pick... 80", 120", etc. You did not have to do it manually. The plotter was designed to pre-feed... it's designers realizing that necessity for high speed cutting off a roll. You sheet cut a finished run, plotter fed material while you rolled up the vinyl.. as was ready to start again when you were finished.

I used a Roland for a decade after that... and always hated having to manual feed every time I sent a new file to cut... but if you didn't feed it... motor error as it attempted to pull vinyl off the roll. But at least the Roland had a constant display of how much material you fed through it that didn't disappear when you stopped pressing the button.

Still getting the feel of the Graphtec... so Im not that familiar with all it can do. Is there a way to get it to automatically feed enough material to plot your project without having to go through a long, completed series of button pushing or feeding it manually every time?

With modern technology and software, one would think the plotter could read the page length of the file being sent to it and auto feed material to cut it. I've researched finding plot software that would tell a plotter to first, do a slow pre-feed the required length... roll back... then start the plot... but I've had no luck. I'd hoped that feature would have been built into a new and up to date plotter... but not finding any info on accomplishing that feat on the Graphtec. It's a feature that could literally cut my project times by 10% or more... by me and the plotter working at the same time... having it do more of the work for me.
 

I-try

A Fellow Sign Guy!
I use a Graphtec FC8000, you have to tell it to pre-feed, cannot be done inside your production manager. Getting it to prefeed is easy though. Go to Menu / Media Settings / Prefeed Setting... then just tell it how much to feed out. Piece o' cake! (I believe this process will work for the FC8500 and FC8600 and is similar for the FC7000)

Although, personally I prefer to just advance the media forward manually... quicker for me because I am standing there anyway... that way I can make sure the media is in straight and if it does fall off the roller I can just stop holding the fast and down arrow.
 
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