Maintinance help needed on Mimaki CG160 FX2 plotter.

[Forty One]

Any help is greatly appreciated.
My formentioned plotter needs a little TLC.
I've recently replaced the grip wheels and given it a nice clean but...
When cutting vinyl, it's not making a clean cut. I.E. the knife isnt lining up correctly when cutting shapes thus leaving a little tag and not completing the shape.
After opening it up, I've realised that there isnt any encoder strip to give a clean.
Can anyone give me a little guidance on how I can correct this?

 

[jfiscus]

Look for a manual for one of these if you don't have one, there are a lot of settings like undercut/overcut that can be adjusted to make your cuts "complete/correct". Also, it looks like the blade holder itself isn't clean or needs lubed to let the blade turn quickly as it is rounding corners. Slowing down the plotting some also might fix this problem?

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Yeah, check them blade bearings/bushings in the cartridge. It they get bound up, cuts go to hell immediately. In a pinch a $12 eBay Chinese blade holder will beat a $200 one that's bound up.

 

[Forty One]

It's all new blades and holder.
I even went back to the old one just in case. but still having those issues.

 

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

Check the blade offset, set in the plotter - might be too big, like 1mm instead of 0.25 mm

 

[Forty One]

status report...
I've adjusted the offset to 0.2 and that has seemed to correct the large majority of those issues. Must be the chinese blades not being 100% but I've also noticed something else...
On my old graphtec, I has a small spring inside the blade holder that helped push the blade inside the holder. Both my chinese and OEM holder on the Mimaki dont have this.
Is this normal, or is it by coincidence that both holders are missing this little spring?

 

[Solventinkjet]

status report...
I've adjusted the offset to 0.2 and that has seemed to correct the large majority of those issues. Must be the chinese blades not being 100% but I've also noticed something else...
On my old graphtec, I has a small spring inside the blade holder that helped push the blade inside the holder. Both my chinese and OEM holder on the Mimaki dont have this.
Is this normal, or is it by coincidence that both holders are missing this little spring?

No springs in Mimaki blade holders. You're probably right about the blade. The offset is the distance between the tip of the blade and the center of the shaft. If it's a cheaper blade maybe the tolerances are off. Also keep in mind that the offset is different for each angle blade so if you change angles, you have to change offset.