Mimaki CG-130 FX 'ERR36 MARKdetect' *PLEASE HELP*

[High Side Design]

Hi everyone! I'm very new to the whole printing game. I've watched people do it, I design a lot of logos and race cars, but I've never printed.
I took the leap and purchased some equipment from a company and I'm trying to set it up now.

Well I've finally gotten my printer working, but now I'm having issues w/ the CG-130 FX plotter.

I am working with Flexi Sign 8.1 and I believe I have everything linked and working correctly. For some reason, it is not reading the contour lines and it's giving me the 'ERR36 Markdetect' message. I've tried and tried and tried to mess with settings, clean the head, change the position of the pinch wheels, etc....

Here's a video I posted to YouTube to watch. (don't mind the crying baby, she's teething and an unhappy camper). I'm in desperation mode to get this working, because I have jobs that are backed up now...

[video=youtube;e3cBmoHiVGE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3cBmoHiVGE&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Any help would be much appreciated. Feel free to ask questions and I'll attempt to answer with the best of my knowledge.

 

[iSign]

I've been using that cutter out of Flexi, for a good 8 or 9 years now, I think. It gives me grief now & then, but for the most part, just works...

As a result, I don't have a lot of trouble shooting, or training knowledge... I just send jobs, react on automatic pilot more or less... and it works...

I want to start by asking where you actually start this process. Before I get that red light, I am closing the pinch rollers, & a process starts, whereby the cutter head traverses the material width, looking for an alignment between front two reg. marks, and then, based on my settings (a 3-point check) it goes to rear right mark & then comes to the orgin point, turning on the light.

You don't show that, so, are you doing that?

 

[ddubia]

I'm using a CG 160 through Illustrator CS2 with Mimaki's Fine Cut software.

I use the other type of register mark. The one that is 180° from the one you are using. Basically it forms the corners of a box around your print rather than the inverted corner if that makes sense.

You may be already be using the correct register mark for Flexi. I don't know. Though we have Flexi and I've cut plenty of cut-vinyl through it I've never set up a print file within it.

 

[MikePro]

cutter's function menu, select the correct crosshairs you're trying to register.

 

[High Side Design]

I've been using that cutter out of Flexi, for a good 8 or 9 years now, I think. It gives me grief now & then, but for the most part, just works...

As a result, I don't have a lot of trouble shooting, or training knowledge... I just send jobs, react on automatic pilot more or less... and it works...

I want to start by asking where you actually start this process. Before I get that red light, I am closing the pinch rollers, & a process starts, whereby the cutter head traverses the material width, looking for an alignment between front two reg. marks, and then, based on my settings (a 3-point check) it goes to rear right mark & then comes to the orgin point, turning on the light.

You don't show that, so, are you doing that?

Hey iSign,

Yeah, I have the pinch rollers set correctly...when I close the lever, the process begins where it reads all 3 rollers, then it reads the length (back to front). Then when it is done reading, the red light comes on and it is set to TP1 mode. I then proceed to line up the red light down in the bottom right corner (shown in the video) and then hit the 'Enter' button....

 

[High Side Design]

cutter's function menu, select the correct crosshairs you're trying to register.

I've already made sure they are set to the correct crosshairs...wasn't the issue

 

[MikePro]

I've also been known to have mark-read errors in the past, that I could not solve... could be dust on the eye of the sensor, or a glare from the material/laminate, I wish I knew. One day it just works like it should and the other day it wants to be a prick. Someday I'll figure it out, but I don't have the time right now.

I do have a temporary fix to keep you cutting:

1)make sure the material is loaded with the crosshairs as square as possible.
2)set the cutter's home at the corner of the front-right mark, load a pen tool with no ink into the cutter, and send the file to cut.
3)upon hitting the remote button, it will then try to read the marks, but obviously it errors-out when it cannot read the marks.
4)hit "remote" again and again while it keeps beeping the error at you and eventually it will actually try to cut your file. its weird, but it does... at least for my onyx cut server it does.
5)the pen tool will make an impression on your print where its trying to cut
6)make note of the offset, adjust your home point, and repeat until your confident enough with the cutter's intended cut path to put in the cutter tool.

it won't be perfect, but it will cut. luckily for me, I always had issues cutting perfectly square so I always bleed my print as much as i can.

 

[ddubia]

I wrote the following as part of the procedure of plotting a printed job through Mimaki's Fine Cut software out of Illustrator. However, the portion below should deal with setting up your material in the plotter regardless of which software you are using. Perhaps if you read this over you may find some small thing you are overlooking that will fix your issue. I've gotten so much help on this board it makes me want very badly to help someone else here. Good luck...


9. Line up your print in the plotter. I do this by eyeballing the marks with the first or second grove in the platen, (I forget which not seeing it but it's pretty close to lining up with the pointer dot when it's on), and start from there. I set my pinch rollers so that they are as far away from the registration marks as possible to avoid then being in the way of mark detection, but still plenty on the material for best tracking.

Then, while the pinch rollers are in the up position turn on the pointer and line up the pointer dot so that it splits the horizontal line of the right-most mark and masking tape that end to the platen. Then, I manually move the carriage to the other side and line it up the same and tape that down. Once again move the carriage to the first mark and check that it is still in place. Remove the tape and adjust if needed then re-tape it down. If these movements were great because the material was awfully crooked from the start I may go back and check the left mark again. I'm anal like that too. Lock down the pinch rollers.

10. Choose roll or leaf and wait for [TP1]. Using the jog keys place the pointer dot in the specified area of the mark and hit the [ENTER] key. It should find that first mark just fine. That first mark is all it needs. It doesn't have to go around to locate the other three marks. It will do that later when you go back to your computer and command it to plot from FineCut.

11. Check to be sure your tool setting are correct for your material and hit "Remote".


It doesn't always work right...

The biggest issue I have is that my printer, (HP 8000), prints a color stripe at the end of each print head travel along the length of the print. It does this to make sure that all color heads are printing to avoid any of them from drying out on long runs. The color stripe is located pretty close to the actual print and in my case it gets in the way of mark detection there on the right side. I can adjust the placement of the color stripe farther away from the print but that would limit the width I can print so I leave it where it is. (On occasion I will turn off the color stripe to gain a wider print when necessary but generally leave it on).

Instead of moving the stripe I use a work-around which is simply loading the material so that the color stripe is on the left side of the plotter away from the initial mark detection side. This means that I am loading it backwards from the direction of my file, so from Illustrator I have to rotate my file 180 degrees before plotting it. (If anyone has a cure for this I'd be more than glad to hear it)

That is a minimum of energy expenditure and it doesn't matter to me or the plotter or FineCut which way it runs. Just like it doesn't matter if I'm cutting a letter B or a R. Cutting upside down is the same as cutting right side up except that it is upside down. In my genius I've found that if I turn it over when it's done it still looks right. ;-)


That flipping the media 180° bailed me out in the beginning as I spent 2-1/2 days unable to detect the registration mark until I tried that. Crazy, I know.

 

[High Side Design]

I wrote the following as part of the procedure of plotting a printed job through Mimaki's Fine Cut software out of Illustrator. However, the portion below should deal with setting up your material in the plotter regardless of which software you are using. Perhaps if you read this over you may find some small thing you are overlooking that will fix your issue. I've gotten so much help on this board it makes me want very badly to help someone else here. Good luck...


9. Line up your print in the plotter. I do this by eyeballing the marks with the first or second grove in the platen, (I forget which not seeing it but it's pretty close to lining up with the pointer dot when it's on), and start from there. I set my pinch rollers so that they are as far away from the registration marks as possible to avoid then being in the way of mark detection, but still plenty on the material for best tracking.

Then, while the pinch rollers are in the up position turn on the pointer and line up the pointer dot so that it splits the horizontal line of the right-most mark and masking tape that end to the platen. Then, I manually move the carriage to the other side and line it up the same and tape that down. Once again move the carriage to the first mark and check that it is still in place. Remove the tape and adjust if needed then re-tape it down. If these movements were great because the material was awfully crooked from the start I may go back and check the left mark again. I'm anal like that too. Lock down the pinch rollers.

10. Choose roll or leaf and wait for [TP1]. Using the jog keys place the pointer dot in the specified area of the mark and hit the [ENTER] key. It should find that first mark just fine. That first mark is all it needs. It doesn't have to go around to locate the other three marks. It will do that later when you go back to your computer and command it to plot from FineCut.

11. Check to be sure your tool setting are correct for your material and hit "Remote".


It doesn't always work right...

The biggest issue I have is that my printer, (HP 8000), prints a color stripe at the end of each print head travel along the length of the print. It does this to make sure that all color heads are printing to avoid any of them from drying out on long runs. The color stripe is located pretty close to the actual print and in my case it gets in the way of mark detection there on the right side. I can adjust the placement of the color stripe farther away from the print but that would limit the width I can print so I leave it where it is. (On occasion I will turn off the color stripe to gain a wider print when necessary but generally leave it on).

Instead of moving the stripe I use a work-around which is simply loading the material so that the color stripe is on the left side of the plotter away from the initial mark detection side. This means that I am loading it backwards from the direction of my file, so from Illustrator I have to rotate my file 180 degrees before plotting it. (If anyone has a cure for this I'd be more than glad to hear it)

That is a minimum of energy expenditure and it doesn't matter to me or the plotter or FineCut which way it runs. Just like it doesn't matter if I'm cutting a letter B or a R. Cutting upside down is the same as cutting right side up except that it is upside down. In my genius I've found that if I turn it over when it's done it still looks right. ;-)


That flipping the media 180° bailed me out in the beginning as I spent 2-1/2 days unable to detect the registration mark until I tried that. Crazy, I know.

Thanks DDubia!

I'm willing to try anything at this point. I've tried and tried and tried and tried numerous times throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday. I'll try to flip it 180 degrees and see if maybe that'll do the trick... I'm willing to try anything at this point.

 

[nashvillesigns]

you need to PUT THE KNIFE OVER THE CROSSHAIR!!!!!! NOT THE LASER!!!!!!
sigh.

 

[ddubia]

With that type of registration mark on the Mimaki you place the laser anywhere within the imaginary square made by the two lines that form a 90° corner. I always shoot for the laser to be the exact center of that imaginary square but it need not be. Just so it's within the square, not touching the lines.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

When ever I get that error, I just restart the cutter and it goes away. I have no idea what causes the error though.

 

[High Side Design]

With that type of registration mark on the Mimaki you place the laser anywhere within the imaginary square made by the two lines that form a 90° corner. I always shoot for the laser to be the exact center of that imaginary square but it need not be. Just so it's within the square, not touching the lines.

Yeah, i've been just slightly inside maybe 3-4 spots on the jog arrows towards the center. I'm going to try it a little further away from the lines, see if that works.

When ever I get that error, I just restart the cutter and it goes away. I have no idea what causes the error though.

I've tried that ChicagoGraphics....still hasn't resolved the issue.

 

[MikePro]

my best guess, at this point, would be to check your cutter's settings.
what are your parameters?

my suggested params:
(within Function --> Setup --> OriginSelect)
Origin: LowerRightCorner

(within Function --> Setup --> MarkDetect)
Mark Detect: 4pt
Paper Hold: ON
Dist.Revi.: OFF
Size: 13mm
offsetA: 0
offsetB: 0
Form Type: I (mine's a typeII with the closed box corners, opposite yours)
Copies A: 1
Copies B: 1
Skew Check: 0

 

[High Side Design]

my best guess, at this point, would be to check your cutter's settings.
what are your parameters?

my suggested params:
(within Function --> Setup --> OriginSelect)
Origin: LowerRightCorner

(within Function --> Setup --> MarkDetect)
Mark Detect: 4pt
Paper Hold: ON
Dist.Revi.: OFF
Size: 13mm
offsetA: 0
offsetB: 0
Form Type: I (mine's a typeII with the closed box corners, opposite yours)
Copies A: 1
Copies B: 1
Skew Check: 0

just checked all the settings you mentioned....still doesn't work. I tried flipping the media 180....still doesn't work. I'm at a loss...the only thing I haven't done is actually taken the head off and cleaned the eye. What I have done though is taken a cotton swab (used for cleaning my printer) and tried to clean it that way. Now keep in mind, this was a last resort effort and I did not try that before all of this started happening. It's not like I messed up the eye by doing that and this is what's causing the issues.

I'm at a loss here........would my printer settings have anything to do with this or am I just missing something very simple?

 

[iSign]

I think cleaning the sensor is not going to help.
That same sensor has been working in the previous task that it performs properly.

do you send any cuts not on printed material?
Just curious if this cutter is so new you have never seen it cut yet?

 

[GB2]

I can't tell from your video but it looks like the pinch roller on the right side is too close to the registration mark. That's probably not the problem though as you said you changed the rollers already.

The last time I had a similar problem, there was a corruption in the file. I had to carefully extract the elements of the file and rebuild it in order for the job to work. Like I said, carefully extract...that meant that I couldn't simply copy and paste everything into a new file, I had to break everything down to individual elements and copy them one at a time to the new file. The file was sent to me as an .ai file created on a Mac and I'm operating on PC. I frequently have corruption issues with Mac files sent to me. It's not unlikely that there is problem with the file.

If you want, you can send me the file and I'll see if I have the same problem or if it works for me.

 

[MR. Graphics]

+1 the right side roller is too far in. The registration marks have to be within the setting of the out side pinch rollers. the second thing that might give you an issue is I can see the paper detection hole 50 % uncovered to the right of your material. move the maertial over an inch and the right pinch roller as far over without going of the contact wheel underneath and it should work.

 

[High Side Design]

I think cleaning the sensor is not going to help.
That same sensor has been working in the previous task that it performs properly.

do you send any cuts not on printed material?
Just curious if this cutter is so new you have never seen it cut yet?

No, I have not sent anything on non-printed material. I was trying to get the printed items done first, since I have people needing their orders (printed decals). The day I purchased the equipment, I spent all day with the owner of the equipment and did training, testing, etc....it all worked that day without a hitch.

So here's the latest........might have figured something out (probably not a good thing either). . . . .

So when I go into the 'Sensor Check' mode, there's an option to do a 'registration mark detection'...in this option, you can check a few different things....-the registration mark size (7mm-40mm), -the form of registration marks (Type 1) and -the Speed (10-30cm/s) in which it reads. I left the registration marks at Type 1, but I changed the mark size and the speed. Which you can test them by hitting the jog button left or right to detect the B direction and A direction..... If it detects something, it should make a buzzer sound (says the manual). It says that in case no buzzer sounds, retry detection after changing the detection speed. If no buzzer sounds even after changing the detection speed, check the registration mark condition and contact us....("US" being Mimaki)....

so, has anyone run into this problem or am I stuck calling a repair man or Mimaki? GOD please don't tell me this is going to cost a lost of $$...I need to start turning a profit!

BTW-Thank you all very much for your attempts to help so far, it's greatly appreciated.

 

[iSign]

WHERE'S THIS "SELLER" NOW?
CAN'T HE HELP A BROTHER OUT?

so, after the error, you've now tried hitting "enter" again... a time or two?

I can't see where the right pinch roller shows up in the video, but I guess two other guys spotted it, & thought you should move it out, and I agree that the two at the ends of media do need to be completely outside of the marks... so that's correct?

Trying another file is never a bad troubleshooting idea...