Mimaki Registration on Half Cut

[Leebee]

Hey all.

I am printing labels and the customer wants them Contour cut as well as Half cut allowing for a 1/8 or so border.

I cant seem to get the Half cut to stay in registration. More so it stretches in regard to position as it gets farther from the origin in the Y axis.

I have tried as few a 6 up and they are still unacceptable as they get farther from the origin.
Let me be clear that the contour cut is very acceptable. It is only the Half cut that seems affected.

When I allow for registration marks for every copy then there is no problem except the fact that I have 1000 each of 5 to make and the constantly finding marks and wasted paper is killing me.

I am using a Mimaki cutter with Flexi 11 on nonlaminated adhesive vinyl.

THANKS!!

Pics attached.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

You do know you have to move your blade to the front of the blade holder to do halfcuts, you can skip the contour cut and just do the halfcut just that there won't be no bare backing showing.

 

[Leebee]

Yes I do know this. As a matter of fact Sai made a patch/update for me to fix a bug relating to the switching to half cut as a second cut in Flexi11.

It's purely a registration issue when doing more than a couple stickers/labels without adding targets to every piece.

 

[DirtyD]

I have a question for you, if your creating registration marks in flexi for Mimaki Cutter, how do you figure out how big to make them.. I never had success with flexi because I didnt know what size to make them, So I always use Finecut it calculates the size needed for you... Thanks

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

How about sending the contour and the half cut as different files. So when you do the halfcut you will have to reregister them? If you can do contour fine by itself you should be able to halfcut by itself fine. I know the extra step would be unwanted but it's still faster then doing each sticker individually.

 

[Leebee]

I have a question for you, if your creating registration marks in flexi for Mimaki Cutter, how do you figure out how big to make them.. I never had success with flexi because I didnt know what size to make them, So I always use Finecut it calculates the size needed for you... Thanks

Everything ive read said 10mm x 10mm. I can change what size its looking for on the Mimaki but the Flexi software prints them 10 x 10 automatically i believe.

I would like to make them smaller but other posts say it causes the plotter to miss the marks at times.

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

At least for Graphtec on flexi you can adjust the size and thickness of the reg marks in flexi when you send before it goes to production manager.

 

[Leebee]

How about sending the contour and the half cut as different files. So when you do the halfcut you will have to reregister them? If you can do contour fine by itself you should be able to halfcut by itself fine. I know the extra step would be unwanted but it's still faster then doing each sticker individually.

I am sending as separate files. The Mimaki and Flexi requires a pause between cuts to change the tool position and settings on the Mimaki to Half cut. I then bring back to the first target and send the Half cut.

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

When you bring back to the target does it recheck all the reg. marks.? If so that is weird. Seems like it would be a problem with software. Can you set it up so you do one job as a contour and then send another job as a contour. I know you say you send them separate but can you do it completely separate?