More Graphtec Problems...

[SellersSign&Design]

Some of you may have seen all of my posts about my L25500 printer. I finally got it back up and running the other day after several weeks and a lot of money. I printed the first job on it and laminated, and when I loaded it into my Mutoh SC-850D the cutter started acting up. I have been having issues with it getting the info to cut, I figured it was a bad cable. But now the fan turns on and off and it stays stuck in the initializing screen, so I'm thinking a board is shot inside of it. So... I have a CE 5000-120 that has been sitting in the corner for a year. I bought it, got frustrated when I couldn't get it dialed in to contour cut reliably, and pushed it into the corner. Now that the Mutoh is dead, I have no choice but to use the Graphtec. I cut two jobs on it the other day, one on IJ180 and one on Nikkalite reflective. Both cut flawlessly, and it found the registration marks the first try. So I was optimistic that maybe my first experience when I bought it was just a fluke. Then today I printed a 4' long job on IJ680CR, loaded it in the Graphtec, it found all the registration marks with no errors (Type 2 multiple segment) and then cut the job. When I unloaded it I noticed that some of the cuts were off. From the middle of the 30" material to the right everything was good, from the middle to the left it was all off, with it getting worse towards the top left corner. So I did some investigating and found that the registration mark size settings were different between the cutter and Flexi. I changed them to .80" in both, and printed another job. Now the Graphtec will find the first mark, but then when it moves over to find the second mark on the left side it scans above the mark and never finds it. Its almost like I have the sheet loaded crooked, with the bottom left corner "low", but it is as straight as possible with the front of the machine. I'm looking for any tips or suggestions for how to make this thing work, I have jobs backed up and I need to get it going so I can try to catch up. I'm running Flexi 11, HP L25500 and then of course the CE5000

 

[GaSouthpaw]

Not sure if this helps or not, but I remember the Graphtec I ran (FC8600-160) being very persnickety about whether the outer pinch rollers were in relation to the marks. I seem to recall that I sometimes would have to put the outer rollers off the edge of the media if I was using the full width, or run the prints centered to keep the marks away from the edges.
Graphtec has supposedly corrected this on their newer models, but I run a Mimaki cutter now, so I can't say.

 

[Snydo]

This is worth a shot.

Try squaring the crop marks and not the media. Take a thumb tack and line up crops by sticking the thumb tack through the media just outside the crops using the groove between the front bezel and flat platen piece to square the crops to the machine.

You possibly had the media slightly skewed while printing, or more likely your L25 is heating at a much higher temp in the middle of the platen causing stretch on the left side of the media.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

This is worth a shot.

Try squaring the crop marks and not the media. Take a thumb tack and line up crops by sticking the thumb tack through the media just outside the crops using the groove between the front bezel and flat platen piece to square the crops to the machine.

You possibly had the media slightly skewed while printing, or more likely your L25 is heating at a much higher temp in the middle of the platen causing stretch on the left side of the media.

I know the media is definitely distorted, from what I've read the 25500's are know for that. I'm pretty sure I had the marks lined up, but I'll give the thumb tack idea a shot. I'll also look at where the pinch wheels are. There is just no repeatability with this thing. One time it'll do fine, and the next time it's a disaster. It gets expensive when every other sheet of 680CR you cut gets ruined

 

[dale911]

The l25500 does warp material a bit by it's in the middle, not near the edges. The warped material will have a slight bow to the ends of the prints and there is an adjustment that can be made on board the printer to fix it. I have done it myself on multiple occasions. I don't deal with it much anymore as I will usually just run anything that needs to be cut on the Mimaki for simplicity but I hate waiting on the outgassing.


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[jayhawksigns]

When we setup our L25500 we were getting issues with distortion on the test prints the tech and I were running. It got better when I quit being cheap and feed out more material at the start of the print. I'm not talking like fed out to the take up, just underneath the second heater.

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[SellersSign&Design]

It definitely shouldn't be bowing because of cheap material, I use 680CR almost exclusively as far as reflective goes. It has never been a problem with the Mutoh cutter, but maybe the Graphtec can't handle it. I'm also prefeeding everything to the heater, I figured out that also helps it to lay flat and decrease jams. Does the Graphtec not have the ability to compensate for print distortions?

 

[dale911]

The graphtec does compensate but it is compensating for material that isn't inserted properly (perfectly square). It doesn't matter what material I run through the 25500, it always has some type of bowing. Even 13oz banner. It's something with the printer. That's why you have to figure out its problem and make the adjustments.


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[SellersSign&Design]

The graphtec does compensate but it is compensating for material that isn't inserted properly (perfectly square). It doesn't matter what material I run through the 25500, it always has some type of bowing. Even 13oz banner. It's something with the printer. That's why you have to figure out its problem and make the adjustments.


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Ah that makes sense. I was running the segment area marks though, so I expected that to help with the accuracy. I guess I'll look into making the adjustments on the printer. I may also do a reset on the cutter, apparently it liked cutting with the regestration mark settings not matching between the cutter and Flexi, because now that I set them the same the problem with it not finding the second left front mark started. For anyone that's running all of this with Flexi like me, what are your mark settings as far as size and thickness? Also, has anyone had any luck updating the firmware? I worked on it for two days when I bought the cutter, and never could get the update process to work how it is explained in the manual.