new machine is driving me crazy

[Accelerated Graphics]

I bought a new FC7000-75 tuesday, After I got it to quit throwing the roll of vinyl on the floor I got it to cut, now I've wasted 20 yrds today by the machie just stopping and saying load media, It seems to me it is uncovering the rear sensor and causing this, anyone have an idea on how to make this quit happening..

 

[flexiezine]

Put a peice of vinyl over the rear sensor or disable all sensors on the unit. Contact Graphtec support before disabling all sensors.

The FC7000 series cutter is a work in progress [in my own opinion]

 

[Accelerated Graphics]

I contacted Tech support on Tuesday and still waiting for them to call back...

 

[bob]

I bought a new FC7000-75 tuesday, After I got it to quit throwing the roll of vinyl on the floor I got it to cut, now I've wasted 20 yrds today by the machie just stopping and saying load media, It seems to me it is uncovering the rear sensor and causing this, anyone have an idea on how to make this quit happening..

Turn on the Auto Pre-feed function. It defaults to 3' which is sufficent unless you have some specific reason for setting something else. This will tend to keep the roll of media on the feed rollers. For small rolls less than 5-10 yards, set the Auto Pre-feed speed to slow rather than normal. This will keep the smaller rolls on the feed rollers.

The 'Load Media' display is almost certainly due to feeding media back into the machine, the -X direction, at flank speed. The media has sufficient inertia so that it can't fall as fast as the plotter is feeding it so it builds up sort of a standing wave that exposes the rear sensor to sufficient incidental light to make it think the end of the media has sailed on by. Set the pen up speed to 'Automatic' which is the same as the pen down speed or lower. Dimming the lights in the are can also mitigate this. Make sure that media coming back into the machine in the -X direction has a suitable place to go. You can also make some ad-hoc dampers out of sutiable card stock and tape them to the back to the machine to force the media to stay down over the sensor. Or, last resort, turn the sensors off.

All in all it sounds like you might be trying to move and/or cut at warp speed. Never a good idea on any cutter.

The FC7000 is a great machine, I wouldn't trade mine for 2 of anything else, but you still have to set things up properly.

 

[srt10x3]

I contacted Tech support on Tuesday and still waiting for them to call back...

contact Jane Hicks at Graphtec

Her email is jhicks@graphtecusa.com

She can push support to get back with you ASAP.

Craig

 

[uneedasign]

We called tec support yesterday morning. and still waiting, but this is a big help found a lot of imfo on their web page graphtecusa.com click on support scroll to bottom of page and look for support downloads. Good luck!

 

[arcobaleno]

Graphtec fc-4210-60

Has anyone got a GRAPHTEC FC-4210 and managed to cut and crease at the same time. i am finding it difficult to do both tasks at the same time with Signgo. Can anyone suggest a suitable software that can enable both Pens to do the tasks.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Howard Keiper]

Don't bother Jane. Bother Opie instead. Opie is the right guy and can be reached at gabustan@graphtecusa.com .

hk

 

[Neil]

When I first received my FC7000-75 it came without a stand and the sensor would kick in all the time. I figured it was because the cutter was sitting on my bench.
Now I have the stand and the rear sensor still kicks in!

I cut a lot of 24" vinyl (as do most people I presume), so the sensor is positioned quite close to the edge of the 24" vinyl. This I feel leads to the problem of the sensor activating too easily.

So here's a suggestion to the brainiac designers at Graphtec:
How about an option to "continue" or "cancel" whenever the machine wrongly thinks it's run out of media.

There's obviously a design flaw with the sensor, so at least give us the option to ignore it and keep cutting instead of having it stopping dead in it's tracks, with the job irretrievably lost.

 

[Arlo Kalon 2.0]

Turn on the Auto Pre-feed function. It defaults to 3' which is sufficent unless you have some specific reason for setting something else. This will tend to keep the roll of media on the feed rollers. For small rolls less than 5-10 yards, set the Auto Pre-feed speed to slow rather than normal. This will keep the smaller rolls on the feed rollers.

The 'Load Media' display is almost certainly due to feeding media back into the machine, the -X direction, at flank speed. The media has sufficient inertia so that it can't fall as fast as the plotter is feeding it so it builds up sort of a standing wave that exposes the rear sensor to sufficient incidental light to make it think the end of the media has sailed on by. Set the pen up speed to 'Automatic' which is the same as the pen down speed or lower. Dimming the lights in the are can also mitigate this. Make sure that media coming back into the machine in the -X direction has a suitable place to go. You can also make some ad-hoc dampers out of sutiable card stock and tape them to the back to the machine to force the media to stay down over the sensor. Or, last resort, turn the sensors off.

All in all it sounds like you might be trying to move and/or cut at warp speed. Never a good idea on any cutter.

The FC7000 is a great machine, I wouldn't trade mine for 2 of anything else, but you still have to set things up properly.

bob... I've never even owned one of these plotters, but I read this thread entirely. Your suggestions to correct the problem made sense even to me - a non owner. I'm amazed that what you said seems to have been entirely overlooked - EVEN after you said you have one of these and your setup you described fixed the problem! Amazing sometimes how these things play out.

 

[signage]

Either slow down the machine more or pre-feed enough of the media to keep it from pulling from the roll!

 

[Techman]

slow down the machine more or

This is why I post that cutter speed is an irelevant point when purchasing a cutter. 400 IPS means nothing if the material cannot get out of its own way or bunches up so high that it triggers the safety sensors..

Even my lean, mean, ever faithhfull ol' Anagraph will do the same as posted above when running at full spead..

 

[Neil]

bob... I've never even owned one of these plotters, but I read this thread entirely. Your suggestions to correct the problem made sense even to me - a non owner. I'm amazed that what you said seems to have been entirely overlooked - EVEN after you said you have one of these and your setup you described fixed the problem! Amazing sometimes how these things play out.

Don't assume these suggestions have been overlooked:

I have pre-feed on - it's a pain in itself but thats another story.

I have slowed down the cutter - to around half of what it's advertised to be able to cut at.

I have rigged up a roller at the rear to help hold down the vinyl - that works but gets knocked off sometimes.

I haven't tried working in the dark yet so can't attest to that.

The point I was making is they should realize the problem exists and write something in the firmware to give us the option to "continue" when it does.

 

[Howard Keiper]

Neil...
Some personal observations / opinions:

I agree that pre-feed is a pain; it is, however, an effective means of controling the sudden jerk you can get if you haven't pulled enough material off the roll before you start. Effective or not, it's still hard for me to get used to.

I learned a long time ago that the speed of any cutter is not measured in inches / sec measured at the machine; rather, it's more practically measured on the weeding table and it's measured in numbers of successful, error free jobs cut / hour or / day. Speed is but one term in the throughput equation, and a minor one at that...as techman correctly observes.

And if you like thinking in terms of throughput, then you've got to consider whether you can cut certain materials at all...or how well. There was a cutter introduced several years ago advertised as the fastest plotter on the market, and so it was, too. The problem was, as many noticed, that the tops of 'T's sagged, the 'O's didn't close perfectly, the legs of 'A's and "W's weren't even, etc., etc. It didn't take long for the speed freaks to realize that having to do a job over made for a less than fast machine.

Maybe speed could be measured in Pounds...of scrap in the waste barrel ??

 

[Neil]

Thanks for your reply Howard.
I agree with your point that the speed of the machine is not as important if the weeding is faster. The Graphtec is certainly good in this respect.
I use the Tangential 2 setting and I find the weeding to be far quicker and easier than with my previous machine.

I put up my post after I had 2 consecutive jobs trashed because the sensor kicked in. The most frustrating aspect of this for me is that there's no way to continue when the sensor activates.

The machine has already pre-fed the media - so it knows there's media there. So why should it suddenly assume there's no media there and not give us the chance to confirm or deny with a simple "continue/cancel" option.

I'd like to hear if you think these sort of suggestions can be implemented in future firmware releases.

I have a few other suggestions too.
Hopefully these can be regarded as constructive ideas by end users and taken on board by the designers/coders. Much like software development is ongoing, I feel this machine can be even better with future firmware revisions.

 

[Howard Keiper]

One of the things that can make a difference if the sensor is too sensitive (as many of them are) is to kill just the rear one by putting a piece of tape over the port. This will also kill the SHEET function, but ROLL 2 substitutes well in most cases anyway.
But to your question. Graphtec is always receptive to legitimate suggestions re product improvement. Getting those suggestions implemented is another matter. If a hardware change is required, well, it's difficult at best. Firmware changes that modify the behavior of existing features or operations are easy and we do that quite often. Since there already is a CONTINUE function (which allows one to aviod re-initialization when the pinch rollers are raised), maybe that could be utilized somehow. In any case, since you seem to have given this a lot of thought, you should get in touch with our product manager, Neal Baessler, at 1-800-854-8385 x1119, or e-mail him at nbaessler@graphtecamerica.com. Neal takes these things to heart and will get an answer for you, like it or not )

hk

 

[NBaessler]

Implementation of your suggestions

Neil or anyone for that matter,
I would be happy to take your suggestions and see if we can get them implemented. My email address is nbaessler@graphtecamerica.com.

I have reported that issue about being able to continue with a job even when the sensor stops the job. Although maybe the best answer is to see if we can reduce it's sensitivity

nb

 

[Neil]

Thankyou Howard and Neal. I was hoping you'd come on board and provide an avenue to discuss these things. I'll contact Neal shortly.

I have difficulty contacting tech support here in Australia, although they did come back to me recently and adjusted a sensor in the cutter head.
Is there something they can do manually to reduce the rear sensor sensitivity?

I don't like covering it up. I have a small piece of magnetic sheet sitting alongside the sensor which I can slide across to cover it up, but then I run the risk of having the cutter pre-feed out all the media and not know about it.

 

[NBaessler]

Neil,
Unfortunately you can't. I have reported this issue to the engineers. You are welcome to email me for an answer.

Neal.

 

[Howard Keiper]

I haven't tried this (yet), but maybe a patch of that frosty looking Scotch tape or two might diffuse light enough to desensitize that sensor??
hk