Noob with FX

[fxer]

Hi all,
New here, and new to using a gerber printer (or any sign-type printer for that matter). I'm playing with an Edge FX and GSX Plus and I have a lot of questions. I expect I'll find the answers to most of these as I keep reading/learning, but some are itching me and hoping someone can help.
- How do I determine how old or how much use this printer has?
- The print is not very clean. Perhaps I need to clean it, but I also understand some of the early FX'es had print issues. Is there any way to determine if I have one of these early models? Gerber does not seem to want to support unless I purchased it from them.
- I like the lexedge material, but it does not have adhesive. Gerber recommends a 3M adhesive, but how do I apply this? Do I need some other machine, or can I reliably peel and stick without any bubbles? Or is there some 3rd party alternative that is similar but with adhesive?
Thanks.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Welcome to a outstanding Signs 101 & people.

Knows nothing about printers, ... But can help with anything else.

 

[Tony Teveris]

Welcome, to get the print hours on the FX do the following:

Bring up the FX home page in Internet Explorer by typing in the FX's IP address. The select Diagnostics / Statistical / TPH Statistics.


"Gerber does not seem to want to support unless I purchased it from them."

Did someone actually say this to you?

 

[jfiscus]

For your printing issues: Get some Gerber cleaning wipes & clean the printer. Next, are you using the correct settings for the vinyls/foils by selecting the correct materials through the software? Are your rolls of vinyl material dirty?

You have to get double-sided mounting adhesive and laminate it to the lexedge with your laminator, same as any other laminate you're using.

 

[fxer]

"Gerber does not seem to want to support unless I purchased it from them."

Did someone actually say this to you?

Pretty much. Between myself and someone else who owns this printer, we asked questions about S/W upgrades, material choices/options, and how to check the print hours. Gerber wanted the registered info of the owner (which we didn't have as it was not yet fully purchased), and serial # (which we gave them), but then said that we should really go through a distributor, and the distributor would then speak with the tech dept (at Gerber). Three distributors were not able to answer the questions, but 2 did contact Gerber. One of the distributors said they really don't know anything about it, and really don't deal with these much. Another was surprised to hear thing such as that the FX can do up to 1200 dpi, that the existing S/W (2.6) won't work for the full resolution, etc. We never got clear answers to all the questions.

 

[J Hill Designs]

Print hours:

On a Gerber EDGE FX:
1. Use the onboard keypad to find the IP address of your printer.
a. From the main menu of your EDGE FX, press F4 for the system menu.
b. Press F1 for Network
c. Press F1 for TCP/IP.
d. Press F1 for IP Address.
e. It should show something like 192.168.1.10
2. At your computer, open your web browser (usually Internet Explorer or FireFox)
3. In the Address line of the browser, type the IP address of the Edge FX and press ENTER.
4. Once in the web interface, go to bottom of the page and click on Diagnostics
5. At the bottom of that page, click on Statistics.
6. On the next page, click on TPH Statistics
7. From here, you should see all of your print timing information.

 

[fxer]

For your printing issues: Get some Gerber cleaning wipes & clean the printer. Next, are you using the correct settings for the vinyls/foils by selecting the correct materials through the software? Are your rolls of vinyl material dirty?

Material was wiped, but we weren't sure what parts of the printer to clean or with what, so had only brushed it lightly. We have since got the manual online. Also, the original material we had (which I wrote about above) was made by Avery, but we since got some oracal material to play with and it prints very nicely with that.

 

[fxer]

Thanks. I found that TPH info, but what do the numbers mean -- head up and head down? Also, the print time is resettable, so how does one know the actual "mileage" on this machine?

 

[jfiscus]

They run for-frickin-ever. No idea on how to find out how much mine's been ran - but it's a lot.