Operating questions: Mimaki CG160FX II

[ddubia]

We have had a Mimaki CG160FX II plotter for three years now. We are using Adobe Illustrator CS2 with Mimaki's "Fine Cut" software. There are still some things that I don't know how to do and they are so fundamental that I'm embarrassed to ask but here goes..

• If I have several things to plot of the same color but they are very long and I choose to run them separately, how would I, after running one of them, then run the next without starting the whole operation over again? What I do now is after every job I take the machine off of "Remote", release the pinch rollers, and them put them back down allowing the plotter to go find the pinch rollers again, hit end when TP1 comes up and then hit "remote" again. Is there a way to simply run the next job of the same color, from the same file, without starting over?

• Also, has anyone ever used the "half cut" feature. This feature will nearly cut out a sticker all the way through the paper backing leaving only small tabs to facilitate "punching out" the stickers. I have only done this once when we received training when we first got the plotter. My impression was that it was terribly hard on the machine so I have chosen to not use the feature. Does anyone use this feature? Do you feel it beats the hell out of your machine or have you used this feature frequently and feel there are no issues with it? We actually do a lot of smallish stickers and I have chosen to contour cut them and then hand cut them into individual stickers leaving just a bit of release liner around them.

Any help on either of these issues would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

To your first question, when it stops cutting/plotting all you need to do is take it out of remote and realigne


second question, I have used the half cut alot and it never damaged my cutter, just remember to move your knife into the front slot of the blade holder

 

[ddubia]

If by realign you mean to raise the pinch rollers and realign then that's starting over by my definition. If that's the only way then so be it.

Thanks for the info on the half-cut feature. I have a a couple hundred small stickers to run next week so I'll try that feature again. Since you've had success with it it give me a bit more confidence to go for it.

It just seemed to me that it was hard as hell on the machine but I guess since they've designed it to do that it should be ok.

 

[PrintnPlot]

Copy Skip

I have the same Mimaki model ([FONT=&#12513]CG-160FXII)[/FONT]...wonder if anyone can shed some light on why I'm having such horrible copy skip issues with only one print job.

I'm using crop marks (have no issues with the same marks, same material, etc. on a different print job, just this one) and the Mimaki will read the first layout just fine, move on to the second and read the first mark, move along to read the second and it touches down on it, but doesn't read it and displays copy skip.

I can then take the Mimaki out of remote, put it back in remote and it will read the same mark it just missed without a problem (I am not doing any re-positioning). Any ideas?

I'm feeling pretty frustrated and any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[GB2]

If you wanted to run multiples of a job but do it one at a time, you would simply run the first job then go to Finecut and hit plot again without doing anything to the plotter itself. The only reason you would take it out of remote, release the pinch roller and find the vinyl again as you described is if you needed to realign the vinyl in the plotter because it was going off track.

I do of thousands of decals with the half cut feature and it works flawlessly. I have three knife holders so that I do not have to keep adjusting the blade depth in the knife holder. I keep one set up specifically for half cutting that way I just change to the half cut tool setting, put my half cut blade holder in the front location and cut. If you only have the one blade holder then you will probably have to adjust the depth of the blade each time along with changing to the half cut tool setting. There is no extra wear on the machine at all when using this feature, it is designed for that purpose.