PC-600 Frame Alighment - Printer Question

Hello all,

I'll keep this short, but I wanted to tell a quick story and I need a Roland PC600 experienced user to give me a boost on how to maximize cutting my stock 15" rolls of vinyl - I"m getting maybe 10inches width.

ANyhow, I have wanted a PC600 for a long time. Yea, I know EcoSol is better, etc... but I do small short run motorcycle decals and this machine is really ideal for me.

I bought a unit off EBAY here in the USA for $2200. that was listed incorrectly as refurbished. KNowing I gambled, I figured even if I had to spend a grand it would be worth it to me. The unit arrived and to my great disappointment, it dropped the carts as soon as it put them back.. No printout would work because it would jam on nearly every cut.

I'm asking for help on one hand, but on the mechanical side, I am pretty solid. I took the unit apart and discovered the unit has never been used. Not one sign of use in any clue. The unit was dropped or jarred. You couldn't tell it unless it was apart but the frame holding the door was bowed in about 1/4" and this caused a misalignment and the massive mishandling of the carts. Using a straight edge, I simply bent the frame back so that the frame was flush to the straightedge on both sides. I put the unit back together and it works perfectly. But now it wouldn't advance the vinyl. It would print a massive "CAKE" of resin on a single line and not advance anything. So I took it apart again. The drive motor had slipped down and was no longer pinion to pinion with the drive system. I loosened the retaining screw, slipped the motor back into mesh with the pinions and put it back together. It's working like brand new... um actually it is brand new. I'm totally freaking out that I had such good luck to pick one of these up for $2200.00 After realizing this unit was brand new it dawned on me to look at the 4 ribbons supplied. Just as I had suspected or hoped, each had about 2 ft. of ribbon used up and the ribbons indicated a service report was printed.

The long and short of it, Whoever got his new must have had the frame probem happen on their delivery. It's been sitting somewhere for however long and it finally made it's way to EBAY. Anyhow, one day an ECOSOL unit for me but for now, I'm thrilled with the purchase.


Now the help I need is two fold....

When I use color choice to print my decals, it's doing a fine job, but not utilizing the full width of my stock. I'm estimating I get about a 10" width and I'm not sure what to do about it. I cut a decal that had the CutContour color issued in an EPS file but it also ignored it. ColorCHoice printed the decals but didn't contour cut them.

Can anyone bring me up to speed on understanding how to get colorchoice to do the contour cut? I thought all I had to do was outline with the CutContour color and tell colorchoice to print and cut, but no deal.

Second, what is telling the 600 my vinyl is so narrow? I put a 15"x30" custom size into colorchoice, selected it, but the cutter is still printing 1 decal and 1/2 of the next decal before advancing to the next line. On the preview, it shows all 6 small decals across the vinyl but not cutting that way.

Guys and Ladies, I greatly appreciate your time. In exchange For the help I'm getting here, I do have some of the SERVICE MANUAL pages for the dealer and will be happy to let you know what the manual says if I happen to have the section you need. The dealer service manual tells all including all factory programming and assembly and part replacement.

I don't know if my email will let me know when you reply. Please drop me a note at my email address please if you answer.

Arbit2 is my email name and it's at streetglo.net

Thanks!

Bill
(this is a copy of an earlier post in another forum)

 

And why do you suggest that? It seems a lot of folks dislike the 600. I'm not in that camp yet. Who knows. I can tell you it's doing a fine job on the material I'm sending through it. The prints are nearly perfect.

Bill

 

Thanks for the replies.

I know it seems petty about the 2.5" or so, but I use a lot of very high end materials. In my case, both the ribbons are expensive and so is the vinyl. However, I'm in contact with a asian maker of ribbons and will likely get the cost down to about $4.00 a refill. WHen I get closer I'll poll a few others to join me in a purchase.

Anyhow, I put the 15" material in so that it's closest to the the control panel side and the 2nd pinch roller from the right is holding on to about the last 1/2" of matterial. ALl the remainder is on the right side of the unit.

I didn't recall seeing the option to change the margins except in colorchoice and they were set to 000. Is there a 2nd margin limit in the machine itself?

Thanks for your help.

Bill