plotter shifting vinyl roll when cutting

[slappy]

I cut a huge 35' sign the other day with 2 copies, one on top the other, on a 24" roll and everything went fine.
Today, i'm cutting 2 11' stripes, and my 15" roll is shifting to the right on my plotter. About 3 inches and I just ruined about 6' of 3M reflective.

Anything i can do to help this? It's an Ioline super 88 plotter. I already recently tightened all the pulleys. I'm using 4 pinch wheels on the vinyl.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

is this a straight stripe?

 

[big prints]

Level

I know this sound a little off base but make sure one the machine is still level and two that there is nothing on your pinch rollers. Sometimes we have to clean ours here in the shop to eliminat build up and dust.

I hope this helps.
MT

 

[slappy]

this is what i'm trying to cut. Sorry about the delay..... stupid customers coming in when i was trying to post and the phone

 

[slappy]

everytime i go to cut these stripes, it always messes up. Just the 15" reflective roll

I cleaned the pinch wheels and grit shaft.... made sure it's level, but it always messes with me gold

 

[TyrantDesigner]

well here are some things to try (with a pen in the cutter and some paper first) ... slow down your speed, especially with reflective you're causing a tone of drag on the graphics, layer the objects seperately (remember, vector graphics have an order of objects from top to bottom) and make sure it starts at the center and alternates objects from side to side (not left to right or vice versa) and lastly try cutting things in sections, from the looks of it the graphics are seperated into 3 sections ... smaller sections means less to go wrong and easier to watch dog ... means you have to apply in 3 sections though. so maybe 10 more minutes worth of measuring before you apply.

 

[slappy]

i have it turned down to the slowest setting when cutting already.
what does this mean though in production manager
OPTIMIZE CUT ORDER and it's set to 10"


I'm not sure how to make it start to cut from the center

and the graphic is only 2 sections. That zig zag is connected to one of the long stripes

 

[TyrantDesigner]

don't look at your cut utility to optimize the cutting order, the ACTUAL order in which they are LAYERED in the document should be ordered. I don't want to be insulting to what you know, so please do bear with me. (I know what I say can be a little a-hole sounding ... it's not)

order of items in vector, regardless of PLACEMENT, ORDER of items is essential to know about. for example, see attached file. on the top, the actual ORDER of items from top to bottom on the layered structure of the DOCUMENT. in the top example, the ORDER goes from 3 to 2 to 1, on the bottom the order goes from 1 to 2 to 3.

In order to MANUALLY ORDER your document to cut effeciently, you must make sure that middle items are on TOP ORDER in the document and extending ELEMENTS and OBJECTS that are not attached to your middle OBJECT are then subsequently ordered alternating .... so for example ... if you have 5 objects (lets just name them 1 2 3 4 5) and you want to cut middle first then alternate objects to help create even drag while cutting so it doesn't just pull to one side (mainly for thicker materials like sand blast mask or reflective) ... you would then order 3 4 2 5 1 ooorrrrr ...

3
4
2
5
1

in order of how it would appear as a structure on your document.


and for the love of all that is unholy, why is your optimize cutting order on your cutting utility set to the default 10" ... set that **** to .1 or .25 so it won't jump 10" at a time.

 

[round man]

another factor to consider is the sharp tips of the design try rounding any sharp tips on the zig-zags this can cause shifting if the bade hangs at a sharp tip of the graphic ever so slightly especially with alot of blade pressure like one would use on reflective