Print to Cut, and actually cutting correctly.

[TheSnowman]

I've never really been able to cut correctly on anything that's over about 3ft. tall on my vinyl. I constantly have to make my outlines thicker or something like that, so that you really don't know that the cutter isn't cutting it 100% straight. It's really a pain in the butt for vehicle graphics...anyone else deal with this? It's not really really bad, but it's just enough that it's not good enough for me.

 

[signage]

Why don't you call the vendor that sold you the equipment, I shouldn't be doing that! either you are not operating it properly or something is wrong with it.

 

[Mike Paul]

How much off?
Applying a bleed around the cut line is normal especially after print/lam/cutting.

 

[TheSnowman]

I have contacted the vendor. It doesn't do horrible...but it's off just enough that sometimes you'll have a very fine line of white around the outside of it, where it wasn't printed. They have basically told me that anything over like 6 ft. that it won't do EXACT. I was just wondering if that was really the case, or if it wasn't true.

 

[Mike Paul]

That will happen if you don't set your files up correctly.

 

[signage]

As Mike said if it is only off less than .25 of an inch it is a bleed correction! Any mechanical device that is fed by friction will have a little error, along with human error when when lining it up from printer to cutter, this is the reason for bleeds around cuts. Hope this helps you out.

 

[GK]

its funny you mentioned that because we have both Mimaki and Summa machines and they will sell it to you like you can run an entire roll unattended...and they are completely full of sh*t. Check to make sure your pinch rollers have the higher tension set to them if they dont already, also give the rubber rollers on them a swap with some isopropyl alcohol to get any dirt off them that may cause some problems with the media skewing.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I have to disagree with you GK, I have cut full rolls of vinyl and printed vinyl through my Mimaki cutter without a glitch. You just have to set it up stright the first time and let it do it's thing.

 

[eforer]

When I do big runs of contour cut stuff, I allow a .0625" bleed over the cut line, just to make sure I don't get any white sneaking in. I've found the machine to be very precise, even on longer, larger graphics. I also run it un-supervised.

 

[gabagoo]

I have a Mimaki printer with a Summa d140 cutter. I am absolutley amazed that I can contour cut my printed graphics with NO BLEED. I swear this is true. I don't do excessively long runs, instead I break the job down into "X" amount of quantities so that incase something horrible does go wrong all is not lost. I can't even run my Edge without a bleed and it's tractor feed...go figure

 

[eforer]

On smaller stuff, I feel the same with the mimaki. I use the aforementioned tiny bleed more as a security blanket. I'm guessing that the OP has a problem with the machine, or something is calibrated wrong. Also, its possible that the printer isn't printing perfectly either. The square test in the JV3 maintenance mode makes sure that the sizes sent to the printer are output accuratel,y ie a 100mm square is 100mm on all sides. If the print is printed slightly the wrong size, the crop mark detection will compensate to a point, but slight imperfections could arise from interpolating curves funny.

 

[CL Graphics]

I printed laminated and cut graphics for a corvette last week that were 110 inches long. I gave it an 1/8 bleed to be safe but didn't really need it. I did make my registration marks bigger to make sure it would pick them up. Normally use 10mm but made these 35mm.

 

[wildside]

that was a question i was having, are these prints laminated?

if so, when laminating, the prints can and will stretch just slightly

we use a mimaki and a graphtec cutter, the graphtec will go and find all four corners and compensate for the stretch in the laminating process

we do bleeds just cause we were taught that way, longest run we have tried is 24 foot, and i think it was only off about 1/32" at the worst, basically un-noticeable really.

 

[TheSnowman]

My prints aren't laminated. I haven't gotten the laminator yet, so it's just sprayed on. Shouldn't be any stretching involved. I guess I don't know much about the functions of the plotter, I'll check into making them bigger.

 

[eforer]

that was a question i was having, are these prints laminated?

if so, when laminating, the prints can and will stretch just slightly

we use a mimaki and a graphtec cutter, the graphtec will go and find all four corners and compensate for the stretch in the laminating process

we do bleeds just cause we were taught that way, longest run we have tried is 24 foot, and i think it was only off about 1/32" at the worst, basically un-noticeable really.

The mimaki also has 4 point registration, as well as 1, 2 and 3 point registration (user configurable) so it will compensate like the graphtec. For my money, Mimaki and Graphtec machines are the only plotters worth getting.

 

[DoubleDown]

The one thing we were just taught recently is make sure your graphics are lined up perfectly. How do you do this? Well, not the way we were doing it which was using the material itself. What Mimaki suggested was always making sure to put on crop marks or an outline line on all your prints and then put the media in the cutter and then use the little red laser dot to go from left to right and make sure your crop marks or line is exactly lined up with the laser dot left to right. Does that make sense? Basically if you have it lined up perfectly you should be able to move the laser left to right and it won't stray from your crop marks or line one bit.

Then they said make sure you use the tension setting on the back of the wheels which most people don't use or think about and of course a bleed does help.

They said speed of about 50 for fine cut detail and about 100-150 for just cutting outside of objects or squares, etc.

 

[asignstop]

Pull out your manual

There is a way to adjust the contour cut placement in the machines settings. So if your noticing the cut is off in one direction, you can compensate for that. As far as the media

Wsgraphix, when you run a 24’ run do you keep the print on the roll, and load it like cut vinyl? Or do you lay it out on a table, or just let it drape on the floor / media basket?




Anybody know how to do a “pounce” cut thru the vinyl? I never figured it out …

Ali

 

[TheSnowman]

What kind of plotter are you using? On my Mimaki, it's called Half Cut, and it's in the manual. It walks ya right through it.

 

[eforer]

The one thing we were just taught recently is make sure your graphics are lined up perfectly. How do you do this? Well, not the way we were doing it which was using the material itself. What Mimaki suggested was always making sure to put on crop marks or an outline line on all your prints and then put the media in the cutter and then use the little red laser dot to go from left to right and make sure your crop marks or line is exactly lined up with the laser dot left to right. Does that make sense? Basically if you have it lined up perfectly you should be able to move the laser left to right and it won't stray from your crop marks or line one bit.

Then they said make sure you use the tension setting on the back of the wheels which most people don't use or think about and of course a bleed does help.

They said speed of about 50 for fine cut detail and about 100-150 for just cutting outside of objects or squares, etc.

I use the laser pointer method for registration as well, works great.

 

[wildside]

Wsgraphix, when you run a 24’ run do you keep the print on the roll, and load it like cut vinyl? Or do you lay it out on a table, or just let it drape on the floor / media basket?

we have done it both ways, we try to keep it on the roll whenever possible though for easier handling