Running 2 Mimaki Plotters on 1 Computer....surely there is a way.....

[MarkH42]

We have 2 Mimaki plotters. One is a CG-130FX and the other is a CG-160FXII. We currently run only the CG-160FXII and we use the Mimaki FineCut plug-in with our Adobe Illustrator subscription. We want to use the CG-130FX plotter at the same time, so we can cut two jobs simultaneously. We contacted GRIMCO tech support to find out if it was possible to add a second plotter to FineCut and we found out we could, but you can only run one or the other and not both, which doesn't help us.

We also have Onyx RIP software that we use to run 4 printers. We could possibly add the other plotter to the Onyx RIP, which is on a PC (Illustrator is on a Mac) but the functionality and interface would be different than FineCut. I suppose another option would be to dedicate another computer to this single plotter, download Illustrator on that computer and add FineCut, BUT we only have a subscription for 3 Adobe Suite computers and would have to add a 4th just to fun FineCut.

I have to believe there is a better way and this is the place to find out. Thanks in advance for any tips!!

 

[Solventinkjet]

The way the Mimaki driver works is it differentiates multiple plotters by their serial numbers. So when both plotters are powered on and connected to the computer, when you click the plotter setup button on the bottom left corner of the plot screen, the drop down menu for the communication should show both plotters with their serial numbers next to them. Choose the one you want to plot to and send the job. Then open the next file and send it to the other plotter. It's clunky and unintuitive, I know.

 

[MarkH42]

The way the Mimaki driver works is it differentiates multiple plotters by their serial numbers. So when both plotters are powered on and connected to the computer, when you click the plotter setup button on the bottom left corner of the plot screen, the drop down menu for the communication should show both plotters with their serial numbers next to them. Choose the one you want to plot to and send the job. Then open the next file and send it to the other plotter. It's clunky and unintuitive, I know.

Your explanation seems to contradict what the Grimco rep said, but it is worth a try and it would be fantastic if you were right. (My sarcasm detector went off briefly, but I chose to hit the ignore button.) I will give this a try this afternoon. Thanks!

 

[Solventinkjet]

Your explanation seems to contradict what the Grimco rep said, but it is worth a try and it would be fantastic if you were right. (My sarcasm detector went off briefly, but I chose to hit the ignore button.) I will give this a try this afternoon. Thanks!

Not a lot of techs use FineCut so there isn't a lot of experience to work off of for sure.

 

[MarkH42]

Not a lot of techs use FineCut so there isn't a lot of experience to work off of for sure.

When I plug in the second plotter via USB port, the Mac doesn't seem to recognize that there is a new device plugged in. When it asks for the connection type and you click USB, the drop-down menu only contains the option to click on the USB port already used for the first plotter. I'm not familiar enough with Macs to find the equivalent of the device manager. When people are running multiple plotters, is it more common that they use RIP software like Onyx or Flexi? We may need to go that route.

 

[Solventinkjet]

When I plug in the second plotter via USB port, the Mac doesn't seem to recognize that there is a new device plugged in. When it asks for the connection type and you click USB, the drop-down menu only contains the option to click on the USB port already used for the first plotter. I'm not familiar enough with Macs to find the equivalent of the device manager. When people are running multiple plotters, is it more common that they use RIP software like Onyx or Flexi? We may need to go that route.

Yeah something like Flexi or Onyx would definitely be a more robust option. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of experience with FIneCut on Macs. On PC's you have to install a driver and that takes care of separating the cutters by serial number. Most of my customers have dedicated setups for each of their cutters or use something like Flexi which is designed specifically for running multiple machines on one computer.

 

[mbasch]

We have been unable to successfully run our 2 Mimaki's out of Onxy on the same computer. Grimco told us they would run together fine. Mimaki blame Onxy, Onyx blames Mimaki and so here we sit with an extra computer and a lightly convoluted workflow. We had the same issues back in the day try to run 2 JV33 on the same rip. We certainly thought that would have been resolved 10 years later.

 

[Solventinkjet]

We have been unable to successfully run our 2 Mimaki's out of Onxy on the same computer. Grimco told us they would run together fine. Mimaki blame Onxy, Onyx blames Mimaki and so here we sit with an extra computer and a lightly convoluted workflow. We had the same issues back in the day try to run 2 JV33 on the same rip. We certainly thought that would have been resolved 10 years later.

Good info. I know for a fact that you can do it easily with Flexi if that helps.

 

[MarkH42]

This is a probably a discussion for the Onyx forum, but I was able to install a driver on the RIP computer and install the plotter into Onyx PosterShop. I can open CUT-Server and the plotter is connected. Everything looks like you would expect it to. The plotter is on REMOTE, and you click "CUT JOB". A green bar appears and it looks like the job is sent. There is no error message or any indication of trouble, but the plotter doesn't cut. Surely it is some setting that I haven't figured out yet, but I'll take this discussion to the Onyx forum. Thanks for the help getting to this point. I'm close!

 

[MarkH42]

We have been unable to successfully run our 2 Mimaki's out of Onxy on the same computer. Grimco told us they would run together fine. Mimaki blame Onxy, Onyx blames Mimaki and so here we sit with an extra computer and a lightly convoluted workflow. We had the same issues back in the day try to run 2 JV33 on the same rip. We certainly thought that would have been resolved 10 years later.

My plan now is to run one through the Mimaki FineCut Illustrator plug-in and the other one through Onyx. Maybe Flexi is the best long-term decision, but at this point I'll be happy if I can do it this way, then I'll consider Flexi and other options.

 

[netsol]

When I plug in the second plotter via USB port, the Mac doesn't seem to recognize that there is a new device plugged in. When it asks for the connection type and you click USB, the drop-down menu only contains the option to click on the USB port already used for the first plotter. I'm not familiar enough with Macs to find the equivalent of the device manager. When people are running multiple plotters, is it more common that they use RIP software like Onyx or Flexi? We may need to go that route.

YOU COULD go to device manager, choose view by connection, expand usb section. SWITCH THE PLOTTERS then choose "scan for hardware change"
you may have to choose "view hidden devices" at that point it should differentiate the 2 machine