Summa SClass 2 T Opos Cam, Losing Accuracy at the End of Job

[NITOS]

Does anyone have a problem with the cutter being 1mm off center vertically near the end of a cut job? For the first 3 rows it cuts perfectly center, but at the last 3-5 rows or so its always. Off.

I have ran almost 20 Opos Calibrations in one go, but still have this issue and the end of the cut job.

We also have additional media select rollers to hold the media in place, reduced the markers to every 5 inches, and we also do Opos 4 Mark Panel cutting.

The cutter is set up to cut pretty much as accurately as it could, and it does. In the beginning, but at the ends its always off almost like the batched job shrank a little.

Also, when we print and cut on 30inch material, some materials it does it, and some materials it doesn't. This time, we're on 54" material and it's having this issue.

Initially after doing the things I did above, it fixed the issue for about 5-6 months, but there is something happening now that must be causing this cutter to throw itself off near the end.

The rollers are clean also, and the bottom tracking marks are also clean.

Epson S80600, Summa S Class T OPOS Cam, Printed on Substance 2755 Vinyl and Laminated with Substance 3150

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Does anyone have a problem with the cutter being 1mm off center vertically near the end of a cut job? For the first 3 rows it cuts perfectly center, but at the last 3-5 rows or so its always. Off.

I have ran almost 20 Opos Calibrations in one go, but still have this issue and the end of the cut job.

We also have additional media select rollers to hold the media in place, reduced the markers to every 5 inches, and we also do Opos 4 Mark Panel cutting.

The cutter is set up to cut pretty much as accurately as it could, and it does. In the beginning, but at the ends its always off almost like the batched job shrank a little.

Also, when we print and cut on 30inch material, some materials it does it, and some materials it doesn't. This time, we're on 54" material and it's having this issue.

Initially after doing the things I did above, it fixed the issue for about 5-6 months, but there is something happening now that must be causing this cutter to throw itself off near the end.

The rollers are clean also, and the bottom tracking marks are also clean.

Epson S80600, Summa S Class T OPOS Cam, Printed on Substance 2755 Vinyl and Laminated with Substance 3150

How large are these decals?
What is the width of the black border?
From the perspective of the pics you provided, it looks like that is within the margin of error. But there are three things you can check:
1. What software are you using to send the cuts? I would verify you are current on that software, cutter control, and the unit's firmware.
2. Have you changed your Cutting strip and Pinch rollers in a while? If not, you should do that too.
3. Change the length of your cut groups to under 10'. Tracking accuracy dramatically reduces over 10'.

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

Calibrate the feed length and slow down speeds

 

[cornholio]

The problem is highly likely the lamination.
Opos cam is fast in recognition, but less accurate and versatile, than standard OPOS.

 

[jerry369]

Did you already try reducing the two parameters: "Up velocity" and "Up acceleration"? To do this use Summa Cutter Control.

 

[Snap2000]

My Summa S2T does the same thing, and I also use Substance vinyl. I haven't found a fix but I think it may have to do with the rollers slipping on glossy vinyl, but I'm not sure. Seems to work a lot better with 30" rolls for complex cuts.

 

[NITOS]

Did you already try reducing the two parameters: "Up velocity" and "Up acceleration"? To do this use Summa Cutter Control.

So we ended up reducing Up Velocity, Up Acceleration, and Down Acceleration to the second slowest speed, and we're now cutting 4ips which is the 3rd slowest speed available and we're still seeing the same drop in accuracy at the last 2-3 rows but it's about .25mm. If I speed it up, that .5-1mm inaccuracy jumps to 1-3mm which is WILD. I'm printing on Substance Vinyl, and laminating with Substance Gloss on 30" rolls.

 

[NITOS]

My Summa S2T does the same thing, and I also use Substance vinyl. I haven't found a fix but I think it may have to do with the rollers slipping on glossy vinyl, but I'm not sure. Seems to work a lot better with 30" rolls for complex cuts.

I also use Substance vinyl! I love this brand, but I'd hate to find out the problem is coming from the vinyl itself. We are also using 30" vinyl, at this point we're cutting at a snails pace which doesnt really bother us as much since we send rolls to cut and night and they're done in the morning. We're still getting the same problems as above though! It's almost like a software issue, because it starts perfect, but at the end it's always off. We even do 4 mark opos cutting and set each mark every 5 inches, so I'm completely baffled.
Sometimes our cutter also stops for no reason also half way through jobs, but thats another issue. Could be a power supply issue.

 

[NITOS]

Calibrate the feed length and slow down speeds

I was told that Calibrating feed length doesnt apply since our entire workflow is barcode based.

 

[NITOS]

The problem is highly likely the lamination.
Opos cam is fast in recognition, but less accurate and versatile, than standard OPOS.

Would it still be a lamination issue even if we're cutting at the slowest speed possible? It almost looks like a software issue.

 

[Snap2000]

How many rollers do you have on your Summa? I don't think it's a difference between OPOS Cam, because I have the standard OPOS and it does the same thing. Some days worse than others, but I really think it has to do with the rollers. I've noticed you can exaggerate the issue by placing the center rollers unevenly. I usually have enough bleed that it's not that big of an issue, but it's definitely annoying. Also I sent you a message on insta Nitos.

 

[NITOS]

How many rollers do you have on your Summa? I don't think it's a difference between OPOS Cam, because I have the standard OPOS and it does the same thing. Some days worse than others, but I really think it has to do with the rollers. I've noticed you can exaggerate the issue by placing the center rollers unevenly. I usually have enough bleed that it's not that big of an issue, but it's definitely annoying. Also I sent you a message on insta Nitos.

I have a total of 8 rollers, seems like overkill but when we first started we could not for the life of us get accurate cuts on Reflective media because it kept buckling. Adding all the rollers fixed the buckling issue forsure.

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

Clean the grit rollers with a toothbrush and alcohol carefully, and then calibrate the feed length.
The barcode has nothing to do with feed length. It reads the barcode and it runs back-and-forth back-and-forth, and if the feed length calibration is off, your cut, will be off at the end..
If the outside of your backing paper is extremely slippery, calibrating feed length may not work

 

[Snydo]

Another thing to try....your leftmost pinch roller can be placed inside of your crop marks and this can lead to better material stability as it feeds back and forth and therefore better accuracy.

 

[Saturn]

So we ended up reducing Up Velocity, Up Acceleration, and Down Acceleration to the second slowest speed, and we're now cutting 4ips which is the 3rd slowest speed available and we're still seeing the same drop in accuracy at the last 2-3 rows but it's about .25mm. If I speed it up, that .5-1mm inaccuracy jumps to 1-3mm which is WILD. I'm printing on Substance Vinyl, and laminating with Substance Gloss on 30" rolls.

I use a similar setup, very slightly thicker material from GF, but the same Substance Matte and Gloss laminate—30" inch rolls. So I don't think it's the laminate slipping.

For me, paneling and extra crops marks seemed to have a negative effect overall. Slowing things down on material this light never seemed help either. Maybe if I was doing 54" wide instead of 30", or long jobs.

I use the simplest OPOS-X w/barcode. I run at 400mm/16in velocity and have all the pinch roller slots filled. I think crop marks are set at around 19" inches apart. I admittedly only run up to about 30-40" inches length for a job. Everything is die-cut all the way through the backing. Occasionally there's jobs where things are off nearly a 1/32" of an inch for unexplained reasons, but overall we're probably in the 1/64th range.

It can be frustrating running down a problem like this, but keep at it! There's gotta be some combination of things that will at least make it a little better. I think someone already asked, maybe I missed you answer, but how big is the decal/sticker, and how big is the sheet you're trying to run? Are you cutting just the vinyl, or all the way through?

 

[Saturn]

Although I said keeping things simple works best for me, if you're continuously having the center be off at the end, you could try getting it to read the black bar at the top and bottom of the sheet. You might already have it set to do so, and I can't remember what specifically it's called. It's mostly for combatting the wide latex "droop", but maybe would help in this case?

 

[NITOS]

I ended up finding this while searching the web. Unfortunately for me I print with ONYX Gama Print which is extremely limited. I was told I need ONYX Thrive I would have access to the OPOS XY2 or OPOS Xtra options.

This can be confirmed in this video showing the workflow.

Manual where I found this information: https://support.summa.eu/support/solutions/articles/43000644736-roll-cutter-opos-alignment-methods

Unfortunately this means I will be stuck with this discrepancy until I dish out the $4k for the Thrive Upgrade.

 

[balstestrat]

You can make your own files and cut with gosign (you might need pro-pack for CAM).

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Do you use Onyx 22?

If so the driver has a glitch that I can confirm does that exact thing. We went round and round with Onyx and Summa. Neither would admit fault, spent over $1000 on 'repairs'. Finally did deeper testing on my own to find that onyx is shifting the cut paths from the print marks about .5mm

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

We solved this by hand building and the eventually automating the process while eliminating the Onyx involvement. Hopefully they fix it, but it's still not working in the newest 22.5.2 version