Hi all I've been in the sign industry a little over 2 and a half years now and recently moved into the vinyl and engraving department. I'm a total newb and am having difficulty with our Vision 1640 engraver. I've been trying and failing for about 3 weeks to get a good consistent ada sign. I've seen about glue issues which I've been having, but I've kind of figured out, but overall from start to finish I'm just missing something. I've watched the videos from Vision a few times and am going to watch them again with a fine-toothed comb, but any tips tricks or suggestions would be greatly helpful. Thank you very much.
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Need Help Vision engraving newbie
- Thread starter Pistachio
- Start date
CanuckSigns
Active Member
What part of the process are you having trouble with? If you can explain better I can help, we have a vision engraver and make a ton of ADA type signs.
JBurton
Signtologist
Just for one, leaving a panel with adhesive layer assembled for more than 30 minutes is going to make the adhesive a lot harder to remove. Place the adhesive panel right before you are ready to cut.
Fresh bits go a long way. A dropped bit, or bit that got run into the machine, is no longer fresh.
Not sure how the vision does the depth, but on my new hermes, a piece of thin paper between the nose cone and the surface, touch the nose cone down, then back it off until the paper just barely slips. This is a fool proof perfect depth, as long as the tool length is set properly.
Fresh bits go a long way. A dropped bit, or bit that got run into the machine, is no longer fresh.
Not sure how the vision does the depth, but on my new hermes, a piece of thin paper between the nose cone and the surface, touch the nose cone down, then back it off until the paper just barely slips. This is a fool proof perfect depth, as long as the tool length is set properly.
I'd say from beginning to end at this point. I'm unsure which parts are causing the failures. Seems like a leaking boat. Every time I get one "problem" solved and can get a good one its like a brief moment in time and then its back to figuring out the problems with the next one. At this point I'm convinced there are multiple pieces I'm missing that may not always affect the outcome but I'm not intune to understand how to recognize them and fix them before I start engraving (like on the software side, setup side, etc.). Right now it seems that on this run my raised elements are thin. Like really thin. I've resized them in composer but that didnt work. I made my depth in the vision program greater (went from 0.005 to 0.032) nothing seems to help. I know this company has been making ADAs forever and the old guy left, so it has to be me. Just getting so tired of spending so much time and not getting proper results in a timely manner.
I've got a good a process for that. Most of it is mechanical, but I have thought about that because I do that for my personal 3D printer at home. Also thank you for the glue tip. I definitely need to ensure that my cleanup happens to quickly. Of course I am having alot of glue left behind
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JBurton
Signtologist
Tis where I got the idea! So, on my machine, you would set that depth, then dial the nose cone up to the desired cutting depth afterward. This one little step had me digging into material far too much for the first several years of running my engraver.
What are your other issues with the machine? I find written out steps helps to avoid double work. Like for instance, running a bit for lettering and then a bit for braille, they could actually run at the same depth if the collar has been adjusted to have the two match the surface level + offset for cutting. So the braille bit would be ever so slightly shorter than the lettering bit. By setting these two up, you can skip the step of setting depth between the two types of cuts, and on my machine, you can send both parts at the same time, with a prompt to swap the bit out for the appropriate one before it starts machining. (We still typically knock out all of one or the other, to keep the glue from setting up and to keep from swapping bits over and over.)
JBurton
Signtologist
Oh well crap, here's an issue. On the hardware side, you're using a V bit for lettering, so the deeper you go, the narrower the letters will look. The nose cone should be pressed against the raised copy material, not the base material.
On the software side, the deeper you tell it to cut, the further out it will set the tool path to compensate for the bit getting bigger as it goes deeper. Make sure the vision program knows that you are cutting with a v bit, make sure the angle and tip match the V bit dimensions (my supplier and program measure v bits differently, angle as a whole vs angle off of straight, it's very annoying)
Try making a 1" square, measure the top 'edge' of the square, not the tool path, see what it's actually cutting, and report back.