can anyone help with cadet plus cut alignment problem?

[Paul Hughes]

hi peter

i have found my cadet can at times look like its out of alignment, i have run the alignment program from the menu and it is spot on. what i do now is this, if i have a run of say 100 small print and cut labels and i can get say 20 across the width of the vinyl, i send over 5 files of 20 (takes little extra time), that way it prints them and cuts them in 20’s and keeps much better alignment than if you sent all 100 over and it printed them and then scrolled back to cut them. as you say not a problem on bigger items but can be a problem on smaller items. will be interested in what others have to say. hope this helps

Paul

[Alan Drury]

I’ve had 2 small sticker jobs done on Cadets by 2 different suppliers and neither of them were aligned 100%, just about usuable – just. Do any of the print and cut machines align over a run of say 300 ovals 40mm X 25mm – would the last few align? – is print and an opos cutter a better bet?
Alan

[biggoj]

i have a grenadier print & cut, it was the 10th machine installed in the uk, so have been using it a while now, although bigger, i still come across the proble of misalignment, the only way i have found to lessen the offset being wrong is to do an auto alignment before every print/cut run
i dont know if the cadet can do this, also turning the heaters down a bit, stops so much expansion in the material, also if the machine can print reg marks and then reinsert the sheet (say, for laminating) this alot more accurate.
again not sure if the cadet does this.
as for B&P’s quote of ‘anomly’ hmmmm………….dont even get me started on that lot!
hope any of the above helps!

laters

jas

[Peter Shaw]

Thanks for the replies fellas. This is really interesting as to date I have been told:

Printmax: “Not been informed of any other machines with this problem…”

B & P: “No other machines are experiencing this problem…”

So this problem does appear on other machines. Has anyone tried to get their supplier to fix it?

Does the Versacamm get the same problem? Is it RIP related?

Keep your responses coming, please.

Peter

[Rodney Gold]

Heres a reply I posted to the Roland board:

We find when doing step and repeat what has really stopped any tendancy for our machine to drift off progressively when cutting is not to step and repeat in the design package.
We rip one example and let the rip handle the placement on the media with guttering etc, It saves huge rip time and relies on the machine to report media width and lays out accordingly. We can now cut the most intricate decals in vast quantities without drift problems , this was the most effective thing we did.
To further fine tune it , we also had the dealer do an adjustment apart from our own adjustments.
We also do Auto cut alignments often and do enivronment calibrations every so often
Its vital for us most time to get correct registration

Another strategy you can try is print with reg marks and then read the reg marks and then cut. This essentially “resets” the machine and takes into acount stretch etc.

We also cut with a heater if we printed with a heater at the same temp believing the vinyl should be more or less in the same state it was printed.
If you are running large quantities of decals , its a real pain to have to spit them up or worry that a large amount will get spoiled beacause of drift.

I wonder about distance travelled , is it linear distance of media or is is linear distance travelled IE if the cut makes the vinyl go back and forth , is that considered travel?

Cutting on a bleed is bad news generally , especially if its a dark bleed on thin vinyl , the decal will tend to shrink and curl at the cut.
We have yet to find a vinyl that completely eliminates this and that is cabable of complex cuts and high def printing.
Hope some of this helps.

The machine is pecced at 0.5mm error or 0.4% of distance travelled , hence the distance discussion. , a lot of ppl use a bleed that extends past the cut line , hence the bleed discussion.

[Roger]

When cutting small stickers I always run the environmental match from the menu this does improve the accuracy

Roger

[Chris Wool]

out of interest how far off is your print & cut peter like print quality one persons perfect anit anothers

chris

[David Rowland]

without ending up in court being accused of slandering a company, most of the digital print machine suppliers that we have bought off over the years seem to take a negative attitude for after sales support (even if you are paying a monthly fee)

[biggoj]

tell me about it! i know more about mymachine than they do!

[Peter Shaw]

I thought I would update this item in the hope it may help others.

After a fairly miserable time with grossly innacurate cutting on my prints, I have now been given the entry key sequence to get into the engineer menus on the Cadet. There is a print/cut alignment process there which seems to be more accurate and responsive than the one on the user menu. I have found that I can now get the alignment acceptably accurate across the vinyl width using this. It can vary day to day quite significantly but is quick and easy to realign.

I can now print/cut small stickers confidently.

Thanks to all of you who replied to this posting. The responses certainly helped and were fed back to both Printmax and B & P. This should hopefully stop both companies saying it does not happen on machines other than mine!

Peter

[Stephen Morriss]

And the entry key sequence is…….

Steve

[Gordon Forbes]

They know damn well about alignment problems I was told by a service engineer that the menu item tends not to work certainly didn’t in my cadet
Printmax engineer said it was beyond him he got B&P to call me and set it up over the phone I wrote down the sequence to get into the service mode menus and I will have a look for it. Mine by the way was cutting 2-3 mm right and 2-3 mm down from outlines on a supposedly new machine (I have my doubts about this) which I am still waiting for the accesories for ie roll end caps etc etc using the ones off my D60 at the moment.
As I said in another post getting fed up with them.

If i find them i will post
Great thing this internet how many would have a third of the information they have now about signs, material, suppliers, software etc etc.
You would think that some of them would wise up as this site prooves it’s good to talk.
PS You have to be carefull in service mode as it can kill your cadet /versacamm if you switch the wrong things in there.

Goop

[Chris Wool]

Rodney says

quote :

I wonder about distance travelled ,

i have often wondered if the cutting part of the rip knows if you have put a media calibration on i all ways ensure its zero but just wondered.

the environment check is most important and can make a 1mm difference quite often but do this before printing not in betwen operations

i have always struggled with the manufactures method of alignment and now print and cut a square then offset the knife in the menu by trial and error normally after 3 or 4 goes its correct if i find its wondering off a day latter i do a envio test and all is well again

chris

[Peter Shaw]

Goop,

quote :

a supposedly new machine (I have my doubts about this)

Is your machine a Cadet or Cadet Plus and when did you get it?

Peter

[Chris Wool]

as i understand it

they are bought from roland then modified by bap engineers then sold to you – so it has to be opened boxes and marked screws etc. – unless its more sinister.

chris

[Paul Young]

one simple way to cure the problem of allignment is to pull the vinyl off the roll so when you have printed your stickers the machine is not trying to undo a heavy roll of vinyl ie:750 wide vinyl x 50mtrs long = heavy cadet machines like a free run on media.hope this makes sence it 11pm only been up 19hrs.

[Gordon Forbes]

Its a Cadet 750mm wide and I got it in march. I will have to look up the exact date.
For it being a new machine it was pretty grubby on the inside and delivered in a Transit with a cover over it no box nothing I was told the rest would come with the engineer well turned out they had to get an engineer from up noth as they couldn’t supply one from down south.

Goop

[Brian Hays]

Did you ever get the box Forbie? seems a bit odd! did you buy an ex demo one or something?

[Peter Shaw]

Forbie,

Is your serial number ZR91736? I’m interested to know if you’ve got my old machine.

Peter

[Peter Shaw]

Forbie,

Is your serial number ZR91736? I’m interested to know if you’ve got my old machine.

Peter

[Gordon Forbes]

Sorry didn’t notice this before but the Serial number of my machine is
ZR33542.