can anyone help with software problem on plotter please?

[Bill McMurtry]

What type of vinyl are you cutting and what size is the lettering?

[Keithdib]

Not too up on this, the vinyl is a roll of my friends to practice with,

on the back it says

Ritrama Ri-Mark series L&M

The image is 20.5cm x 4.5cm, smallest part would be between 1 & 2mm

Keith

[Bill McMurtry]

Would suggest a better quality (and perhaps thinner) vinyl for very small lettering. You could also try heating the vinyl before running through the cutter.

[Keithdib]

Thanks Bill

Can you recommend a good vinyl? its for use on a car

thanks
Keith

[Chris Wool]

quote :

The image is 20.5cm x 4.5cm, smallest part would be between 1 & 2mm

you are asking a lot from this sort of machine.

to do very fine work you must have a perfect blade cutting just the vinyl and hardly marking the backing paper, the bearings in the blade holder must be clean, also the platter should be polished so the vinyl backing paper moves very freely whilst under the pressure of the cut.

the blade off set is very important but don’t know if you can adjust it on that machine.

chris

[Martin Pearson]

As for offering help, I am always a bit wary of anyone running flexisign on a computer that has been given to them or lent to them. What is his mate using if he doesn’t have his flexisign dongle?

[Keithdib]

Hi Martin

I am looking after his kit while he is in Australia for a month, then it goes back and that when I will need my own software, it wont be FlexiSign however as its too expensive for use with a hobby

Keith

[Robert.Simpson.]

Talk to signwizard as there sign blazer elements software is good when i last had a play with it and they modded it to work with the pcuts

[Keithdib]

Its all working now, was a combination of blade pressure and height also speed…

What would people recommend software wise that’s not going to cost too much as its only for hobby use, but I still want it to work lol

Cheers
Keith

[Paul Leicester]

quote Keithdib:

Its all working now, was a combination of blade pressure and height also speed…

What would people recommend software wise that’s not going to cost too much as its only for hobby use, but I still want it to work lol

Cheers
Keith

The biggest mistake new users seem to make is to assume more blade = more pressure, it doesn’t just rubbish cut quality. Blade depth should be set to match the thickness of the vinyl, normally less than 0.5mm as a rough guide.

To set it accurately try the following…

Lay a piece of scrap vinyl flat on a table, remove the blade holder from the machine and screw the blade back into the holder.

Use the holder like a pen, perpendicular to the vinyl (90deg) and at normal hand pressure wipe it across the vinyl, keep screwing the blade out by ¼ of a turn ONLY and retest until you feel it cut the vinyl, peel the back off the vinyl and you should find a nice clean cut and a slight indentation in the vinyl backing.

Lock the holder off at this point and re-install into the machine and try a test cut.

That’s it, takes 1 minute and the cut quality should be perfect.

Paul

[Jayne Marsh]

The only thing I can say other than what has been said is that trying to cut lettering 1 or 2mm high is asking alot from most machines. I generally limit letter size to about 4 or 5mm high and even then you need nimble fingers to weed it ok. Any very small lettering will tend to lift from the backing when its being cut.

[Paul Leicester]

quote Jayne Marsh:

The only thing I can say other than what has been said is that trying to cut lettering 1 or 2mm high is asking alot from most machines. I generally limit letter size to about 4 or 5mm high and even then you need nimble fingers to weed it ok. Any very small lettering will tend to lift from the backing when its being cut.

I missed that about the size – 1mm, 2mm I really wouldn’t attempt to cut that or even worse…weed it.

Paul

[Keithdib]

HI

The letters etc are not 1 or 2mm but some of the graphic is and so are th full stops etc

keith