Cutter choice?

[Robert Lambie]

i have 5inch wide graphtec cant fault tracking… don’t mean to be funny mate but 9/10 cutters tracking bad is down to person loading. (reputable cutters anyway) i often go by the rule, you shouldn’t need to track much more than you can fit. i.e. whats the biggest piece of vinyl you would see yourself fitting in one bit?
sheet material only comes 3 metres long. trucks should be panelled vertically, that being the case only 100inches deep.

have a look at this demo i did with my graphtec. now that job needed accuracy! 😀

[alan flynn]

what a small cutter you have rob, graphtec are making them very compact,
joking aside, i would say look at the new graphtecs, summa, and mutoh, all are good machines with good warranty back up

regards
alan flynn

[John Childs]

Robert,

I can’t agree with you on tracking only as much as you can fit.

We regularly need to produce stuff in bulk and having to do a production run in bits is annoying. In an ideal world we would be able to load the cutter and run off fifty metres of vinyl without having to keep a constant eye on it.

For years I would not consider anything except a sprocketed cutter for this very reason, although friction machines have improved tremendously over the years and we now use them all the time. Still can’t do fifty metres on them though. 🙁

[valegraphics]

Cheers guys. Rob, no matter how accurate i set up, the tracking runs away after a couple of meters e.g. repeat jobs in the same colour.

Alan. I see you have a few second user cutters with stands on your w/site mate. Do you offer any kind of warranty with them. Unlike your x-business associate!!…….. only found out yesterday from a b&p techy that hes on their stand next week as a recognised dealer for them!!…………my my have i got some issues with that man!!!!!!!!!! Dont want to go into it. Makes my blood boil…..Think theres a few other on here with the same sentiments.mmm Perhaps he’ll get lynched.

Where were we. Aaahh cutters? Dont get me wrong the graphtec has been spot-on since day one. Just want something i dont have to babysit.

Matt

[alan flynn]

hello matt,
sorry to hear you are having problems, feel free to give me a call if they are anything i can help you with, the machine list on my web site is quite old we will update it soon, but if you can afford new, i would advice you to go that route,
still waiting for rob to post a reply about his 5 inch cutter
regards
alan flynn

[David Rogers]

I’ve ran a Graptec FC5100 (1200mm) in the past and the tracking was frankly amazing. I now have a Summa D120 and also – no problems, it’ll track about 10m without so much as a blip if I’ve set it up well.

I generally put bad tracking down to bad loading, especially if the roll is fractionally missaligned, muck on the pinch / grit roller or unevenly worn rollers. In extreme cases even slippery backing paper on the vinyl can have a bearing.

Dave

[valegraphics]

Thanks alan. Am i right in saying that the gerber fastrack is a re-badged mutoh? And it has optical tracking?

Thanks for your input david. No matter hoe i set up the cutter she runs out. The way flexi reads the data doesnt help. It pulls the media back and forth through the cutter instead of cutting along the width of the machine, to complete the panel.

I will ring you today with my e-mail address so you can give me a list of cutters in stock, if thats ok. Cheers

Matt

[Alan Drury]

Before you write off your Graphtec check first that:
1. The grit rollers are completely free from residue ie vinyl bits and paper
2. That you have no ‘flats’ on the actual pinch rollers.
These two things alone can account for serious tracking issues.
Alan D

[valegraphics]

Hi alan d. Yeah i regularly check the obvious thing on the cutter.

I didnt mean to run down graphtec in my previous post. It’s been a great machine. But i’m after something slightly more on the robust tracking type cutter if that makes sense. I would just like as many opinions as possible before i change. Sign uk will be a great time to check capabilities of some toys. Last year i seemed to look at nothing but printers.

Matt

[Peter Normington]

Matt, dont know about flexi but in Signlab, you can set the order that the job is cut, nearest data or order it was drawn in. etc, is there not a similar function in flexi?

Peter

[Harry Cleary]

Sorry to hijack the thread a bit, but what do you guys use to clean the grit rollers? Is it just a rub they need? and are they and the pinch rollers difficult to replace?
Thanks

[Kenny Ramsey]

Flexi has an optimise cut order option. I’ll know if it works when I get using it properly 🙄

[Stephen Morriss]

My Summa manual says to use a strip of vinyl with the backing paper removed and use the manual feed to go backwards and forwards. (edit) sorry, this is to clean the rollers.

Steve

[Stephen Morriss]

quote Peter Normington:

Matt, dont know about flexi but in Signlab, you can set the order that the job is cut, nearest data or order it was drawn in. etc, is there not a similar function in flexi?

Peter

Have you ever got that to work Peter? I’ve tried it and I’ve never got the expected result.
I also have CoCut (a Corel addon) and that was great, other than long single cuts it cut everything including the weeding lines as it went down the vinyl then one feed back to the start to cut the box round the outside.

Signlabs seems to cut all over the place whatever setting I use.

Steve

[valegraphics]

Kenny , peter i’ll have a look today for that setting. Where would it be?

Steve never tried that one mate?

Matt

[David Rogers]

Start Sequence.

Select FIRST object then click button.
A trailing line will extend from the pointer – click on all objects in the desired cut order, then into free space to complete.

Will cut in exact order you chose.

It looks like: [123]

You might have to customise a toolbar – otherwise it’s in: LAYOUT – START SEQUENCE

Dave

edited to add: Oh, yeh – this is in Signlab!

[valegraphics]

Cheers david. Try later.

Matt