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help needed please with installing graphtec CE-1000-60?
I bought a new vinyl cutter about a year ago to run larger stuff and work as a backup to our trusty ol’ Roland PNC-1100 but have had a couple issues from the beginning so I thought I’d pick your brains and see if I can make some headway. Tech support through Desay (out of Mississauga, ON) has been of absolutely no help even after bringing the machine in three times, so it’s been sitting in a corner collecting dust. They managed to stall everything past the warranty. 🙄
Anyway, I’m determined to get some use out of it so your input is greatly appreciated, and perhaps it’s something only just beyond my simple thought process anyway so here goes…
The first issue is getting it to print in the proper direction and for the life of me I’m having little luck with driver and page layout settings to match up. It always seems to want to rotate the template 90 degrees away but I had it set up and cutting when we first got it for a few weeks so this is probably one of those mental blocks. With luck one of you may have a similar cutter and can just give me the proper driver and page layout setups!
Secondly, and more frustratingly, the major issue with this cutter is that it will, on occassion decide to cut a diagonal line through the whole layout! This makes the cutter unreliable and costly (mostly in time but material) when it decides to do this – and not in any really predictable spot in the cut. I’m sure there is some bad bit going through the interface that sends it off and the blade holder will even try to go through the end of the machine itself!
Frustrating to say the least. Worst part is that on all three times we’ve brought it in to get looked at they could not reproduce the problem (which is not too surprising since it only happens when you least expect, or the order is most important – Murphy’s Law applies here :wind:). We went through trying every interface including serial and paralell – no USB on the cutter, different cables and different computers. This would seem to indicate an errant bit between the software and the driver or the driver to the cutter but I couldn’t say for sure.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated. 🙂
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13 Replies
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Ok, no luck but can anyone help with a Corel page layout and driver profile for this cutter? 🙂
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sorry Charvel can’t offer any solutions have you contacted Graphtec ?
Lynn
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is this before/after/during cutting the artwork out? I mean, will the cutting go across the page diaganol when the job is finished?
(Like its returning to the home point after it has finished cutting and not lifted the pen up?)
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I use the same plotter with Corel 12 (previously 7).
The page size must match the print-page size.
I generally use 60 cms. wide vinyl (580 mms. cutable) and set page-size in Corel to 580 mms, plus whatever length is required, e.g. 2000 mms.
Go to print setup and set exactly the same measurements.
The image you want to cut has to have NO FILL and a black hairline outline.
It´s important to choose print, SELECTION, then PRINT.
Hope this works for you.
Good luck. Chris -
quote Dave Rowland:is this before/after/during cutting the artwork out? I mean, will the cutting go across the page diaganol when the job is finished?
(Like its returning to the home point after it has finished cutting and not lifted the pen up?)
It seems to do so in the middle of cutting the curve of a font although I’m not sure if that’s exclusively so since I can’t seem to reproduce it with any regularity. 😕
graffica: I will double check my settings with yours, thanks for the suggestions. My main problem was the direction of printing. I recall when I had it working before that I had to layout the page portrait style and rotate all images 90 degrees counterclockwise with the origin at the bottom left. A bit of a PITA really but not a big deal. :lol1:
Now it seems that no matter which way I have it set up it wants to cut things 90degrees from the way I have it laid out. Perhaps I missed something simple that you described in your post so I will give that a go today and see where I end up. I don’t think I ever have chose to "print – selection" so maybe that’s it.
Thanks for your patience.
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thats odd… have u elimated fonts?
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Not completely but we can cut the exact same file on our Roland PNC-1100 with no problems. It’s almost as if the cutter gets a bad bit somewhere in the translation and goes running for home. 😕
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I had the same trouble with the same cutter. I also tries serial, parallel, different computer etc. Couldn’t reproduce the trouble. Being in electronics, I took the cutter apart and was looking for a ‘cold solder joint’ (poor soldering job). Here’s what I found. With the cutter laying face down, I removed the bottom of the cutter. There is a fan and a circuit board attached to this bottom. There are a few circuit chips soldered to the circuit board and there are some chips in chip holders that are soldered to this circuit board. The last large chip on the left hand side was not seated all the way into it’s holder. You could see an 1/8 " gap between the chip and the holder. I couldn’t press the chip any further into the holder until I sprayed a little WD40 onto the pins and used a flat screwdriver to wiggle it up a little and then it snapped down all the way, flush with the chip holder. I’ve cut a hundred signs since and not a single case of ‘wandering blade’. The other thing I noticed on my cutter was the arm that holds the blade. If the cutter was off and I pushed up on the arm, it would "stick" at the top. When the machine was running and I was cutting thinner vinyl, I would take some of the downforce off and and noticed the start and stop points did not line up and weeding was a b@#$%! That’s because the blade would not drop when it should because it was "stuck" at the top for a fraction of a second before releasing. I put a small piece of cardboard between the arm and the head so the arm couldn’t go up all the way and it no longer "sticks" at the top. After a lot of cursing, I’m actually enjoying the cutter now. Don’t know if this helps but thought I would mention it. Good luck!
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Hey Wildwind thanks alot for the new avenue to look at! I appreciate your post and will look into it.
Do you happen to use CorelDraw for any cutting? If so, any tips there would be a help.
😎
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I design everything in Corel. THen I remove the color, put a thin outline on everything and export it as an AI file. This file I import into WinPCsign that came with the cutter. It’s what seems to work best for the cutter. I would love to be able to cut directly from Corel but so far have had little luck. I have downloaded the Graptec 2000-60 drivers but haven’t had time to experiment much. Will let you know what I find. I know taking the cutter apart to look at that chip is extreem, but I can’t see mine being the only one. I e-mailed Desay with my finding a few weeks ago. Weather they paid any attention or not I don’t know. It was frustrating enough that I was literally standing in front of the cutter with a 2 1/2 pound maul trying to decide if I should hammer the heck out of it. Then I would have had to buy another cutter and not be playing Russian roulette with my vinyl. The last time it "wandered" it ruined the last 12 feet of translucent vinyl I had. I had to wait another week to get replacement vinyl (Special order) and order twice as much as I needed (in case it went wild again) and put the customer off for another week (not impressed). So, you can see why I was standing over the cutter with a hammer! That’s also why I took it apart – nothing to loose at that point. Let me know if you need further info or if you find anything…………………
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PS, these cutters can be very static sensitive so I ran a small guage wire from the metal base of the cutter to earth ground (the screw that holds the plug in the electrical box that your cutter is plugged into/ the box is grounded via your house wiring back to the fuse pannel). Hey, it can’t hurt to be paranoid with any possible problem!
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You must be my alter-ego whirlwind. :lol1:
I had the most frustrating 2 months of almost daily calls to Desay where they would start from the beginning every time going through the list: "Is your computer on? Have you tried a serial cable? Did you turn the machine on between 12 and 1pm during a full lunar phase?" 😉
I drove to Toronto twice as well, and they stopped returning my calls managing to stall the process long enough for the warranty to end.
If I don’t manage to get it working I may consider borrowing that hammer of yours.
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I hope you do have the same trouble I did. Once I fixed it I’ve had great luck. I’m out on the east coast (PEI) so didn’t have the luxury of dropping into Desay. Then again I might have taken the hammer with me and that would not have ended well…..
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