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why does my plotter stop half-way through cutting?
Going to Belfast tomorrow and I’m trying to do a quick replacement sign for a friend who’s had the last one I did for him vandalized.
I’m half way through a 2.5 meters cut and the the cutter stops with a no media display.
Tell me I don’t have to throw it in the bin 😕
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5 Replies
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Sounds like the rear media sensor (IR LED) (most plotters have them) or the microswitch on the roller handle might be knackered giving a false reading of ‘nothing to cut’.
Some plotters have an option to switch off the media sensors in their setups (not advisable under normal circumstances).
Anyway – that’d be my first suggestion.
Oh, yeh. Unless you can manually salvage what’s been done already…or get SO lucky / jammy that you re-load the media back in exactly the same (lose the parts from the file that’s been cut) and you can set it off again…but at 2.5m – hmmmm not bl00dy likely is it!!
Don’t envy you – it’s like watching your last bit of etched vinyl (to complete that job) get mangled as the machine initializes ‘cos you didn’t have the grip roller in the right place!!
Dave
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Tks Dave
I ended up going for a walk, it’ll have to wait till Saturday now.
Your spot on about the sensor I think. The media bunched up at the back lifting off the sensor half way up cutting the long side of a box going round some text. I was gonna weed the text out the box leaving the negative text.
It was two lines of text taking up most of the width(610) so Ive just cut up the middle of the vinyl giving me a 2.5 by .35 which I can still use and will probably just weed the box out leaving the letters of the other half so as not to waste.It was only meant to take a hour tops.
Ive been advised to stick a bit of black vinyl over the sensor at the back to stop it happening but is that not a bit risky: dont want the blade scoring away at nothing.
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quote James Martin:…..Ive been advised to stick a bit of black vinyl over the sensor at the back to stop it happening but is that not a bit risky: dont want the blade scoring away at nothing.
Done that on a few machines before. No need to use black – in fact I’d use white… (will reflect more of the IR) or a bit of masking tape! You just HAVE to be sure the machine NEVER runs past the end of the material, which is NOT a good idea on most newer machines as they tend to pre-feed (by default) a load of slack off the roll first – and would end up spitting out any small panels as it wouldn’t see the end.
Dave
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if you just press enter after you push the vinyl down it should carry on from where it stopped
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I just logged on to say I have just discovered that if you press enter it will continue!
tks mouse, your only post as well.
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