David Stevenson
Forum Replies Created
-
Hi Erdy, Have a look at page 17 in this guide. It shows how to create a curve using Dibond. There’s a ton of other information in there too. Hopefully it’ll help you out 🙂
-
Looks great David, nice tidy job. We prefer half to full wraps as we can squeeze a a lot more profit out of them. Those Transits fry my head trying to decide what to run the text off, there so many lines going on here and there. Best thing about Fords is they seem to strip down really easy for wrapping which is a bonus. You’d have had great craic wrapping that with the super tacky material off your old Roland lol!
-
Hi Jean, from memory those cartridges are hinged and open up quite easy after running a small knife round the seam at the edge through the sticker. It’s just a matter then of prying it open then to get to the bag inside. Snip a corner off it and pour it into your old bottle. Job done 🙂
-
I’ve a few weapons of choice depending on the job.
For general day-to-day cutting vinyl on the bench, I prefer a Olfa XA-1 with 30-degree blades. Find it very accurate with virtually no blade wobble.
For wrapping it’s a NT cutter. These are great as they hold 5 blades so no time lost messing about changing blades. The plastic body prevents scratches as you run it along the edge of doors etc. Only downside is for normal day-to-day cutting they tend to crack at the front it applying constant pressure.Finally for the ignorant work like scoring Skybond for snapping etc, it’s a Olfa NOL-1. It takes an 18mm snap-off blade which again is handy, just don’t do a “Robert” and stick it into your pocket with the blade out!
I’m with Kevin with the Steinel heat guns especially for post-heating due to the thermometer attachment, at 90 quid a pop though you need to make sure you don’t drop them as the ceramic inside tends to break and get stuck in the fan causing it to overheat and burn out (ask me how I know!)
We’ve got a couple of Amazon specials at £25 each too that have been dropped multiple times and seem indestructible.Hard to beat for the price.
-
Sorry, this one for wrapping.
-
-
You could have a chat with these guys
https://www.opuscnc.co.uk
We got our 8×4 ATC CNC from them.
Has a 12-tool carousel so no need to keep setting up and adjusting for different materials/finishes.
It was £35,000 but you could go up or down on cost depending on what you need.
Fantastic piece of kit that gives us an edge over some of our local competitors and adds some nice new products to our range. -
I’ve lost count of the number of de-chromes I’ve done. Thankfully we decided to pull the plug on them. You’d spend the best part of a day working on them and could make the same profit in a couple of hours doing graphics on a van or making a few signs. Then someone would take a power washer to it and lift part of the vinyl and we’d end up with an unhappy customer with a sad face blaming us. Most of them were Audi A6s with 17 pieces alone on the front end before starting the sides. I think from memory it was 23 pieces in total on some of them. Good riddance I say 🙂
-
Hi Leslie, have you ever thought of something like this?
Whilst the 51″ is out of stock here I’m sure you could get one elsewhere.
This would allow you to roll coloured vinyl onto a plain white sheet of material. It’s a cheap and cheerful machine at a fraction of the cost of a 10-grand rollover table. It allows you to apply graphics to your sheets without the need to try to squeegee them on.
https://www.ebay.co.uk -
My apologies for the delay in responding. We bit the bullet and bought a new EpsonSc-s80600 and our problem with the tacky materials has completely disappeared!!! The difference is incredible. I believe Roland has a lot to answer for here with their TR2 inks. If it was my first rodeo so to speak I’d say I was imagining it but after being in this business for 10 years I’ve fitted my fair share of graphics. I went to fit some graphics on a fleet job we have at the minute using graphics printed on the old printer weeks ago and the tacky problem reappeared instantly. The second the material touches the vehicle it sticks so strong you’d think it had been squeegeed into place.
It’s been an extremely expensive solution to our problem but well worth it. I’d say when it’s time to upgrade our VF2-640 it’ll get changed to an Epson too!
-
Hi Martin, we’ve been using Oracla materials for many years now. They all worked perfectly for years until we upgraded our printers to Rolands that ran TR2 ink, and that’s where the problems began. No matter what we did regarding out gassing they were always extremely tacky and made certain jobs a nightmare. We built a drying cabinet with huge fans to dry the materials, and left them for weeks in some cases before laminating and fitting. We tried every profile under the sun, all had the same result, super tacky. The problem was so frustrating (you’ll find previous posts from me about this problem) that we ended up trading in one of our printers for an Epson and as if by magic the problem disappeared!!! We’ve been doing some fleet work and it’s only today I went to fit some graphics that were printed about 6 weeks ago on the old printer that the problem reared it’s head again, super tacky material.
You’ll possibly find that the ink used for the print was the issue and not the Oracal material at all. We use Oracal 3551GRA a lot which is a mid wrap material with grey back. Printed on the Epson it’s a dream compared to the Roland with the TR2 ink. I believe the TR2 inks are damaging the glue causing this issue, you may find this is the case with the graphics you were supplied with.
-
Good to hear people opinions. 1st van I done took approx 11 hours. That included me having to weed and back up all the graphics before cleaning the van & fitting. We’d a bit of an issue with a few extra cut lines on the bonnet which has since been resolved. We’ve another 14 of these to do now so the plan is to have one of our other guys prepare the stuff leaving me to get stuck in with the fitting side of things. Going to be a busy few weeks it seems 🙂
-
Thanks for the replies folks. Interesting to see what others are doing. We’ve bit the bullet and our new Epson SC S80600 will be delivered in a few weeks replacing our Roland RF640. We purchased Onyx a few months ago but have never really got round to learning how to use it so there’s a bit of a learning curve ahead. All we have to do now is remove part of a wall to get the new printer into the print room as it’s too wide for the door!!!
-
Hi Robert, we produce a mix of everything from books, business cards, posters, fliers, etc on our Xerox Versant 80, to signs, stickers, vehicle graphics & wraps, etc on our Rolands. Running Roland Gr640 & Summa S Class 2 cutters along with a 12 tool CNC router and 900×600 100watt laser cutter, + an Epson sublimation threw in for good measure! Jacks of all trades and pretty good at most thankfully lol
-
Don’t even go there Mark. I went one day to fit some large male/female graphics to toilet doors in an office only to discover there’d been an oversight as to what side the door handle was on. Lets just say it lined up perfect with the gentleman’s manhood. Pointed this out to the customer before fitting who found it hilarious and told me to fit it anyway 😂😂😂 They’ve been pissing themselves laughing (excuse the pun, I’ll grab my coat) ever since lol
-
HI, Rob. If you want to enlarge them in Illustrator you need to scale them by 2000%. Depending on your version of Illustrator it may not fit on your artboard though.
-
Hi Pane, Not sure how much pressure you’re using when cutting DiBond but try very gently scoring it with a knife similar to this. You’ll be amazing how little force it takes to get it snapped which leaves a perfect edge. We’d a small circular saw for cutting it but like Simon said the mess is incredible. A 30 degree blade in the knife rather than a 45 degree cuts better I feel.
-
Hi Robert, thanks for you input, it’s certainly food for thought. We’ll definitely try what you’ve suggested. The cutting a bit deeper might just be enough to take the rough edge further down into the spoil board instead of the edge of the media. The bed has 4 separate suction ares. If we’re not using a full sheet we normally put scrap material over the rest of the bed as recommended by the guys that’s supplied it however switching the areas not in use off would make sense to redirect the suction to the area in use.
We’d always vacuum the bed after each job to clean the dust but again wiping over with a damp cloth could remove any that the vacuum hasn’t lifted.
Would be nice just to lift the freshly cut parts off without the need to spend hours cleaning the edges but perhaps this is asking to much and sanding the edges is just the nature of the beast?
Will let you know how we get on next time we’ve a job to run.
-
Here’s a few pics of the finished results. Wrapped with 3M 2080 Matt dark grey. All chrome trims have been wrapped with Avery Supreme gloss black. Customers absolutely delighted. Cars going now to get the rear windows tinted and have the wheels sprayed black. The guy loved driving it but was bored with its original colour (black with chrome trims). Saved him a small fortune by getting it wrapped. That’ll keep him happy for a while.
-
We’ve just bought some “Banana Buffers” and can’t believe the difference a simple piece of felt can make! They glide over wrap material without leaving a single scratch. Use to buy eBay specials but never again.
-
I accidently destroyed a window in a VW Passat several years ago when tinting it with the exact same blade. Couldn’t repair it, we had to replace it. Lesson learnt. Like Simon said a stainless steel blade is the way to go if you’re cutting on glass.
-
WTF??? That’s unbearable to watch. What about the big gap on the right hand side were he moved the material over? Don’t even get me started on the squeeze technique (or lack of it). I’m really glad he didn’t fire up the blow torch! I get the feeling this guys got these in his tool bag
-
Hi Leslie, we laminate everything that’s been stuck to a board. We gang our jobs together and feel it’s more hassle than it’s worth when we’ve a roll with 30 or 40m of print to start stopping and starting for the sake of a few quid.
-
We’ve tried wrapping with Avery MPI1105 after letting it dry for a few days (printed on VF2-640 with TR2 inks). The glue was extremely tacky and had lost it’s repositionable properties, the air release also didn’t work which combined made fitting a nightmare. We’ve also had similar issues with Oracal 3951GRA which had dried as recommended for over a week, and the same with Metamark MD-C. Trying to wrap with anything printed on the VF is a pain in the arse. Currently in talks with Roland (Rob) trying to get a profile made to work with Onyx as there’s nothing at all available. Absolute nightmare 🙁
-
The only reason I can see for them making it with 12 pieces of channel is so it would fit in their van. Other than that the mind boggles
-
Hi Pane,
would you be thinking “photoluminescent”.
e.g. glow in the dark?
https://www.grafityp.co.ukWe have a printable version although I can’t remember where we bought it.
You could possibly print on that one and cover it with a non-slip floor laminate -
Hi Leigh, we use OB1 from screwfix. What’s possibly happening is your current glue has no flex in it and when the heat hits things start to expand and contract causing it to fail. This adhesive stays flexible which should cover you for the movement you’re experiencing.
https://www.screwfix.com -
Slightly off topic but please excuse my cnc newbie question. Why do you use 25mm? We got a cnc last year and have been using 12mm on it. I’d have thought the thinner the sheet the stronger the suction? I could be completely wrong and maybe missing a trick.
-
Hi David, we’re having the exact same issue as you with our VF2-640. We’d originally a dryer like you’ve built but even after 5 days constant drying the glue on our wrap materials was still very tacky. I’ve a couple of profiles for wrap material (Avery MPI1105 & Arlon) suitable for your ink configuration (Orange & Green?) if you’d like me to send them to you. It’s been commented by our Roland engineer that these profiles lay down less ink and will hopefully help. Haven’t had anything in to wrap this year to test them but hopefully we’ll see an improvement
-
We’ve one of those eyelet machines, and also a Hiker one.
Those ones are great for speed & convenience, but the hiker is more heavy-duty and puts in a heaver grommet.
http://www.hikereyelets.com -
Hi David, we too have been having huge problems with TR2 inks. I believe we run the same printer (VF2-640). We’ve spoken with our rep and whilst Roland state you can laminate after 6 hours we’ve found for wraps ourselves and others are needing at least 5 days unrolled on a dryer rack!!! Weeding is the exact same as you’re experiencing although I’ve always found printed material horrible to weed at the best of times. We intend now to convert an old steel cabinet into a hardcore drying unit to dump all our materials into. I’ve attached a link I posted explaining the difficulties we’ve been experiencing. I get the feeling TR3 inks will be here sooner rather than later as this is just unacceptable 🙁
https://uksignboards.com/forums/discussion/problems-with-rolands-truevis-tr2-inks/
-
Yeah it’s great for DiBond too. I find with DiBond (brand dependent) that you barely need to scratch the surface to get it to snap. I used to press really hard which created ridges on the edge of the cut, now even the lightest score makes it snap really cleanly!
-
Hi Martyn, We both a Sabre & an Evolution 2. I find for posters and thin materials the sabre is the job, it’s much lighter and you don’t have to use a lever to lift it, simply lift the bar with your hand. The evolution though is brilliant for corriboard & foamex. It’s fitted with 2 blades so if you’re cutting something for example that’s 6mm thick you can set the first for 3mm and the 2nd for 7mm. Make’s the cut much easier when you’re not trying to cut through the total thickness in one go. Both cutters are excellent. The evolution 2 would be the most versatile of the 2 in my opinion. Hope that helps in some way 🙂
-
Sorry Robert should have stated they were on my DIY drying unit. The job we’re working on at the minute was printed on the 30th Nov and was laminated yesterday. It’s been sitting with the fans drawing out the gasses since then! It is a heavy saturated black but surely 6 days to dry is a joke. We’d spoken about a clothes dryer like you mentioned, just getting space for it is a problem here, need a bigger unit (again)!
-
Hi Lynn, this image is from VW6 but it should be in the same location in VW5. Simply change the page space to 0mm for no gap. Personally I wouldn’t recommend this. I know over time it adds up to some wasted material but it provides you with a much needed break in the event you’ve a problem with your laminator or are about to run out of laminate. Today for example when laminating a large roll of material for a van wrap I was able to use the remains of 3 rolls instead of having to open a new roll. Had I had no gaps these 3 rolls would have lay in the corner un-used. They’d a combined value of approx £100 so worth using up.
-
HI Erdy, I can’t for the life of me understand how you could possibly illuminate the letters without cabling of some type. As of yet the only way to transmit electricity wirelessly apart from close contact phone/tooth chargers is lightning. At 30 million volts and 30,000amps this might be a bit much for your letters! The only thing that springs to mind is edge lit acrylic. This gives the appearance of individual lit letters but depending on where the letters are going hiding the light source might be a problem. You can also get a flat self adhesive wire which you could possibly hide in some way.
-
Fantastic bit of work there Robert. I especially like the illuminated text in the attached image. Did you use the same flexible LED strips with it and drill the wall behind each letter to run power to them? Now we’ve a cnc the option we can offer are getting wider and more profitable 🙂
-
I’m literally without words!!! Can you just image trying to use these monstrosity’s in a real life situation? Does anyone actually buy these?
-
Unfortunately Kev I haven’t really followed the different models since we changed ours. Previously we’d a Roland SP540 that was absolutely bulletproof. We printed hundreds of thousands of stickers on it without any problems whatsoever. The only thing it ever needed was regular maintenance & servicing. You can get the smaller SP300 but it takes a smaller roll which limits what you can print. You’ll be amazed how quickly your machine isn’t wide enough once jobs start to come in. We’re running 2x 64″ wide machines and still get asked for wider banners.
-
Sorry can’t help you with Flexi but I can advise you not to buy a BN20. Possibly the slowest most useless printer Rolands ever produced. No dryer, & has a stupid waste tank that needs replaced at 50 quid a pop (unless you screw it apart, empty it and fill it with sanitary towels 😉 One of our sales reps calls them the boomerang 20 as no sooner have they sold one it’s back for a trade in and upgrade.
-
Now that’s the job for sure. Well lit, lots of sockets, dust free, and a Focus ST too! Is the ST yours or just visiting?
-
We used to have terrible problems getting our Easymount EM-S1600H to run straight. It turned out the problem was staring us right in the face. Basically what was wrong was the the stand and the laminator weren’t sitting square. The laminator which was a separate unit was pushed back slightly on one side. This meant when the roll was fitted onto the mandrel on the stand the material wasn’t been fed straight into the machine. We squared them up and used VHB tape to keep them in place. This instantly fixed 99% of our laminating problems and is possibly something you should have a look at.
Davy
-
Here’s are trusty Ford Transit. Fully wrapped with printed Avery Supreme, Oracal 970RA, & Oracal reflective for the text at the front. Kitted out inside with a rack on one side for holding signage with storage behind it for the scaffolding, and some drawers and shelves on the other side for tools and fixings etc. Have to say though it’s pretty embarrassing looking at how dirty it is here, it’s something we’ll have to try to keep on top of better.
-
I know lots of people have had successful results with 3rd party inks but after replacing thousands of pounds worth of heads over several years for no apparent reason (head strikes, lack of cleaning, etc) the only common factor we could tie it to was the inks. Our XR640 ran for years on genuine inks yet 6 months after changing ink to “save” money we had to replace the heads. Switched back to genuine and all is working perfect. That was Nazdar inks we’d been using who are very well known in the business.
-
We spent almost the price of a set of cartridges trying to get one going again but to no avail. Still has banding through the prints so the bins the only place for it 🙁
-
We’d run it the same as David. Also we use Metamarks MD5 profile with it as it lays down a nice amount of ink. Of all the materials we have I think I hate applying static cling the most and avoid it if possible.
-
2 can play that game if you like 😉
-
Hmmm, it seems my dreams that of unattended cutting of 50m rolls are shattered 🙁 I’d hoped we could print a ton of stickers, shove them in a cutter and have it cut away while re-calibrating itself in the background. There’s a couple of jobs we have take a couple of days of solid printing/cutting to complete. The plan was to split the job between our XR & VF ,then load onto the new cutter to finish. Wouldn’t be the end of the world though if we had to run shorter lengths as long as we didn’t have to arse about changing the blade position for perf & cut like we have to with the GR640. Whoever in Roland that thought that would be a good idea have obviously never used a cutter. I’d hoped a firmware change would have removed the stupid feature but not to be unfortunately. Still fancy the look of the Summa though, although looks can be deceiving as Rob discovered
-
Thanks for the advice guys. We noticed on the Rollover that one of the media holder brackets wasn’t sitting properly in the machine when the weight of the roll was on it so we’ve fitted them in place with a couple of small screws. We’ve also changed how we load the roll as suggested by Jamie. The room it’s in would be a normal unheated warehouse although all materials and printers in a separate room with dehumidifier running constantly. We ordered a replacement cutting mat yesterday as the one we have is a few years old. Everything’s aligned prior to rolling as much as we possibly can. Hopefully these things together will solve our problem, only time will tell. It’s very frustrating at the minute 🙁 Will let you know how we get on
-
We bought one from signeer called a Signsaw Pro. Came supplied with a fine toothed blade which made a nice neat cut but a tremendous mess. Even with the vac attached everywhere was covered with particles of dibond. Changed to a Keencut cutter which is much faster with no mess.
-
Thanks for the replies folks, sorry for the delay getting back to you. I’d never even considered ink but it’s something we’ll definitely look into. Hoping to make an enclosure approx 12ft x 12ft to turn into a spray booth, that’s when we get time (things have thankfully picked up again)
-
Hi Brian, we use a lot of Oracal 3951GRA which is a great material. Oracals 3551RA is also worth looking at for shorter term jobs. It’s a polymeric film which confirms nicely around basic curves and also has a repositionable adhesive. It’s been a game changer for us for jobs where the likes of 3651 is just too tacky.
-
I’ve just wrapped 27x 8×4 panels and felt like that poor guy getting fried in “The Green Mile”. There has to be a solution to this, my heart can’t take much more 🙁
-
You’d think that Karen but we’ve done the graphics now on 50 or 60 ambulances and I can assure you this technique wins hands down. The problem is that the main graphic is around 4ft wide. When you 1st put it in place you never get it centered properly and have to move it about. Having it attached by magnetics allows you to slide it up, down, side to side at your leisure. If you’ve it taped on with masking tape it means the graphic is constantly falling off the window while your trying to move it / hold it in position with your elbow while it gets repositioned. It comes from doing cars & vans constantly where magnets are saviour.
-
@Robert Lambie when you say magnetic sign panel are you talking about the flexible ferrous magnetic material we’d use for magnetic walls? We’ve some of that here I must give it a try. I just went hardcore when I got my hands on 2 metal plates lol
-
Cheers Robert, appreciate your help. I’ll probably get a couple of those Gecko Patches ordered as we do lots of ambulances. The metal plates were simply a test to see how they faired out. Have never used the proper Gecko Patches to see how the magnets stick but the metal plates work brilliantly. Going forward if I did stick with them I’d get a couple cut in a place that works with steel across the road from me and laminate both sides with the likes of a motocross laminate bringing it about 10mm past the edges so the plates were completely encapsulated to prevent any scratches
-
Hi David, We’d an item similar to Gecko patches but with a much smaller magnetic surface area. All you had was around 50mm and it was very easy on a large window to need to slide the graphic a few inches to centre it causing the magnet to fall off. I also found they didn’t stick that well. Had never come across the actual product “Gecko Patches” until you mentioned them. Based on the fact they’re made by Yellotools I’d say they’re quite an improvement on the ones we had previously. Might order a pair up next time we need something from Signeer. If we ordered them on their own we’d end up paying as much postage as the product costs. Signeer postal charges are colossal to Northern Ireland, it’s the reason we rarely buy from them.
-
I wrapped a brand new entire van after the car dealer gave me the wrong one!
-
😂😂😂 I know this posts almost 10 years but just stumbled upon your comment and am sitting here in stitches laughing!
-
Help!!!
The dreaded de-chrome.
We used to get a pile of these in constantly. A local car dealer sold a ton of Audi and was bringing them in constantly (leaving one down while collecting another)!
Used to feel like crying every time another appeared. Hated this grill the most 🙁
Not hard to wrap just really time-consuming. From memory, some of the Audi’s have around 22 chrome parts to be wrapped at the front alone!
-
I definitely remember on the old version of Impact having to scale up the files in Illustrator and them not fitting on the artboard. Haven’t used them in years though as now I do 99% of the fitting and leave the designing to our designers.
-
@chriswilson have you printed anything yet that’s heavily saturated with ink, eg big solid blacks or reds? We’ve found light coverage is workable but the heavy solids are a heart breaker 🙁
-
@DavidHammond In all honesty the drying cabinet hasn’t seemed to have made a great difference. I’ve had material in for a week that’s still super tacky when been applied.
We’ve even went as far as adding an RF640 to our line up to get away from the TR2 inks for wrapping. Even with it we’re seeing very unsatisfactory results. Prints with light coverage aren’t so much of an issue but anything will heavy coverage are a nightmare. I’m starting to feel the lack of profiles for both machines may be the issue and that so much ink is been laid down that it’s damaging the adhesives properties to the point that no amount of drying will fix it.
We recently bought Onyx to run our printers and new summa cutter in the hope that would help. Problem is there’s no profiles available for any of our printers!!! After a very serious conversation with our supplier and Roland we finally managed to get them to make a custom profile for us. What’s the point of spending thousands to fix a problem only to find there’s no support for the hardware / materials we’ve been sold. We’re currently in the process of swapping from Versaworks to Onyx which is a huge learning curve to see if this finally sorts the problem.
As soon as we get up and running and get a decent test done I’ll let you know the results.
-
Hi Karen. I done a wrapping course a while back and after a steep and expensive (mistakes) learning curve think I’ve got the hang of it. Problem in our town is most people expect a wrap to cost a few hundred quid rather than over a grand in most cases.
-
Chrome deletes were never a thing we’d intended to get involved in but during Covid times and a downturn in business a local car dealer offered us some work and we couldn’t turn. You could say we accidently got good at them. It is a horrible job though. Nothing worse than making a wrong cut and a speck of chrome showing. Means having to remove and re-wrap that part in most cases which is a bitter pill to swallow.
-
Thanks Mark 🙂
-
Hi Karen, would this technique work for you perhaps? We’ve used it on occasions when the customer won’t pay for a proper wrapping vinyl.
-
Hi Martyn, It’s coming in here around £21 per metre so not too bad. A bit cheaper than Avery. Waiting for a sample of gloss black to arrive to see how that handles. We do a lot of roof wraps and de-chrome / chrome delete here so will be interesting to see the results
-
What’s your issue been David? We’ve a VF2-640 and had to buy RF640 to print wraps with as everything comes off the VF super tacky! Even after drying for weeks it’s a nightmare to work with. After speaking with a few guys it seems were not the only ones 🙁
-
For all the value of sign channel they must be crazy to try and scrimp on that. Not worth the risk
-
Hmmm, “skins” packet with torn corner! That can only mean one thing 😉 You must have had something stuck between your teeth and needed a small piece of cardboard to pic it out 🙂 🙂 🙂
-
Hi Kevin, we’ve always left it loosely coiled sitting on a rack raised from the floor with mesh on the bottom. This problem has definitely only started since the TR2 inks appeared. We’ve just started to attempt to make our own profiles for Onyx which is a definite learning curve. Seems there’s no Onyx profiles available for the VF2-640 🙁
-
Cheers Michael, appreciate the advice. Never though of sealing the edges but now you mention it it makes perfect sense, as does skimming both sides. Every days a school day as they say 🙂 Could be worth trying a thicker sheet too as we notice they tend to wrap with the moisture in the air although the vac sucks it down again in most cases.
-
Tidy bit of work there David. I built something very similar a few years back to aid drying although we still struggle with the prints from the VF2-640. Your fans though are huge compared to what we’re using, time for an upgrade for us I think. Where did you buy the fans if you don’t mind me asking? Something you might want to bear in mind if you intend on sitting the rolls directly on top of those fan guards is they’ll bend pretty quick with the weight of the rolls. Might do no harm to make a “X” shape out of some 25mm H x 15mm W laths to take the weight.
-
Here’s a comparison of the orange from our CMYK LC LM LK XR640 vs the VF2-640 with orange ink! Results speak for themselves .
-
We’ve it set to 45c for the Print Heater, and Maxed out the Dryer at 50c. Still doesn’t make any difference. The more saturated the longer to dry and the tackier the glue 🙁 Apparently Oracal are working on a new profile which will hopefully help. You could try metamarks profile for MPI1105 which is their wrapping vinyl. I have it here if you want it emailed through
-
I’d put it down to an unsuitable product Robert. We were cutting 3mm acrylic and had ran out of the Orcal P.E.T double sided tape we normally use. Instead we used a tape that had a paper rather than plastic backing. We looked in when the job had finished and everything seemed OK. Unknown to us the paper backing tape was smouldering underneath and finally caught fire. We discovered flames shooting out of it around 10 minutes later, our view was obscured by a ice cream van we were working on or we’d have caught it sooner. The real scary part was it happened around 5pm, had it been 5.30pm we’d have been away home and the whole building could possibly have burnt down 🙁 Severe lesson learnt that day. Like Kevin mentioned “turn your back on a laser at your peril”!!!
-
We managed to save it Kevin. Spoke to the guys we bought it from and they sent us the bits we needed and helped us align it again. Amazed it lived again considering the damage. Can’t for the life of us get the scorch makes off no matter what we tried 🙁
-
They can go on fire very easy even cutting acrylic. Ask me how I know 🙁
-
As long as she wasn’t saying “Come and play with us”! That would freak me right out
-
Don’t even go there with the painting wheels. Was in their unit one day fitting when a guy came over with a spray gun. Sprayed on primer to the 6 wheels then came back straight after and sprayed them silver before the primer had even time to dry. The best part was when he painted the tyres with black paint to hide the overspray. 6 wheels completed in 15 minutes!!!
-
That turned out great. I can definitely see the potential with that method.
-
Judging by some of the vehicles that pass our unit you’re not far off Kevin lol.
-
They turned out really good Kevin. We’ve guys beside use in the industrial estate who strip and rebuild lorries for sale in 3rd world countries. They’ve our heads demented replicating graphics!
-
Thanks Kevin, I can visualise that much better, I feel we’d have more control over the finished job especially since the walls are uneven. If you’ve any pics of the job you’re doing I’d appreciate seeing them 🙂 Thank again
-
Thanks for such an in-depth reply Robert. We’re actually doing what Kevin mentioned and cladding the front of the building although I did describe that pretty badly lol. You have however gave me quite an insight into fitting folded pans which is something we’d like to get into more since getting our cnc. Anytime I’d fitted one before I’d always used wooden batons and frame fixers. The aluminium angle and concrete screws seem a much more professional and durable fitting method. I found with the frame fixers if you were unlucky they’d go into the cavity and not expand. I was also concerned that over time the timber would rot and cause problems especially after reading about the William Hill incident. Going to order some bit up and see how we get on. Thanks again 🙂
-
Yeah there’s always that risk. Will have screws too but trying to reduce the number needed.
-
Hi Robert, This isn’t the actual shop front but the same idea. It would be to fit folded sheets of SkyBond to the Cream areas around the window. The panels aren’t any wider than approx 600mm. Trying to hide the fixings best we can but will still have a few on show with colour coded screw caps. Thanks
-
Cheers Martin. Used a bit of orange light box material over a led spot light. Worked a treat I think.
-
Don’t think I’ll even need it Kevin. Wee lad round the corner went and got his Dad to call for my 2 sons cos he was too scared to come down the driveway. Neighbours across the street reckon their going to have nightmares because of it 🙂 Thinking it might be a quiet Halloween this year. Looks like I’m feasting on sweets and beer this Sunday night 🍻🍻
-
Apologies in the delay replying Steff. The Summa sounds the job for sure. Would be nice to get an upgrade that actually works unattended as it should. Haven’t time to be babysitting machines
-
Apologies for the delay in replying Simon. The tracking has been an issue from the machine first came through our doors. It’s incredibly accurate on small text but ask it to track a few metres and it’s a nightmare. Thankfully we’ve an XR that we can stick long jobs on to cut if need be.
-
Be careful Leslie you’re not setting the rollers to tight. They should lowered until they just grip the material and don’t slip. Been too tight will cause a pile of problems on it’s own never mind the hair. Think of that as leaving your DNA for future generations.
Which laminator are you using out of interest?
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by David Stevenson.
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by
-
I’ve always found it very stretchy and tends to distort when fitting. If you remove the backing sheet before install it stretches badly when you fit it. This is especially noticeable on the edges. What I tend to do is leave the backing on, apply it, then remove the backing sheet. You need to be careful when removing the backing sheet as it lifts it from the glass and introduces air bubbles. I much prefer reverse printing on clear vinyl then laminating it with white vinyl. Nowhere near as easy to remove unless you use a clear material with removeable adhesive but much easier fitted.
-
We’ve also just upgraded from a EJ640 to a VF2-640 with Orange & greens ink. Like you say David it’s a belting machine, which is more than I can say for our Roland GR640 cutter. It’s tracking is pathetic with the roll running off every few metres. It takes ages to find the 1st registration mark even after running the sensor over it several times, and without a doubt the most stupid and annoying feature is the need to swap the blade position forward and back in the holder when swapping between cutting & perforating!!! That on it’s own is enough to make us want to get shot of it. It also constantly brings up a motor error if you don’t either switch “pre-feed” on which helps mess up the tracking / alignment because it feeds the material out before starting cutting, or forget to unroll enough material for the job. Never once had any of these problems with our XR640 which is rock solid. The only good point is it works most of the time with Versaworks, that’s when it’s not crashing even when running on a 12 core PC with 32gb of ram!!!
Rant over lol
-
Yeah got it sorted thankfully. Got everything stripped down and cleaned then started fitting new parts. Wouldn’t cut properly at the start but got speaking to a guy from Opus who video called and talked us through aligning the mirrors again. It’s basically a case of manually reducing the power to 10%, sticking masking tape over the mirrors, moving the head then adjusting the mirror angles until everything lines up. Just need some jobs for it now. The CNC seems to do the majority of the cutting work now.
-
One on my wee lads is standing looking all sad with his grapes in a Tesco bag lol
-
Yeah a £500 repair bill says you might be right. There seemed to be a fair bit more smoke than normal 🙁
-
“you can buy electrical junction boxes in various sizes and shapes from the likes of Screwfix, and very cheap!”
Do you not like my snack box Robert lol? All joking aside I had bought a component box to fit everything in but when I sat down to assemble it I discovered the side of it was cracked (thanks Royal Mail). One of my kids snack boxes was the closest thing to hand. I’ve ordered a replacement but truth be told it’ll probably sit on a shelf for the next 5 years before I forget what I bought it for and throw it out 🙁
I’d actually intended to drill some holes in the housing of the laminator and retro-fit them but I noticed the original plug for the foot pedal was insulated from the body of the machine whereas the new one a bought had no simple option to do this. Didn’t fancy an electrical fault and the plug ending up live so a separate box it was!!!
-
🤣🤣🤣 Brilliant Kevin. That things still working!!! Blows the wings off anything it touches. I’d love to know how many volts it’s kicking out?
How’s your laser cutter going? Hopefully better than ours 🙁
-
Cheers Joe, could be worth a shout. Thanks
![edge-lit-led-sign-engraved-bespoke--[2]-2515-p](https://uksignboards.com/wp-content/uploads/bb-platform-previews/b9014e776e469ca6dae702955bf32e95/9b33aec04f0405f3eefeaf04d3f1dfee)
