[John Mackenzie]

Roland VS-640i…

[John Mackenzie]

quote Hugh Potter:

could you use jubilee clips in place of regular sign slips? I’ve had to use them as a last resort when the customers “75mm posts” turned out to be 50mm scaffold poles!

How would I fix jubilee clips to each sign?

[John Mackenzie]

The fan blows downwards but tbh it is a bit feeble so I’m going to have to upgrade it, the base is perforated aluminium.

Once I have our unit a bit more organised I will make a more permanent cabinet with multiple ‘bays’….

[John Mackenzie]

It treats each page as a separate job Jean so that didn’t work…

[John Mackenzie]

Russell in artwork I have set-up I can put the cut contour anywhere (in relation to the layers) and it cuts fine, if I convert a CutContour stroke to an outline wouldn’t this make VersaWorks think that I now have 2 CutContours?

John I am sure that is along the lines of what I did a few years ago…

Thanks.

[John Mackenzie]

We do advise that the banners should only be used as a temporary measure but have found ourselves doing more and more larger banners that people are using as a ‘main’ sign. Because of this it would be to think that people aren’t going to see a weathered banner and think it is just to the quality of our printing.

I think I am just going to advise them that for anything more than temporary measure they would be best to lacquer. Actually I might put up some POS in our lobby and put some cans of lacquer on it!

Thanks for your reply.

[John Mackenzie]

quote Jamie Wood:

Judging by the name, I would imagine that it is reverse printed onto Lexan polycarbonate. We use Lexan 8B35 for these, which is a textured mark resist finish.

Where do you get yours from Jamie?

[John Mackenzie]

The power supply had failed. It’s a known issue apparently.

[John Mackenzie]

quote alexc40:

I think it’s a glitch in the program, when it happens try dropping the same file in to the queue again, quite often it will go in fine.

I didn’t think of trying that!

quote Hugh:

Hi John, my workround would be to look at ‘nesting’ the jobs to get them treated as one print run. You can select the jobs within the ‘nest’ to set parameters.

How are you finding the vs640i? We have a vs640 and would love to have the light black channel to help with greyscales with colour added which some of our clients are fond of How about a mod kit Roland? Cost of flushing one channel (we have ccmmyklclm set up so have capacity, would sure be cheaper than trade-in! Is there a genuine technical (as opposed to sales) reason why this can’t be done?

I couldn’t nest it as I was still setting up one job while the other was printing.

As for the 640i I have been using a 640 for the last 3 years and I love the 640i, this is mainly because I have just gone with a straight CCMMYYKK set-up rather than the LcCLmMYKMtW, the speed with which this is printing is miles better…

[John Mackenzie]

I’m guessing you mean on specific jobs?

If so the jobs will have some sort of fade/transparency in them and it is to do with the way it saves the file. Make sure you look through all the options when saving because when I get that using Illustrator I have to go into Custom transparency settings and check the boxes.

[John Mackenzie]

My bluetooth speaker and Deezer account is the best thing I have, I love to have the music playing while working!

[John Mackenzie]

They won’t sag but I’m not sure about the lack of damage. Does it have to be on board, could it not just be vinyl if the customer doesn’t want damage?

[John Mackenzie]

We have a card payment machine and nothing will leave until it is paid for apart from stuff for a small number of very trusted customers. Every company has a credit/debit card so there is no reason for them not to pay upon completion.

[John Mackenzie]

Mantika Informal Pro Bold

[John Mackenzie]

Just out of curiosity is Nick still about?

I’ve not spoken to him for years and wouldn’t mind saying hello.

[John Mackenzie]

quote Martin Oxenham:

In Illustrator the Stroke is the outline. Thats how you make an outline in Illustrator and why you have to convert it in Flexi.

The stroke isn’t an outline hence the need to convert the stroke as posted buy Martin G, also John you may already know but you can create an outline from a path without creating a stroke and then converting it by highlighting the path you want to outline and then selecting Object>Path>Offset Path, this creates a vector outline around the selected path.

[John Mackenzie]

I currently use a VS-640 with LcCLmMYKWMt and I myself have recently decided to bite the bullet and work for myself, I have bought the VS-640i and because of my experience during the last 3 years with teh VS-640 I have decided to run with CMYKCMYK. I have simply not printed anything using White or Metallic but I am on the 3rd cartridge of each which is basically £750 thrown away.

[John Mackenzie]

Another good luck etc from sunny North Devon!

[John Mackenzie]

I don’t know about painting myself into a corner but I am starting to question my choice of white!!!

Luckily our mezzanine will be up in a couple of months so we’ll have somewhere different to work, for some reason I feel like throwing some scrubs on and doing more than cutting up vinyl with my scalpel!

[John Mackenzie]

How complex is the cut?

I either spread the job out over two days (one day for fitting and one for going back to get the app tape off) or if the cut isn’t complicated I’d be tempted to fit a solid piece of etch and then stick on top and cut out by hand…

I hate fitting window film.

[John Mackenzie]

Getting it painted, one coat done on the wall and started the second coat on the floor…

…it doesn’t half cost some money this setting up from scratch!

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Attachments:

[John Mackenzie]

If you are happy gambling that you will not be killed before you finish the banner then £400 isn’t that bad a price.

[John Mackenzie]

quote John O’Sullivan:

well then i suppose the rule of tum would be if your mezz floor is higher than your door height your sorted 😀

We have a pitched roof so it would leave us only being able to use the bit in the middle!!!

quote Ewan Chrystal:

Just looked at a couple of previous vans ive done. HR Transit was 2.58m VW box van was about 3.1m

It looks like the 3500mm I’ve asked for should be OK then, thanks for looking.

[John Mackenzie]

quote Phill Fenton:

The Jumbo transits and big sprinters are about 2600mm not allowing for roofbars, vents or rooflights. I would suggest allow 10ft to ensure most vans will fit (Not the big box removal vans though)

Vans have become bigger in recent years. We find the older Jumbo transits will fit in under our roller shutter (which is 2600mm) but newer transits are just fractionally too tall.

I ended up telling them I wanted 3500mm clearance underneath as I found a US site that said the Super-High roof Sprinter is just over 3m high (around 3020mm). Fingers crossed the price comes back at a reasonable amount!

[John Mackenzie]

Just a generic ‘Sprinter’ type, I’m not going to make it exact but if a high roof Sprinter is, for instance, 3400mm I will allow 400mm on top of that. Anything bigger we can do at a neighbouring garage.

Other than that thanks for your reply, it was most helpful. 🙂

[John Mackenzie]

Depending on the size of the windows you could look at mounting your usual printed one-way film onto a piece of thin acrylic and putting this on the inside of your existing glass.

[John Mackenzie]

Finally got the keys to our unit, now to start the task of balancing our new business alongside an existing full-time job and family time, of course with also trying to fund any improvements!

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Attachments:

[John Mackenzie]

quote David Hammond:

DTP Supplies.

We’ve just done some work for them and they have a cracking set up, all they sell is eyelets and machines to all manner of industries.

Cheers, I put my order in with them earlier today.

[John Mackenzie]

I use Righton, the foamex ain’t the cheapest but I only use ACM because at £31 a sheet inc cutting I think it just isn’t worth using Foamex.

[John Mackenzie]

Not wanting to cause any offence but given the general standard of spelling and grammar in the OP I’m not surprised that there were some unhappy customers.

[John Mackenzie]

£11k is way out of our league.

I have just emailed Hobkirk so I will see what they say, thanks for your help.

[John Mackenzie]

quote David McDonald:

Hi

Hiya.

quote David McDonald:

We have tried everything and now have a Miller Weldmaster T3, superb machine, excellent finish and easy to use BUT even though this is the entry level machine you need to be making a lot of banners to justify the expense.

Without Googling what is the rough price I should expect to pay? Also you mention a solvent, does the Miller use something other than just heat?

quote David McDonald:

We tried a sewing machine and I reckon this is the best option if the volumes don’t justify the above type of welder. Much faster, cheaper and easier than taping when you get the hang of it (although it takes a while before it becomes second nature). Strongly recommend getting one with a ‘puller’ otherwise it can be difficult to manage the weight / bulk of larger banners on your own.

I have somebody who can help with the manhandling but I have absolutely zero experience of sewing machines, I would however make a stand so that the business end of the sewing machine is at the same height as the rest of the bench.

quote David McDonald:

A sewn hem isn’t as strong as a welded hem…

Bugger.

quote David McDonald:

…and whichever thread you choose it usually contrasts and you can see. Not a major issue but always bugged me.

This wouldn’t bother me at all, in fact I’m guessing on some banners it could look nice if it picks up on some of the highlighted colours.

quote David McDonald:

We still use banner tape from time to time… …don’t like the way the hem puckers if you or the customer has to roll it up.

This is the bit I hate as well.

quote David McDonald:

Hope that helps
Macky

It certainly has!

[John Mackenzie]

What size are you looking at?

Have you thought of using a magnetic panel and/or ferrous paper?

[John Mackenzie]

Thanks for the replies…

I emailed them on Friday and said that we aren’t willing to provide designs with no guarantee of work, I gave them a rough estimate on the price of a half-wrapped vehicle and said that we will work with them to get a design that they are happy with included within the quoted price but we aren’t willing to give away our ideas as they could be copied, not necessarily on their vehicles but by whoever happens to see the designs, and used on some future projects.

I too did it find it strange that they had no idea of budget?

[John Mackenzie]

What sort of turnover do you think a business would need to warrant the cost of this?

I love the sound of the integration it offers and because I am starting this new business from scratch it would be easy enough to incorporate but the cost sounds prohibitive to a start-up company.

I think I’d need to see it in action before I’d be willing to spend the money on a sub, especially seeing as I could make my own quotation file using Excel.

EDIT: Almost forgot, thanks for the tip Dave I’m not sure why I didn’t think of just using 2×1 or 2×2 myself, I’ll put it down to too much Yamazaki last night!

[John Mackenzie]

I’ve worked for myself in the past so I know all about quoting but as I was only based from home and not with the expense of a brand new VS-640i to pay for it wasn’t crucial that I got the work!

I just don’t like the idea of having to produce a design to get the work when this (for me anyhow) is the biggest part of the job, we can all bang out the vinyl and get it slapped on but it is our designs that separate us from the man doing it as a hobby from his garage.

As I said I know I can do the job cheaper than our two big rivals but because our time is so important to us at the moment (because of also working full-time) I am a bit reluctant to spend it setting something up that we have no guarantee of getting because we have set a job greater than their budget allowed.

I think I’ll just ring them and explain my position and see where we go from there.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[John Mackenzie]

I use ImagePerfect PA vinyl and I noticed silvering when I used the matched laminate from Spandex so I swapped to Hexis laminate (650) and no more silvering. Saying that though I have bit the bullet and ordered an Easymount Hot laminator for myself, it has cost a pretty packet but eh it’s only money and you can’t take it with you!

[John Mackenzie]

quote Mo Gillis-Coates:

One word…… Signvox….. Run a google search… That will really help with pricing, I kid you not…. It’s done wonders for us… Anyone can quote!

$139 per month!

Christ I’m doing something wrong if people can afford to pay out this much for a quoting programme!!!

[John Mackenzie]

I’d like to show you my new unit but the landlord hasn’t given us the keys yet despite us saying we wanted to be in on Saturday 1st Feb!!!

I would like some pointers for racking if anybody know of any, I am capable of making something but I have no idea where to get the poles from?

[John Mackenzie]

Cheers chaps, I’ll give it a try…

[John Mackenzie]

I’ll ask my partner and let you know, we don’t get the printer for another week or so…

[John Mackenzie]

A reboot of Versaworks seems to have stopped it.

[John Mackenzie]

This may not help you Jill if you are not using Illustrator but I found that somebody had posted this in reply to a similar question that has been asked elsewhere. They didn’t specify what software they were using but I hoping it is Illustrator!

I control the order of cut by manually layering the cutlines into the order I want them to cut. (bottom cuts first, and up from there) It can be time consuming if it is a large complex file.

Hopefully that is the answer, it does sound quite time consuming though but I suppose once I get the hang of it I should be able to quickly sequence a job.

EDIT: From another of his posts it would appear that he is using Illustrator, yippee!!!

[John Mackenzie]

Chime away Jill!

I’ll have have a hunt online and see if there is a way of ‘tricking’ Illustrator into it…

[John Mackenzie]

I’m printing medium feather flags, I thought there was a specific material for making the sleeve but if the flag material is OK when stitched together I’ll just print my own. I was under the impression that something more hardwearing/substantial was used but I’ll give this method a go!

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Attachments:

Feather Flag (MEDIUM) Template.pdf

[John Mackenzie]

quote Jean Oakley:

Thank you David/Luke for your replies. Can anyone give me an idea of cost new and an idea of second hand? need to get my offer in by Tuesday many thanks for reading

A little late but Spire Digital show the prices of their Easymount laminators.

I wish we’d gone for a hot laminator with hindsight…

[John Mackenzie]

quote Chris Wool:

eps boundary i think is what you want in VW.
i use my own weed boxes and the eps export from corel is set to 1mm so never use the VW adjustment.
what ever way you do it it will not effect the print cut accuracy.
its just unfortunate that for some reason VW and graphtec drivers come to that don’t like a cut line on the plotter 0.0 line. so a offset of even .01 mm stops it happening.

Ah OK, I’ll start just putting a small 1mm single cut line 1mm down, thanks for replying bud…

[John Mackenzie]

Sweet, I’ll ring them now. Cheers bud…

[John Mackenzie]

quote Robert T Walker:

You have cut image boundaries under the cut controls or you can increase the EPS margin in the Queue Properties

Robert

I don’t want to use ‘Cut Image Boundaries’ because it means that 3 sides of my self-made weed border will get double-cut.

Where is the ‘EPS Margin’ in Versaworks/Queue Properties?

EDIT: Having looked I presume you’re talking about the offset from the adavnced settings? If so I don’t want to mess about with these settings as I have the VS-640 cutting well and all I have to do at present is just adjust the force (cutting force not jedi force) for whichever material I put in…

Also I’m presuming there isn’t a ‘Weed Border’ option within Versaworks then?

[John Mackenzie]

While I’m here I don’t suppose anybody knows how I can turn the option off on the VS640 where it asks for a material length? I just press ENTER to ignore it but I’m sure when I first got it 18months ago it never used to ask this…

[John Mackenzie]

quote Joe Wigzell:

quote :

was going to say uncheck pre feed put can’t find it in VW

where does it start cutting at the far end after its fed out or does it roll it back in then start

The pre-feed setting is on the machine under the menu not in VersaWorks, as mentioned you may want to check that this function is disabled.
If you are doing a cut only job it shouldn’t need to pre-feed the whole job! Ensure that it is a cut-only job as Andy said, if it still set to print and cut even though there is only cut information it will thinkt hat there is print information there and feed accordingly.

Pre-Feed is disabled, I am just sending the job with Cut Only enabled from VW… fingers crossed!

EDIT: That was it! Cheers chaps, what address do I send the kisses to!!!

[John Mackenzie]

quote Adrian Yeo:

You get a far more constructive response if you post an introduction first…

Sorry I didn’t realise it was a dating forum!

I’m 38, married with kids, have my own teeth and I’m looking for fun…

EDIT: Cheers Alistair I’ll let my customer know.