Matt Boyd
Forum Replies Created
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we use regular 2 x 2 for cheaper estate agent signage and the 2 x 4 for the commercial larger type estate agent stuff. i didn’t know if you wanted ideas for the standard signs or the bigger commercial stuff, but see advise from all above.
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the new one we just got has the manual hand crank, but has a digi readout to show you what the gap hight is, real easy! its really nice, have a look on tinternet/youtube at one.
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we just bought a seal EL 54" to go along with our vp540i. we had a cheap laminator before that which was useless, apart from mounting prints to substrates.
the seal is so well built, easy to use and so far has been awesome! well worth spending some extra hard earned on the right equipment! -
there are a number of ways of doing it…………. some 2 x 4 for the posts, and if you have a router you can route out a line for the corro to sit in on each side of the posts. you can also use small brackets screwed in to the posts to allow the corro to sit into too. you can get brackets that sit into the ground that the 2 x 4 will sit in, or you can use concrete if its more of a permanent sign.
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banner tape won’t discolor the banner i wouldn’t of thought mate. agreed with everyone else, looks like rust/paint rubbing onto the banner.
there’s a banner down the road from us that has been rubbing up against a street light when breezy and it has a bluish tint to it now(the light pole is navy blue). -
gary, the roland was either a 20" or 24" printer mate.
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cheers jason, i did actually mean your method of applying the material to the window. excellent description mate
cheers
matt -
go onto youtube and there’s chrome wraps on there….look very impressive!
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hey jason, whats your method of reducing air bubbles when you laminate the window perf?
cheers
matt -
we have the vp540i and do alot of banners. we use the media holders and make sure the little clamps on the roller bars at the rear at up against the media holders, this makes sure the material stays true. i know this from experience due to having the banner bunch up on one side at one point and i noticed that i hadn’t put the little clamps up against the media holders on one side when i had changed over media. its never happened again as i learnt that lesson. just make sure the material as you load it in is true, and you’ll be fine! we use the standard heat settings for banner and we also keep the materials in the same room as the printer so they don;t get to cold etc,
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thats real interesting!! i was always under the impression that due to light needing a surface to bounce off so you can actually see an image you would need some sort of reflective surface at the top…..if you see what i mean? apparently thats one of the pitfalls in this kind of tech…or it used to be anyways.
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to be honest go for the best machine you can find within your budget. remember though, if your getting a printer you’ll need a laminator also, that’s important if your doing outside or vehicle graphics etc. there are lots of good machines out there for good prices, and i know this forum gets a discount with certain company’s out there.
i was looking at the new hp and a couple of other machines but decided to go for a roland as i know there solid and reliablee machines. -
i wouldn’t recommend going for any 30" machine if you can stretch to a 54"….you’ll be kicking yourself 6 months down the line on a 30" as your very limited to sizes you can do without tiling etc. if you can afford or stretch to a 54" go for it, i know alot on here will agree with me on that one!! we got the vp540i back in the summer and love it.
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had the same thing happen to me on an .eps file a client sent. i put a cut contour round it in cs3 and in veraworks no dancing ants!! couldn’t figure it out for the life of me why….then i noticed when i saved it in cs3 there’s a box that comes up with the info being saved, it had the transparency box checked, so i checked the opacity box and it worked…i got those dancing ants up!
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hey warren same thing with my vp540i…i have to adjust the cut dept/pressure all the time! its a brand new machine and new blade but…..can never get the pressure tight on the thing! and i’ve been using plotters for the last 9 years!!!!!
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been doing doming for about a year now and use our edge fx for all our doming….no curling or any type of problems, have great success with it !
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we’ve done this before quite a few times. we use a small blow torch and lightly go over the area in strokes. once you get the desired effect wipe down and lacquer over it. just be careful not to hold the flame in the same place to long or you will darken that spot to much.
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yeah, as jon says, the optically clear laminate is very expensive, but in my book well worth it!! if your applying to rear windows the last thing you want is for the driver not to be able to see out of the rear well enough!! i know some don’t laminate over the material, however, i prefer to do it.
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hey nick, we do these all the time mate. some people don’t over laminate the print, but…..when it rains the droplets gather in the holes….makes looking out the rear window blurry!! so we laminate with optically clear every time. that way rain doesn’t gather in the holes and you don’t get any blurring.
a tip on application, don’t press to hard on the material, be more gentle as it goes on better and you won’t get the streaking effect so much(this applys to material with a lam on it). try some on your window first, get a feel for it. oh and apply dry mate. -
this is how we do it.>>>>
release the top roller so you have a gap. now if your doing coro, put a piece in and wind the top roller down so it is just touching the coro…read JUST touching the coro. then turn the pressure 180 degrees on each side.
for normal material, laminating a print for example, again release the top roller so your starting fresh, put in the material and lower the top roller so its just touching the material and turn the pressure 90 degrees. -
i have one of those clock/temp/humidity gadgets in my office. i know from experience that prints will work better at certain temps and humidity levels. so i keep them at around the same year round which means i no longer get any temp/humidity related problems.
it sounds like a humidity problem, you need to get a dehumidifier and a heater. run the dehumidifier before/after it rains and run the heater when the colder weather sets in. get a clock/temp/humidity gadget, you can get them off line for like 20 quid or so. if you want a fancy digital one it’ll be more expensive. keep the work area at a good level of temp/humidity, means you’ll avoid unnecessary problems alot of the times. i keep all my materials/inks and foils in the same area so as not to have any temp differences. -
cheers rob, your a star!! just haven’t come across the u bend type siding before so was wanting to make sure its fitted correctly!!
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hey sandy, maybe a long shot but youtube usually has loads of videos/tutorials on there for most sign software. i know i’m always looking at stuff software related on youtube, maybe worth a try? also there are websites out there that will give you online training, can’t remember the most popular one off the top of my head right now…its a womans name, someone on here will tell you i’m sure. i think its like 20 quid a month and they have training programmes for all sorts of different software makes.
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cheers andy, will give that a go then….hopefully no more marks on the prints after that! it was a long faded line…looked alittle like someone had used a knackers felt tip that had no ink in it any more, so you had a faint mark if you see what i mean!?!??
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cheers andy, i did use a little ipa on a cloth on one of the ends that had some black marks on it…looked alittle like oil or something, but i want to wipe down the whole roller top and bottom and its a rubbery type roller so don;t want to create any problems if i use the wrong thing. not sure if the rubber would hold anything i use then transfer it to a print if you see what i mean? maybe soap and water? just a bugger that it was leaving these faint marks on the prints!!
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oh, and i’m taking about what i can use to clean the rollers as they are a rubber type thing!!
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that if i had to lay money on it is static…..looks like a classic static problem. try putting rubber mats under the stand, that can help.
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a friend of mine is a roland tech and the company he works for has sold several of these over the past several months and he was saying that they are having some issues with the printers. i know the metallics are an issue to and hes having alot of complaints about this, but as your not going to be using them then that won’t be an issue for you. i says the printers are having "teething" problems as its a new system.
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if going on a vehicle then you need to laminate it! simple as that. your supplier if hes in the trade should know this and should have asked what they were intended for and should have told you, you need to have them laminated.
we laminate everything that’s going onto a vehicle, the only time we wouldn’t bother if it was going to be real temporary say a couple of weeks max. remember that the final product your giving to the customer is a reflection on your work/company, so if it fades after several months it looks bad on you mate!! -
i’ve had my vp540i for a couple of months now and love it….going from a gerber edge fx(spot colour) to an inkjet i was surprised at how well the vp has done, its a great machine, highly recommend it!
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if you can get a good conditioned used roland/summa/graphtec etc i would do that. i bought a used roland cx24 about 7-8 years ago now to get into the signage game and i still have it and is going strong! 2 years later i bought a gerber edge fx and this year a roland vp540i so we all have to start somewhere!! getting a half decent machine is key though. i have no idea what the Chinese cutters are like so i can’t comment on them, i just know i wanted to go down the route of the tried and tested machines as i was to strapped for cash and just starting out at the time, last thing i wanted was to waste money on a machine that wasn’t that good!! at least with the roland machine i new plenty people had them and i could get tech support if needed. like i said, we all have to start somewhere, just make sure you don’t end up wasting money!!! good luck with it anyways mate. any help you need feel free to ask.
cheers
matt -
dave rowland has hit the nail squarely on the head…..make sure your profile is the correct one!
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we do several canvas prints a week and we print at 720 dpi uni directional and they come out great. you won’t see a vast difference between 720 and 1440 on canvas
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we use banner tape, we don;t have a sewing machine or welder. we use mesh for buildings/scaffolding sue to wind factors. outdoor use banner material 13oz usually, indoor you can get away with 10oz. banner material outdoors….it depends on location, what the weather is like in that area and how the banner will be used>>> is it taken down often and put up? how is it stored?? etc etc
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as steve says, make sure the head height is put to the max and use the longer roll feeder/clamps on the edges. if your going to cut the banner via the machine, make sure you swap over to the shorter clamps on the edges or you will strike the blade against the longer clamps!
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this is what i’m running >>
windows xp 32bit
service pack 3avg free edition
malwarebytes
ad aware
spy bot
regcleaner
cleanup
auslogics disk defragall are free and easy to use!!
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oh right, we use a vp540i and that has quite a few, figured it would be the same kinda thing!
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we use a 45 degree blade for normal materials and a 60 degree blade for thicker materials such as reflective and thicker laminates etc.
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are you using all of the pinch rollers? or just the 2 outer edge ones?
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you can use banner tape, most common, or you can use a hemming machine that sews up the banner edging, looks neater but you need to buy a machine to do it.
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never tried it…..looks like a good experience though!
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we get em big over here…..just never caught any carp about 10lbs. caught some big catfish, and some nice bass……..but nothing to brag about unfortunately!
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😳 😳 puts mine to shame richard!!! good catch mate!! real nice!!!
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as dave says, if your in warranty stick with the manufacturers recommended inks, i know roland void the 2 year warranty with our machine if we don’t use roland inks! not worth the hassle!
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yeah, thats one of the things you have to consider very true ruairi. i know i’m going to stick with roland gen inks, just because i’ve spoken to other roland users who have been down the route of after market inks and have regretted it! not saying everyone who buys after market inks regrets it, theirs obviously a market out their for it, just not going to go down that route myself.
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we just had a roland vp540i installed and was told that we HAD to use roland genuine inks for the warrenty period of 2 years. i have also been told by other roland users to stick with roland inks as they seem to be better than after market inks. i guess since roland inks are made for a roland printer, then you know you won’t have any issues from them! i would assume the same for the jv33.
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we got our roland cx 24 second hand about 7 years ago and we use it all day long, never had any issues with it what soever. just make sure you get some decent sign aoftware for it.
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😛 yeah, shes a good old stick fair play!! we’ve already got several orders for signage from last week when she went to the meetings, and she went around some of the local shops today and got another 2 orders so all in all really good. she gave out approx 150 business cards too the past 5-6 days from all the people and business’ shes met/been too.
i know some knock the BNI groups and as you say, its what you put into it by the looks of things….i guess you either like it or you don’t, and i suppose it helps if you have some decent people in your local group too! -
i have easy sign running my roland plotter. i got it from victory and the’ve always been real helpfull when i’ve had the odd problem. i run it on windows xp, and as its fairly old i wouldn’t put it on vista as i would imagine it would have problems running it. never downloaded any patches or updates for it either.
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i can’t post images here for some reason..anyways, i have my ying yang symbol, real simple……..now its orange/white with a black boarder. i just ripped it in versaworks, got my dancing ants(at last!) and went to print…………now, it looked fine in versaworks, image came up etc, all good, however started to print and all it printed was the black boarder!! no orange bits! thought i was away and fine since i got my dancing ants..now the darn thing isn’t printing the complete colour image!! 🙄
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I GOT DANCING ANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😛 thanks to all the help, a mixture of all the advice got me those dancing ants!!!! now……will i remember what i did tomorrow??!?!!?! took me long enough so i hope so! thanks all, great advice as normal.
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ok….i think!! hehe!! yeah, i understand the transparency etc… i did try merging but still didn’t get what i needed in the end. i’m probably doing 1 thing wrong or over looking something real stupid!! kinda frustrating trying out new software and not really understanding it! my tech said he’d show me but he didn’t show up today..so was trying to do it myself
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hey lynn, what like post up a pic you mean???? basically in a nut shell, i have already created the image but in omega, omega has a cutline on it so i can print on my gerber..however the image is too big to print on the gerber in one go without tiling it, and since we just got our roland vp540i installed i wanted to give it a go on that. so, i have got hold of AI and put it in their. i have created the cut contour with spot colour so versaworks can see it, but when i save it as an AI.eps file and put it in versaworks…..no dancing ants….and yes i have the cut showing so………really frustrating!!
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hmmm..well….no luck! i have no idea why i can’t do this!!!!!!!!!!! all it is, is a simple ying yang 2 colour circle, and all i want to do is put a cut line on it so the roland will cut it!!!!!!!! it can’t be that hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i have created it in omega, put it in AI so i can apply this cutline, and i just can’t get the little ants up in versaworks. i’ve tried the suggestions which have been said in the post…thanks guys by the way…much appreciated! i know i’m going to be thinking in a weeks time that’s it easy but right now…its driving me insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😮 -
thanks guys, will try again in a moment..see if i can’t get those ants a marching!
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i was talking to my tech guy who is here installing some new equipment right now and he said the older sp has a different head. it fires a finer ink pattern giving better quality. the vp and other newer printers use a different head that can fire i think 3 different patterns and the quality suffers a little. he said the ultimate was the old, old sp printers…great quality but just slow. anyways, thats what the roland tech said.
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thanks jason, i’ll try that in the morning…kinda frustrating trying to learn new software when you’ve been using different software for the past 4-5 years! i’ll get their in the end though…just need to get the basics sorted out and then i can take it from their.
thanks again
matt -
ohhh cracker barrel!! they do the best burger and fries!! and its cheap too!! 😛
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:lol1: you know i’ve never been to that place!! if its anything like Cici’s pizza all you can eat then it shouldn’t be too bad!
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just tried renaming the cut line to CutPath, the line is on 0.25pts so the smallest it will go, have the cutpath highlighted and when you apply the colour stroke even upto 100 so you can see it clearly it has the colour assigned to the cut path, so it looks like its thier, i save it as an ai.eps, put it into versaworks, i bringup the cut only option to make sure the ants are their….nada, nowt, nothing!!
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hi david, ahhh..my tech told me the other day(thats how i know about the change to the cutpath/color) to call it Cutcontor i take it then he was wrong?? i changed the line thickness to what he told me to before..0.25pts i’ll go see if me changing the name will work
cheers david, appreciate the info. -
oh right!! chamber of commerce! lol…shes actually booked into the local c of c monthly meeting tomorrow at the good ol’ golden coral!! $5 and hopefully some new leads!
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she went to the BNI group in our area and they had no sign people their, that’s when she got asked to quote on 4 different jobs at the end of the meeting! i told her not to hold her breath that she just needs to put the word about that were here and what we do, hence shes going to as many meetings/groups as she can at the moment.
she is going to the local high street next week to show some samples of work and we found out from our local sign supply place that the only sign shop in our town does not do any prints, he only has a plotter so will give him a shout and see if we can’t maybe supply him with some prints when he is asked for them. -
not sure what c of c is to be honest jill. she met a guy who has been involved in the local BNI for some years now and he told my wife that their are no sign business’ in the local BNI groups in our area and they are desperate for a sign business to join! so, bit of luck really!
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yeah, shes a good old bean!!! giving up her job to help with the business will be a good move……i hope! i know some on here have the husband and wife teams and it seems to work so…..yeah, fingers crossed!! shes already got some quotes out and some real good leads! 😛
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jill, your in the states right?? wheres abouts? were in nc.
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this is what wurzal gumage would do if he won the lotto!! :lol1: nice job though……first wrapped tractor i ever saw !!
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the other car….can fit even less coroplast boards in this one!!!!!!!!!!!
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one of the cars…..can’t fit much 8 x 4 sheets of coroplast in it though!!
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nice catch!!! catfish are great for a fight. you think you have jaws on the end of the line most of the time and you end up with something like nemo(the little cartoon fish!)
where were at we have a huge man made lake that does the water for alot of the big towns so it really is a big, big lake. we have fish here called crappies…..you ever heard of them? they taste great and are plenty!!!!! was hoping to go bass fishing at a new place this weekend, but the weather here is 45 degree at the mo so its really hot to sit out on the banks for several hours!!! -
Cheers david, will bare that in mind also.
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here’s the carp, not the biggest in the world i know but not a bad size overall. caught two more since, a little bigger than this, but again, didn’t have my camera at the time!
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:lol1: hey, you can’t beat fishermans tales!!! :lol1:
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over here we have a huge lake where the fish is a plenty!!!!! catfish, bass, carp(caught a beautiful carp the other week).. didn’t get a pic of the 12 lb cat though, didn’t have my camera with me 🙄 will up load the pic of the carp i got though.
the cat was caught on some old chicken, just cast out and left for a few hours until i got the strike. heck of a fight to get it in…thought it was twice the size the way it was fighting!! lol -
hmm, yeah, i mean, by the time you hem, fit grommets/eyelets etc as opposed too..it coming pre-done and you just put it in the machine, print and that’s it….as long as the material is of decent quality then…..
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hey jeremy, any luck with catching owt? caught a nice 12 lb catfish at the weekend.
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hey peter, did you even get that new banner material you showed a link to on youtube? would be interested to know how you got on with it if you did. would be great if we could use it on our new roland.
cheers
matt -
yeah, as jill says, the 3m scotchlite is a better material…..much better to work with, weed etc.
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when we cut reflective or thicker material we use a 60 degree blade, i know some don’t, they use a 45 degree, but the speed and pressure need to be right. slow the speed down and do some test cuts to make sure the pressure is correct.
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are you using a 60 degree blade for the thicker material/reflective? try using a new fresh blade and adjust the force pressure for the material if its a thicker material. do a test cut first and see how it weeds.
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oh and when in the car….RUSH the best band in the world!! listening to grace under pressure and counterparts at the mo.
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i have jango on all day……..as well as radio 2 for steve wright in the afternoon. not sure if you have heard of jango? its a free radio station, you put in the type of music you like and it plays that and similar artists and its 100 percent free!!!!!! 😛 bit like pandora, thats another good one.
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oh well, their you go then….didn’t realize he was a corel guy…handy to know.
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hey george, this may sound like a real obvious answer so please forgive me! i would phone up corel support, they have a great team their who should be able to sort out the issue for you.
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depends on ink saturation, the more ink you lay down the longer you should leave it. we’ve always been told that 4-6 hrs should be ok, but we always leave over night to be safe. roland say you should leave 24 hrs, but their covering themselves incase of any issues.
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cheers gary. i know some people do liquid lam their banners, just wasn’t sure if that was the norm. so on long banners just the 2 outer pinch rollers is all you need….gotch ya!
cheers -
they say you should leave for at least 6hrs..we leave overnight to be sure.
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hey gary, on the 19m banner, did you use just the end pinch rollers? or some of the others? and do you liquid lam any of your printed banners?
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we just got our vp540i installed afew days ago…..i take it their shouldn’t be any type of issues getting it to print out a decent sized banner then?
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cheers david, will keep that in mind!! always handy to get these little tricks from people who have done it before!! as you say, ideally you should be able to walk away from the job, but………. 😕
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hey david, are their any particular "tricks" to making sure the alignment is good on a banner that big?
cheers -
sometimes the position of the plotter near a light source, a window for example will cause the plotter to not work 100 percent! we had to move ours from near a window as the afternoon light was causing the sensor to playup and we couldn’t work out what was going on! finally figured it out and moved the plotter a few feet away form the window, works perfect now. seems like a sensor/light issue to be honest.
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we always use a 60 degree blade when cutting laminates etc, so much easier. we have it set up in a spare holder just swap it around and if your using versaworks set it too 0.5 rather than 0.250.
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best bet is to have a second blade holder with a 60 degree blade in for cutting laminate and the thicker material like reflective etc. a new blade for just cutting should be around 50-55 of force, a not so new blade approx 65-75 of force, these are for a 45 degree blade not cutting laminate. to cut laminate with a new blade we do it at around 70-75 of force, when its alittle worn approx 110 of force. your best bet is this>> print the job, laminate it and where you have some space where you won’t knacker the print up, do a test cut, and play around with the force, that way you can see what force you need to cut into the print with laminate without having to do 2-3 cuts!!
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hi phil, just seems to be that no matter what length the foil is it will do it. for some reason which baffels me is, i can load in the intense red foil and it will not lay down the colour correct it will always be off slightly, but i can load the ruby red for example and it will be ok. however, laying down the white primer, no matter what colour or how long the foil is, it will not ever lay down over the top of the primer with any colour. you always see the primer sticking out which looks like you have a shadow effect! very annoying! the gerber tech guy seems to thing its the machine, he says their are 2 clutches either side and the grab the foils etc. their is also a band(like you have on a car) he says that could need replacing or it could be something else, that is slightly out of whack. i sent him some samples as they requested and they said it really does look like the machine.
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hi peter, i tried registering on that forum but you have to wait for the administrator to email you and they never did, i tried twice infact! maybe third time a charm??
so, no edge fx users on here ever had any similar problems then?? maybe its just my machine?????? -
yeah, this is why i’m looking at getting a roland to be honest!! the edge is great for certain things, but i have had quite a few problems with it since i’ve had it now going on 3/4 years. gerber tech say its the edge at fault, but have given me a list to what it could be! hence my question to see if any other fx users have come across this problem. i know a guy who has the same set up as me, he can lay down the white primer, overlay any colour perfect everytime!
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hi peter, i was hoping you would reply as i know you have or had an edge so would have some use full advice!! lol i’m using omega 2.1. doesn’t matter where on the roll i try the primer it will always end up doing the same thing! i know about applying bleeds etc however, the gerber tech guy said you shouldn’t have a problem like this if you are putting down a primer. what seems to be happening is, i’m laying down one colour, then when i load the foil in, and it goes to print, its like the foil/cartridge/caddy or whatever isn’t in the exact same place so its printing off to the right or left etc! and for example, if you have an Italian flag, so you have green/white and red, and of course they are all perfectly straight ok, it will lay down the green, it will lay down the white and then lay down the red, but..the red will be a fraction off, it will be either off to the right or slightly down from the other colours!
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thanks dave. just wondered if it was ok to do or if their would be any type of conflict/compatibility problems. i’m looking at getting an ink jet real soon as i have an edge fx and a roland cx-24 at the mo and want to go down the ink jet route. like the idea of the corel x 4, looks good and comes recommended. would be handy though if i can save and swap! thanks again dave.
matt -
thanks john, just sent you a couple of files.
appreciate it
matt