Attention all Suppliers or anyone who wants to sell a plotter!!!

[iSign]

Can you spell G-E-R-B-E-R.

Blade drag will cause vinyl to skew in any friction feed plotter. You need to have tractor feed to run high drag thicknesses ... or a flatbed plotter.

Talk to Graphic Marking Systems. They sell Convex, specialty films and laminates Graphtec plotters and Gerber systems.

I think Fred make some excellent points regarding tractor feed systems that shouldn't be overlooked

Talked to Graphic Marking Systems.... didn't get anywhere.

with all due respect... flame...
I've seen you do a lot of talking on here over the years, & not always "get anywhere", so I wouldn't presume that just because you already talked to them that there is no value still lying under the initial failure to communicate.

 

[Fred Weiss]

Talked to Graphic Marking Systems.... didn't get anywhere.

Talked to local Graphtec dealer AND the local rep. Both of them talked me out of the flatbed...?????? Said it would still cause blade drag?

Tried a Summa.... had blade drag. But it was NOT their tangential machine, and I heard they have a sandblast style blade holder for it, to allow more lift? True?

Any dealers on here... come on guys... my moneys green!!!!!!

That's a shame because GMS is probably your best shot at finding a solution. They do what you want to do in a daily basis. Your Graphtec dealer sounds like he's never attempted what you want to do.

Tangential tool head movement has little or nothing to do with dealing with what we are calling blade drag which is the resistance to cutting the material being converted to a force which is attempting to move the material out of the way. The only reliable response to keep the material from shifting is to either hold the material down as a flatbed does or to grip the edges with a solid, non-slip mechanism such as the tractor feed mechanism found on Gerber plotters.

I guarantee you that I can cut your 18 mil stock at full or near full speed on my Gerber Envision 375 plotter ... providing you use a 15" punched material at the base material before lamination. And the Envision is not tangential, it uses a swivel knife.

Try this: Take the easiest material you have to cut and cut a 1/4" stripe that is 10' long. When it's done, measure the 1/4" at both ends and you will likely find an error in the width at the start end which is caused by material movement due to blade drag on the first cut. Now cut half a dozen such stripes one above the other and measure your compound errors that are generated by blade drag.

If you are not aware, I invented a friction feed adapter for Gerber plotters back in 1988. We sold over 1,000 units. I understand the physics involved.

 

[gnemmas]

Fred, I wouldn't be so sure about that. There is 14" distance between the two sprockets, one of them has a 1/4" of free play to ease the loading of material. When the material is thick and rigid, the hold-down bar is not strong enough to hold the material flat against the roller platten, the puckled material contacted the knife even the knife is in UP position thus cause the scratch while moving in the UP position. Mostly in the center position away from the sprocket (or pinch) rollers. While less or no scratch near the rollers.

Pinch rollers when cutting with high force do cause the material to shift thus is a resolution problem rather a "scratch problem" as Flame mentioned.

 

[gresults]

I have cut up to 16m thick on both my gerber envision and my versacamm 540 I do do double passes.. one thing that did help was going from 45 degree blade to 60 degree blade on the versacamm.

 

[Fred Weiss]

Fred, I wouldn't be so sure about that. There is 14" distance between the two sprockets, one of them has a 1/4" of free play to ease the loading of material. When the material is thick and rigid, the hold-down bar is not strong enough to hold the material flat against the roller platten, the puckled material contacted the knife even the knife is in UP position thus cause the scratch while moving in the UP position. Mostly in the center position away from the sprocket (or pinch) rollers. While less or no scratch near the rollers.

Pinch rollers when cutting with high force do cause the material to shift thus is a resolution problem rather a "scratch problem" as Flame mentioned.

To be fair, I cannot say I have cut 18 mil material. I have cut 15" 220 ScotchCal with the GMS 14" 8 mil overlaminate using a 60 degree blade for some cockpit labels and had no problem at all. If I encountered any difficulties such as you describe, I would expect that they could be minimized or eliminated by adjusting the speed slower. I have also score cut 24 mil mag sheet in the Envision to 18 or 20 mil depth for which the automatic settings of the Envision slowed it way down. While it was a PITA for other reasons, the cutting was not a problem and no surface scratching occurred.

 

[Ron Helliar]

12k Summa ***(160T S Class with all the bells)***
50k Most Flatbeds (check out Gerbers' answer to Zund)
100K+ router with digital head

Call and ask sales or techs at Summa for file format needs and send them a file & a sample to cut. Don't be stingy with samples and give it to them straight. They have been great for us specing machines and providing a bit of tech review. Your howling at the moon until they or anyone cuts a file for or in front of you.

 

[Flame]

I've seen you do a lot of talking on here over the years, & not always "get anywhere", so I wouldn't presume that just because you already talked to them that there is no value still lying under the initial failure to communicate.

I've spent over an hour on the phone with them and some time on hold as well.... trust me, I wasn't getting anywhere. I love their product, but that's all I heard about. Not a good machine to use. One guy told me "I honestly don't know what to use to cut our material".

I think Fred make some excellent points regarding tractor feed systems that shouldn't be overlooked

I'm assuming that means using punched material? Is that correct? If so, don't believe it'll work. There isn't 30" punched convex available.

have you just tried to cut twice! some times when I forget to adjust the blade I just send it again (with out removing the vinyl) and it goes through on the second pass.. I know it does not solve you problem but my buy you some time.

Oh yes, even tried sucking the blade almost all the way in.... and cutting SIX times. No formula of blade height and blade passes has worked yet.

Try Ioline Smart Tracks They should have enough pressure on the pinch rollers to keep the vinyl from skewing.
Would not hurt to call them

Heard good stuff about them... but do they have OPOS? I kind of want (alright... REALLY want) to have OPOS.



I'm calling Summa today.

 

[Derf]

Ahhh the days of hand cutting!...

Good luck Flame.. you may need to invent a solution and then patent it!

 

[MAB SIGNS]

Die Cut?

Are all of the designs the same outline for each bike? If so why not die cut? I've only had coro die cut so I don't know if it will cut clean but it may be worth looking into. Ask around to see who might provide die cutting in your area.

MAB

 

[dclet]

I'm calling Summa today.

Soooo any news...make a decision?

 

[Flame]

One of my local dealers has some material, and will be playing with it with their Summa machines.

MAB... I wouldn't mind die-cutting. Just don't know what's involved. Any pointers?

 

[Service Sign Co]

Machining a die a applying heat to it

 

[schurms]

You do not need to heat a die to cut.

 

[Flame]

Oie, who cares! I just want to buy one!


hahahaha.


On a serious note, does anyone have any links. All my googles searches have done... is simply peturb me. Know of anyone who sells equipment like this, and what their web addy is, and perhaps price?

A web addy would work fine by itself though. Then I can just call them and discuss to see if their process will work for me.

 

[Service Sign Co]

Apperently the last post knows more than me. My Non disclosure agreement with auto mfgr's prevents me from disclosing info. but I'll be all ears to anything posted here.

 

[CV Signs]

Ordway. www.signsupply.com

 

[Service Sign Co]

Die cutting gets into the area of special machines, If you plan to re-produce something that is consistent over a long period. You will need a special machine. If you are having problems with cutting heavy material, ues a vacuum table flat bed Or exacto knife

 

[schurms]

I have diecut film and paper at 500 ft per minute on a web press. But that is on bigger runs than I beleive you are looking for or? Heat can assist in die cutting but shouldn't be required. Really depends on materials speced. If your runs are big enough you could flatbed die cut with a eyemark for registration roll to roll or rotary die cut . Really depends on how big of job and how much money your looking at spending.

 

[Flame]

Small jobs, custom, one-off stuff. Only about 150 templates to choose from, but they're mixed and matched so much... it'd be all one-off.

 

[Service Sign Co]

Diecut won't work where you are involved. Much too small . E-xacto will work in all apps.