Need Help BEST plotter for Contour Cutting Reflective Material??

[Mike Volpone]

I'm sick and tired of my Mimaki CG-130 FXII plotter. I have trouble contour cutting regular vinyl and CANNOT cut reflective, which I use for one of my biggest accounts!

Who makes the BEST contour cutting plotter? Is it the Graphtec FC9000??

I see these Chinese ones on ebay for under $1000 that say they contour cut. Can't be worth a @#$%!!

 

[Billct2]

How large do you need? Can't beat Gerber sprocket plotters for accuracy and variety of materials.

 

[balstestrat]

I'm just going to say that if you go with summa you want the OPOS-CAM model. Basic opos won't read reflective.

 

[unclebun]

Odd. We have never had trouble with our Mimaki cutter using reflective.

 

[netsol]

How large do you need? Can't beat Gerber sprocket plotters for accuracy and variety of materials.

i wouldn't mind picking up a 30" gerber

i assume having the material punched is not that big a deal

 

[PHILJOHNSON]

Hi Mike,

One of the Summa S2's with the OPOS Camera would work well for detecting the marks and there is also a yellow filter(instructions & info attached) for the OPOS sensor that can also be used to detect registration marks on reflective materials.

Are you trying to cut engineer grade reflective, prismatic, or diamond grade?

Best regards,

Phil Johnson
Airmark Corporation
(800)527-7778, ext 112(office)
(509)280-6354(cell)
philj@airmark.com

 

[signheremd]

I'm sick and tired of my Mimaki CG-130 FXII plotter. I have trouble contour cutting regular vinyl and CANNOT cut reflective, which I use for one of my biggest accounts!

Who makes the BEST contour cutting plotter? Is it the Graphtec FC9000??

I see these Chinese ones on ebay for under $1000 that say they contour cut. Can't be worth a @#$%!!

We use a FC9000 and love it with one reservation - our old Graphtec would cut beyond the pinch wheels if needed (to the edge), on the new one the cut must be within the area of your vinyl between the pinch wheels - so you lose close to 1.5 to 2 inches of material. Other than that it has been great. Now we have not printed on much reflective, we cut tons of it. But one trick is if using the four sets of crop marks to cut a printed image on it, if you have any errors reading the crop marks put some masking tape against the marks to block reflectivity so the electric eye can see it better. But the unit is rated and designed to read cutmarks on reflective and even holographic vinyl if I remember correctly (we never use holographic).

 

[Mike Volpone]

Hi Mike,

One of the Summa S2's with the OPOS Camera would work well for detecting the marks and there is also a yellow filter(instructions & info attached) for the OPOS sensor that can also be used to detect registration marks on reflective materials.

Are you trying to cut engineer grade reflective, prismatic, or diamond grade?

Best regards,

Phil Johnson
Airmark Corporation
(800)527-7778, ext 112(office)
(509)280-6354(cell)
philj@airmark.com

Thanks for the info. I am trying to cut 3M IJ5100R & IJ680CR vinyl. I am even having trouble contour cutting regular GF 230/231 vinyl. The plotter will not recognize any of the reggies on the reflective forcing me to hand cut the decals. It is very time consuming and not very accurate! On standard vinyl, I also have a lot of problems. If I run the vinyl straight into the plotter as printed, the plotter reads the first reggie and then goes looking for reggie 2 and goes all the way past the second reggie kicking the sheet of vinyl onto the floor! If I turn the vinyl 180, I have the same problem! If I turn the vinyl 90 degrees in either direction, the plotter will either recognize three of the reggies and then give me an Error 36 Mark Detect message OR it will recognize all four reggies, and then begin to cut about three inches from where it is supposed to cut! I checked, re-checked, and recreated the contour cut paths and get the same results!!! The print file and cut file align 100% (I even check in wireframe mode) and there is nothing outside of the artwork! On a totally different file with the same reggies, the plotter contour cuts perfectly. I have been wasting so much vinyl and time screwing with this! I don't know if it is a setting issue or hardware problem! I wish I could find somebody in So Cal that would come and check/change the settings to make this a bulletproof operation! I'm in San Bernardino. I'd be happy to pay someone that knows what they are doing!
Thanks again,
Mike

 

[Mike Volpone]

How large do you need? Can't beat Gerber sprocket plotters for accuracy and variety of materials.

54"

 

[Mike Volpone]

We use a FC9000 and love it with one reservation - our old Graphtec would cut beyond the pinch wheels if needed (to the edge), on the new one the cut must be within the area of your vinyl between the pinch wheels - so you lose close to 1.5 to 2 inches of material. Other than that it has been great. Now we have not printed on much reflective, we cut tons of it. But one trick is if using the four sets of crop marks to cut a printed image on it, if you have any errors reading the crop marks put some masking tape against the marks to block reflectivity so the electric eye can see it better. But the unit is rated and designed to read cutmarks on reflective and even holographic vinyl if I remember correctly (we never use holographic).

I am leaving at least two inches inside of the pinch wheels and still have this problem!

 

[Mike Volpone]

Hi Mike,

One of the Summa S2's with the OPOS Camera would work well for detecting the marks and there is also a yellow filter(instructions & info attached) for the OPOS sensor that can also be used to detect registration marks on reflective materials.

Are you trying to cut engineer grade reflective, prismatic, or diamond grade?

Best regards,

Phil Johnson
Airmark Corporation
(800)527-7778, ext 112(office)
(509)280-6354(cell)
philj@airmark.com

Thank you. Could this work on a Mimaki? Where would I get the yellow filter and which setting must be changed in the Mimaki controls???

 

[Ed. C.]

I'm sick and tired of my Mimaki CG-130 FXII plotter. I have trouble contour cutting regular vinyl and CANNOT cut reflective, which I use for one of my biggest accounts!

Who makes the BEST contour cutting plotter? Is it the Graphtec FC9000??

I see these Chinese ones on ebay for under $1000 that say they contour cut. Can't be worth a @#$%!!

we run a graphtec 8000 and a graphtec 8600 no issues, you might want to try and reduce the pressure and make sure you are using the right blades for the right purpose.....there are 30-45-60 degree blades try different ones and see witch works best for each material.... chineese brand don't really have a print and cut option they are strictly for cutting... not worth my pennies!!

 

[Commando]

What kind of reflective are you having problems with?

 

[ikarasu]

We use a FC9000 and love it with one reservation - our old Graphtec would cut beyond the pinch wheels if needed (to the edge), on the new one the cut must be within the area of your vinyl between the pinch wheels - so you lose close to 1.5 to 2 inches of material. Other than that it has been great. Now we have not printed on much reflective, we cut tons of it. But one trick is if using the four sets of crop marks to cut a printed image on it, if you have any errors reading the crop marks put some masking tape against the marks to block reflectivity so the electric eye can see it better. But the unit is rated and designed to read cutmarks on reflective and even holographic vinyl if I remember correctly (we never use holographic).

Have you turned on expand?

This is for the CE, but its pretty much the same way to setup.

 

[ikarasu]

I'm sick and tired of my Mimaki CG-130 FXII plotter. I have trouble contour cutting regular vinyl and CANNOT cut reflective, which I use for one of my biggest accounts!

Who makes the BEST contour cutting plotter? Is it the Graphtec FC9000??

I see these Chinese ones on ebay for under $1000 that say they contour cut. Can't be worth a @#$%!!

We use the FC9000... it allows you to print reverse marks... So a big black square with just the reflective showing through as the mark. It's more accurate, but sometimes it does still read wrong.

How often do you cut? If your cutter has issues... Buy a small 3-4" roll of premask, or using 2" masking tape...drop it down over the mark and felt pen it in. I used to do it with a ruler... now I just eyeball it when I have to use our old machine... so long as you dont have the shakiest of hands, it should work close enough to be max a mm or two off.


But just as a reference... We cut probably 150 ft of reflective 680 a month, and another roll or two of nikkalite engineer grade... Maybe 1 in 30 jobs will pickup the mark wrong and cut off... For the others we constantly do 10 FT police wrap cuts with no issues. The 9000's a great machine with its reverse print option... I heard summas used to be better than graphtec... but I think the 9000 has bumped graphtec ahead.

 

[WYLDGFI]

We use our graphic quite a bit for reflective. The correct blade and pressure...turn the speed down just a little. All good.

 

[Behrmon]

We print/cut tons of fleet work on IJ680/8518 with very few issues (usually none) on both our Summas ST2160s, one with OPOS Cam and one without. I do prefer using the one w the OPOS cam for reflective tho.

 

[Bill Modzel]

I used to just put a piece of Scotch dull magic tape over the registration marks which worked great.

 

[Mike Volpone]

Have you turned on expand?

This is for the CE, but its pretty much the same way to setup.

I cannot find "Expand" in the FC-130 FXII settings...

 

[Mike Volpone]

Does ANYONE here know of ANYBODY that will come out to my shop and check all the Mimaki/FineCut settings to see where this is going wrong? We are willing to pay someone but Mimaki will not return any calls or support requests and Mimaki dealers here in So Cal seem to be just as flaky!!! They don't return calls either!! I can't understand why a company does not support their products!!! {TOTALLY FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!}