Can't Access 'Contour' menu in rip dialogue???

[pindesign]

Hi. If anyone has some answers to this one, you may prevent me from early hair loss, which would be nice...

The "contour" button in the "Rip and Print" menu is greyed out (I can't click it). I have installed my plotter in production manager, and it works fine if I send a normal plot job to it.

Is the HS15-Plus just not supported by the Flexi 7.6 contour menu, or am I missing something / doing something wrong?

Cheers, Gareth

 

[iSign]

When I need to "make contour" for a cut line on a print to be ripped out of flexi, I choose the "make contour" command from within Flexi, not from the production manager (which is where I end up when I choose "rip and print", so I thought that's where you're looking for it)

Anyway, I think the menu might be arrange, but it's about the third from the left & when choosing "contour", if the flyout "make contour" is greyed out, then a little further down that main menu is a little red clover-looking icon next to "create outline". Once I click on this first (which I don't always have to do... only when "make contour" is greyed out) then "make contour" become available.

 

[myronb]

Yeah, you have to have a contour line in the file to be able to access the contour menu in production manager.

 

[bob]

It works like this...

The 'Contour' button on the Rip and Print is there to allow you to set various specifications on the contour line you have previously specified with either the Effects->Contour Cut... or Arrange->Contour Cut... functions withing Flexi itself.

It is not there to allow you to specify a previously non-existent contour.

 

[pindesign]

The file I am sending already has contours in it. (Effect > Make contour)

The contour menu is greyed out in the rip and print dialogue regardless.

Maybe it is a driver issue.

 

[P Wagner]

This Gerber plotter has no optical registration mark identification system, and the driver does not support manually identified marks.

Bob

 

[gabagoo]

i have seen that before. Not sure what causes it but try "selecting all" with the menu command then print and rip see if that works

 

[pindesign]

Yeah, I know what you mean about "select all", gabagoo, that is not the problem though.

Bob, it sounds like you may be on the money. So now the question becomes "does anyone have experience in making a work-around solution for this problem?" (lack of manual alignment marks for hs-15 in flexi 7.6)

I tried to just print some reg marks as art n the job file and align manually, but it was way out, was only my first try though...

 

[bob]

...So now the question becomes "does anyone have experience in making a work-around solution for this problem?" (lack of manual alignment marks for hs-15 in flexi 7.6)...

The answer is maybe... It depends very much on your cutter.

Try this:

Make the contour path a plain ordinary path in white.

Print a black hairline rectangle bounding the print and contour path.

Load the print into the plotter, place the blade directly above the lower right corner of your hairline rectangle. Set the origin.

Now, assuming your plotter supports setting a plot area or region or whatever they choose to call it, use the other corners, as necessary, to set the limits of the plot area. This assumes that your plotter is smart enough to map incoming coordinates onto its plot area.

If your plotter isn't that smart then you can't set a plot area. All you can do is hope that the X any Y linearity of both the printer and the plotter are as close to identical as possible. This means that an inch in the X an Y direction on the printer is an inch in the X and Y direction on the plotter. Tricky, you might have to iterate a time or two to get the distance compensation just right on your printer.

Now select both the hairline rectangle and you contour path in Flexi and send them to the cut/plot dialog. There select 'All Colors' and send the job to the plotter. The plotter then cut the hairline rectangle and the desired contour path.