Need Help how to deal with cuts for long murals?

[Tuanny]

Hello trying to cut like 15 foot long wall mural on a roll but sometimes the media doesn't fold well in the media catcher and kind of crumbles the print a bit. Is there a solution for this? do i need a take up reel option so it can roll in there. I have a summa s2 t160.

I think i need this?

S2 160 Motorized Take-Up System

Ensure easy take-up of cut media with our motorized system. Attaching directly to S2 160 vinyl cutters, the Motorized Take-Up System is compatible with the OPOS-CAM, S Class 2 T Series, S Class 2 D Series, S Class T Series, S Class, and D Series.

www.airmark.com

 

[brdesign]

If it's just for an occasional job with long run like that I would just slow the plotter speed down and stand there and babysit it, guiding by hand into the basket or just let fall onto the floor. If you do jobs like this all the time then a take up system may be worth the investment.

 

[tedbragg]

For extra-long runs—at least with our Roland— we don’t use the take-up reel and just guide the print carefully on the (freshly cleaned) floor. Take-ups can cause uneven tension and make the print skew or worse, stretch the vinyl.

 

[ikarasu]

If it's decent material a crinkle will just heat out... We don't even worry about if it crinkles.


We have 2x 4x8s infront of our laminator (the one thing with no take up reel... )


If it's a sensitive material where crinkles won't heat out like window film.... What we've done is put a 4x8 table on the front and back of the cutter and itll stay flat and roll out onto the front table and back out onto the reverse table. Great for frosted or translucent films that get damaged the second it bends.

 

[ikarasu]

One more thing to note. I don't use a summa... But the graphtec take up looks identical. You're going to waste about 4 ft of material attaching it to the take up... Not a big deal of you can pause your cut and tape it up after 4 ft, but if you're trying to stay crinkle free that's not an option.

Look at the website you linked and look at how the vinyl is webbed to the take up. It goes over the roll... Underneath it, under the metal bars... Then you somehow have to tape it up to the core while the whole sheet of vinyl is In the way. It's a huge pain in the ass to do... Which is why we only use our take up for 50-150ft jobs that take hours to cut. For our use, it's worth it and I don't know how we lived without it. But it does have its downsides.

We use empty cores with 10ft of banner pre attached and tape the cut vinyl to the banner. Still a pain in the ass to do.. and I would rather move around 2 4x8 tables to do a 15 ft panel than go through using the take up for such a small job. So if all you want a take up for is to prevent crinkles... Id say avoid it, unless you're doing 50+ft of cutting at a time.

 

[Tuanny]

Thanks for the tips guys.

 

[FrankW]

You can activate panneling. What means that the cutter divides the job in panels, cutting each panel completely until continuing with the next one. Will avoid long media moves. If your media tracks well, you will not see any difference. The length of the panels can be defined.

 

[Proofread People]

If it's just for an occasional job with long run like that I would just slow the plotter speed down and stand there and babysit it, guiding by hand into the basket or just let fall onto the floor. If you do jobs like this all the time then a take up system may be worth the investment.

lol, I was just going to say the same thing, "babysit it".