How to tile cut graphics easily?

[JoeBoomer]

Printing a logo for a trailer. The graphic is roughly 53" x 250"

This is too big for me to be able to print w/ crop marks on and get my plotter to read, so I manually tiled the graphic in Illustrator but that is a pain.


I don't want to print a 30" x 250" piece and also a 23" x 250" piece because of all the waste and 250" long is tough to keep straight on the plotter.


I'm using :

Mimaki CG-130fx w/ Finecut plugin
HP L26500
Onyx 10
54" 3M IJ-180cv3


Does Finecut have this functionality or is there an easier way of doing this?

Thanks Team!

 

[thesignexpert]

Printing a logo for a trailer. The graphic is roughly 53" x 250"

This is too big for me to be able to print w/ crop marks on and get my plotter to read, so I manually tiled the graphic in Illustrator but that is a pain.


I don't want to print a 30" x 250" piece and also a 23" x 250" piece because of all the waste and 250" long is tough to keep straight on the plotter.


I'm using :

Mimaki CG-130fx w/ Finecut plugin
HP L26500
Onyx 10
54" 3M IJ-180cv3


Does Finecut have this functionality or is there an easier way of doing this?

Thanks Team!

I don't think that your equipment & software configuration supports a simple panel/print/cut production. I would manually split the file into multiple vertical panels which the FineCut Reg marks in order to print/cut the sections as you need. You have to ensure that you figure in the appropriate overlap for each section. From your dimensions, it looks like you will need 6 panels approximately 46" (including reg marks) x 56" tall.

 

[JoeBoomer]

That is basically what I've been doing, but was hoping for a better solution. When I had a graphtec plotter, I could just choose the setting in Onyx to put the crop marks on each tile automatically. (Spot color = CutContour)

That was awesome for simple cutting. I like having the ability to adjust after printing with FineCut, but it's a pain in the a$$.

I wish I could do that with my Mimaki, but I remember not being able to use Onyx Cut Server with it for some reason. Maybe I was doing something wrong before?


Thanks for the suggestions though. Keep them coming if anyone has anything else to add.

Thanks

 

[thesignexpert]

You can't just reduce it to 52"? You'll only lose 5" length.

The FineCut system restricts the max print/cut dimensions to 46" (something to do with the head travel, laser registration etc.). He would have to reduce the actual print panel to 44" which would have a considerably larger length impact. It does get old sometimes.