Kiss Cut and Perf Cut Issues - Roland BN20 and Roland GS24

[Sandra Barton]

About to pull my hair out and wondering if someone has suggestions:

Machines:
Roland BN-20 for printing
Roland CAMM-1 GS-24 for cutting

Materials:
Roland Glossy White Calendared Vinyl 3 mil
Eagle-Lam 3 mil Matte UV Laminate

I'm printing vinyl stickers on my BN20 and cutting on the Roland GS24. Have no problem setting up registration/cut marks. My issues is with getting the settings for kiss cut and perf cut correct. Been working on these for 5 days and now at the point of outsourcing the job just to get it done.

I'm doing two jobs - one is a 3" perf cut round sticker. The other is a 6"x4" sticker sheet with kiss cut cut stickers and per cut to 6x4 sheet.

Issues - I've figured out correct settings for kiss cuts. Issue is with perf cuts. Stickers pop out and jam the machine. I've been playing around with perf length/force and half cut length/force for days and wasting so much material. Every setting I've tried hasn't worked. Anyone have suggestions for me?

 

[BigNate]

... I use a different system, the graphtec, but the problem of perf cutting and stickers falling out sounds similar. For 99% of our sticker perf cuts, I have the blade down for about 3/4", then up for 0.05".... but the "up" is adjusted so it just drags on the top of the media - this seems to make the pulling apart better. you can change the frequency of up to down to make the sticker hold in-place better. (I am not familiar with the settings on the Roland, but the "up" for perf is not the same as the "up" for moving across the media - that needs to be much higher.)

 

[Sandra Barton]

... I use a different system, the graphtec, but the problem of perf cutting and stickers falling out sounds similar. For 99% of our sticker perf cuts, I have the blade down for about 3/4", then up for 0.05".... but the "up" is adjusted so it just drags on the top of the media - this seems to make the pulling apart better. you can change the frequency of up to down to make the sticker hold in-place better. (I am not familiar with the settings on the Roland, but the "up" for perf is not the same as the "up" for moving across the media - that needs to be much higher.

 

[Sandra Barton]

Thanks for the reply. In Versaworks the perf cut settings are Perforation Length/Perforation Force and Half-Cut Length/Half-Cut force.
Last one I ran through was using a perf length of 1" with a force of 170 gf and a half-cut length of .125 with a force of 1 gf. Maybe I should try reducing my perf length and upping the force.

 

[BigNate]

Thanks for the reply. In Versaworks the perf cut settings are Perforation Length/Perforation Force and Half-Cut Length/Half-Cut force.
Last one I ran through was using a perf length of 1" with a force of 170 gf and a half-cut length of .125 with a force of 1 gf. Maybe I should try reducing my perf length and upping the force.

if this was my machine, I would run a lot of tests (I assume the half-cut is the "up" or the part of the perf that is not fully cut)

if you can run separate tests for the cut force and the half-cut force, run lots of tests to make the half-cut be close to a kiss-cut (in that it does not cut through the backer) little blades are very sharp, I would think this takes almost no down-force. Then test the cut though the backer to make sure it is correct force...... One effect to loosely watch is that when the blade transitions between the cut and the half-cut, the change is not instant. The media will lift up slightly and the blade takes time to move up or down - these are incredible small things, but they do make a difference. (we can imagine a square graph of the up and down vs time for the cut, but the reality is the plot is much closer to a rounded square, or even a sin wave as the blade motion is not instantaneous... so even with good tests, you may need to adjust the up portion slightly longer than you may first think from the tests.)

but looking back at your ratio of up to down - 1"up tp 0.125" down - I would make it closet to 0.75" : 0.1" even 0.5" : 0.02" (really run a few tests and get a feeling for how the media and the blade move.)

 

[BigNate]

... another thought for stickers falling out: how is the image populated? if you print a large grid of the same image, the integrity of the media drops fast as the cuts all align in a row. Try offsetting the rows by half a sticker - think like the stars are stacked on the flag, then when the media tries to fold across multiple cut stickers, there is not a clear cut path through all the images. We can pack stickers much closer this way, and have way less issues on the plotter when cutting them apart.

 

[cornholio]

The only cutters doing this right, are the Summa T Series Flexcut. Roland has officially hidden the perfcut function for quite some time...

 

[damonCA21]

As an aside, why are you printing on the BN20 and then cutting on a seperate machine when the BN20 cuts as well?

 

[Sandra Barton]

... another thought for stickers falling out: how is the image populated? if you print a large grid of the same image, the integrity of the media drops fast as the cuts all align in a row. Try offsetting the rows by half a sticker - think like the stars are stacked on the flag, then when the media tries to fold across multiple cut stickers, there is not a clear cut path through all the images. We can pack stickers much closer this way, and have way less issues on the plotter when cutting them apart.

Never thought of this. Will definitely try. I ended up outsourcing the job to a wholesale printer just so I could get it done in a timely manner. But am continuing to run test after test to get it right. I appreciate all your input and will report back.

 

[Sandra Barton]

As an aside, why are you printing on the BN20 and then cutting on a seperate machine when the BN20 cuts as well?

For speed and productivity. I had the BN20 and got an amazing deal on a used GS24 still under warranty - a local shop was closing and liquidating. So I took advantage of it.