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Oh Happy Day! Got my Graphtec.

Steve C.

New Member
Signwarehouse.com has given me a full refund on the Jaguar cutter that I was having problems with. It was a good vinyl cutter, but there were issues with the driver when it came to cutting contours for Print'n'Cut. Anyway I now have a new 42" Graphtec and I'm going to put it together right now. Thanks to Signs 101, It probably would not have happened without the help and encouragement from other members.
 

SteadyBenny

New Member
You will not be sorry. I have had a used CE2000-60 for just over a year. It was about two years old when I got it. I love it. It rely on it. It works well all the time...
I enjoy the J.A. Henkels knives given to me over the past few years. They are a middle line called Classic Forged. They serve me well. My brother-in-law and his wife came for dinner once. They saw the knives and said it seemed foolish to have knives that cost $25-50 each. They had a similar set that had more knives and cost about $40 for the whole set. His wife actually laughed at me. We went to their house for Thanksgiving dinner last year. I couldn't help but notice they had the exact same Henkels knives that I do. Funny how they mocked me six months earlier for having mine... I believe quality products and tools make my life better. I prefer not to be mocked for making good decissions by people who don't get it.[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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Colin

New Member
Nice. A few years ago when I was researching which plotter to get, it came down to either ther Graphtec or the Summa. I got a D750 30" Summa due to a special that was on at the time, but you'll never look back.
 
I've been a chef for a40 or so years. Henkle, Trident and Wusthoff are among the finest forged knives you can get. Forget the ribbing and enjoy quality.
Frank CEC
 

Dale Horn

New Member
I now have a new 42" Graphtec and I'm going to put it together right now. Thanks to Signs 101, It probably would not have happened without the help and encouragement from other members.


Lucky dog - have fun.
 

Steve C.

New Member
Well it is not such a Happy Day and it has been a very frustrating week! I started this thred a week ago and still have not got the graphtec working right. Straight vinyl cutting is awsome, but contour cutting is completely undependable. I'm sorry for all the bad things I said about the Jaguar, it may have been off a bit, but at least it cut every time. This new machine is hit or miss, I never know what job will cut and which ones won't, some are on and most are way off. I have not been to the board much because most of my time has been spent jacking with this machine with not much luck. At least 5 hr. on the phone to verious Tech Supports, Flexi, Graphtec and Signwarehouse... with not much help from anyone.
There is also one other member of Signs 101 that is experiencing exactlly the same problems with the same software and hardware and suppier. I'm about ready to give it up. In fact I think I'll go home now and get real drunk! Have a good week end.
 

Colin

New Member
You can't drown your sorrows, you just teach 'em how to swim. lol

So, what's going on? Could you define the problem exactly? Are the contours that are supposed to be nice and round, cut straight from point to point?

I'd imagine that between all of the brain cells on this forum, we might be able to help.
 

Steve C.

New Member
Colin said:
So, what's going on? Could you define the problem exactly? Are the contours that are supposed to be nice and round, cut straight from point to point?

There seems to be no rhyme or reason. Some jobs cut some don't. It reads the regestration marks and then just stops. according to Production Mgr. the job is cutting, so I must shut down Production Mgr. to contenue. The jobs that it cuts, most are too far off to pass. Sometimes the registration marks are strange and none of the Tech supports have seen it before. Using the Graphtec type 2, Three point registration, the third reg. mark looks like an F rotated 90 degrees. I have to cover the extra line to make it look like an L. This is random, same job may be normal or not. The jobs that will cut seem to cut every time and same with the ones that won't. I have not been able to distinguish any differences. After dealing with the Jaguar for almost 6 months, I thought my troubles where over. #@*!%#! Now here I am on a Sunday at the shop still trying to figure it out.
 
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Steve C.

New Member
OK, one job I got to cut was just a large rectangle bitmap with perimiter contour. The left top edge went off about a quarter inch. the rest of the lines look to be very close to right. I hope you can see what I mean from this sample. It is off in the corner with no reg. mark.
 

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Colin

New Member
Well that's beyond me, think Fred or someone else would have more insight. Are you having any problems cutting vectors that have no raster image in the file? Is there a corellation there - only files with a raster image are problematic?

I'd say if you can't get this solved, demand another machine.

You will get this worked out and will look back on it as a learning experience.
 

Scott Reynolds

New Member
Email me your phone number and give me a good time to call. I had some of the same problems. Its just a few little things to change.
 

Steve C.

New Member
Straight vector jobs are fantastic, cuts sharp, clean, small copy, easy to weed....a breeze. Contours on rasterized images are the problem. Sometimes the cuts are good. Most of the time it won't cut at all. I highly suspect that it is a problem in Flexi.

IS ANYONE USING MUTOH OUTDOOR, FLEXI 7.5-5. AND GRAPHTEC FC5100-100 with success? AAAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
 

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
I think your problem may be Flexi related. I can't speak first hand but have read post from time to time that have some similarities. I have used Flexi a few times with my Edge and and found the print to cut alignment to be a fairly frequent problem.

Do you have any alternative software you can use to send the same or similar job where you can compare results? This kind of a problem can be both confusing and frustrating. The fundamental rule of troubleshooting is to eliminate each of the possible problem sources. My guess is that Flexi is simply getting the target data wrong, so I would start with using an alternate to that.
 

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
FWIW, I just opened Flexi and there was the Tip of the Day which suggests that you

Leave a margin around your contour cut because most cutters will have difficulty aligning properly without having some extra space.
 

Steve C.

New Member
One problem solved anyway.... The leading edge of your material must be shorter than 2.5" and at least .79". That was the reason for some jobs stoping after reading reg. marks. Thanks to LvDecals for that info along with some other options for me to try. And I will be working on some other software options as well.

Thanks Fred, I hardly ever read those tips, must pay more attention.
 

Steve C.

New Member
The strange registration mark apparently indicates that the print is a repeated print or contains copies. In the sample I posted earlier of the photo with a rectangle contour, Its the print that is skewed and not the contour. The photo is straight but the printer printed off. So the problem is not with the Cutter but with the Software and the printer. When I am careful to be sure the media is running straight it is much better.
 
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