Proper way to Print>Laminate>Cut?! Material wanders away?!

[CSOCSO]

Lately I have problem with printing> laminating> then cutting. Whatever I try the rear crop marks are off the plastic line.
Here is how I do it:

When I print I load the material nice and straight then do a sheetcut so its easier to realign the material when I need to cut.
Print as usual
Laminate then trim off any excess overlam off the edge of the media ( without cutting in to the media)
Then I load the media back in to the printer. I have two roller outside of the cropmarks and I also use the removable roller. I align the front of the media straight with the plastic cut strip then lock the machine. The head will scan the rollers and moves the material forward. Usually I need to feed the media backward with the buttons then hit base point when crop marks are right on top of the plastic strip.
On the machine I change the settings to cut only.
Printer finds 2 front marks without any problem. Then moves to the rear marks. 3rd mark is a little bit off and the last one is usually half an inch away from the strip. Doesn't matter how much I try to cheat with putting the material in crooked the 4th crop mark will never land on the right place. The material never wanders away a lot. Just enough so the machine would never find the last marks.
fyi: If i need to print the media does not wander away from the rollers. I can easily print two side of a sprinter ( around 40feet i guess) without refeeding the media. [ No I'm not trying to print and cut 40feet of material....]

Technician also told me the outside rollers have an angle and the little black mark on the roller should face out.

Is there any calibration for this??? Or how do I manually tell the machine where is the mark?

Every print and cut comes out bad.

 

[rjssigns]

First mistake is using the sheet cut. Sheet cut only gives you a straight edge. It does not guarantee 90 degrees to the factory edge. My wife ran into this and a large batch of decals was ruined. I pulled the material and did a manual squaring. Material was off 9/16"!

One thing I do on critical cuts is use my straight edge and align it with the top of the crop marks. Then i use a ball point pen and draw short lines to the edge of the material. These are used to align to the edge of the cut strip.

Even with all this on laminated material I can only trust it out to 5' or so if there is a lot of contouring. If it is a simple blob(think rectangle with round corners) I've gotten 11'.

I take it you are running a Roland? Check the specs for accuracy during contour cutting. They are horrid. Especially when you notice the conditional circumstances under which they achieved their figures.

 

[veloxgraphics]

Load your media and run it forward and back watching to see if it's tracking straight in relation to the machine. Look at the edge of the media and the vaccum holes as you're moving it and it'll make sense.

Adjust your media and run it again until it's tracking straight. Doing a sheet cut is still a good idea, because your printer will print the registration marks square in relation to the bed, not in relation to how you have the media loaded, so the sheet cut edge will be square with the reg marks.

Don't forget to either leave a trailing 6" bit of media on your print or tape one on so the roland doesnt freak out when it runs back to find the reg marks and runs out of media.

 

[veloxgraphics]

Also, if your media is wandering... might check to ensure your pinch rollers are still good. They are shaped to pull the media outward... if one is buggered then the other will start pulling your media off-track

 

[Sign Works]

Sounds like you might not be leaving extra material on the trailing end, my manual calls for approx 3".

 

[Mike Paul]

- Load your vinyl or laminated vinyl.

- Square it up at the half way poit not the front.

(6ft. print would be at 3ft.) and lower pinch rollers

- Advance it to the front with the keypad.

This will cut your skewing in half from the way you are doing it and crop marks should be picked up.

 

[threeputt]

CSOCSO, are you performing a "environmental match" prior to cutting?

You should do this prior to any cut. (hit menu, and tap the up scroll button eight times to bring it up) Didn't see any other repliers mention this and I think it's the number one priority. Say you printed during a warm part of the day or your media was warm, then you try cutting first thing in the morning and the media is cold, that could be it. All taken care of with "environmental match". (assuming your shop is not at an even temperature/humidity all the time)

Assuming you do this, second thing to check is that you've got all five pinch rollers advancing and gripping the material. Especially gloss laminates!

I do use the "sheet cut" after every print and I do think it helps in aligning the vinyl in the machine.

Your laminate method is the same as ours, no problem there.

Also, be sure you've got your firmware up to date.

Finally, if your main problem was the machine "finding" the last reg mark, then the weight of the drag knife, the speed of the cutting, or dullness of the blade is not a factor. It would be if you said the cuts were getting off. But that's not your problem, it's the locating of the crop marks, correct?