Need Help Roland BN-20A won't perf cut.

[SweetTea]

Hi everyone! We just purchased a BN-20A, and the print is amazing, but we can't get it to consistently perf cut! 98% of the time it kiss cuts, and only etches the backing. We are using 6mil vinyl, highest force and blade is all the way out (last ditch effort). I'm ready to just do all the cutting on my silhouette, which defeats the purpose of the all in one. Also, we are looking at new blades and a holder, but unsure which to purchase.

Any and all insights would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Saturn]

I've never run that machine, but two things I would try are—
1) Double check the blade isn't chipped using a little battery powered LED microscope. For good contour cut results the blade can be pretty worn, but once it chips not so much.
2) Do some testing with 2-3 passes of the cut, one on top of the other. You may have to build this into the file if the software doesn't have a simple way to achieve it.

 

[SweetTea]

I've never run that machine, but two things I would try are—
1) Double check the blade isn't chipped using a little battery powered LED microscope. For good contour cut results the blade can be pretty worn, but once it chips not so much.
2) Do some testing with 2-3 passes of the cut, one on top of the other. You may have to build this into the file if the software doesn't have a simple way to achieve it.

Thanks! I will check the blade, it's brand new, so should be fine, but never know!

I have done 2 passes, and it just tears up the vinyl. I'm not sure why. I have used my silhouettes for years, never had this issue. I was definitely naive thinking I could jump into a plotter and have everything go smoothly!

 

[Zoogee World]

Just to confirm, it's only the 6 mil vinyl, no laminate on top, correct? Would you have any photos to show? Even that machine should be able to cut through 6 mil vinyl. What shape is the cutting strip in, as this could affect it as well, if it's all cut up and such, then it would need replacing.

 

[SweetTea]

Just to confirm, it's only the 6 mil vinyl, no laminate on top, correct? Would you have any photos to show? Even that machine should be able to cut through 6 mil vinyl. What shape is the cutting strip in, as this could affect it as well, if it's all cut up and such, then it would need replacing.

Yes, only the vinyl, no laminate. I can take photos, what do you need to see? The machine is brand new, cutting strip should be okay.

 

[Zoogee World]

Pictures of what it's doing would be great. Maybe one of the cutting strip and one of the blade holder (just to make sure the blade and all in secured properly. If the machine is new, then it should be under warranty and a tech should come out free of charge to fix.

 

[SweetTea]

Pictures of what it's doing would be great. Maybe one of the cutting strip and one of the blade holder (just to make sure the blade and all in secured properly. If the machine is new, then it should be under warranty and a tech should come out free of charge to fix.






 

[Zoogee World]

Pictures of what it's doing would be great. Maybe one of the cutting strip and one of the blade holder (just to make sure the blade and all in secured properly. If the machine is new, then it should be under warranty and a tech should come out free of charge to fix.






Those 2 photos of the printer look all good. Do you have any photos of what the cutter is doing? (You mentioned it was tearing up when doing multiple cuts.

 

[SweetTea]

Pictures of what it's doing would be great. Maybe one of the cutting strip and one of the blade holder (just to make sure the blade and all in secured properly. If the machine is new, then it should be under warranty and a tech should come out free of charge to fix.

Here's what it's doing, tearing the stickers and just etching the back. We are 4 hours from any major Nevada city, so I'm sure we are out of any service areas, so likely won't have anyone be able to come out.

 

[Zoogee World]

If you bought it from a local dealer, they should have a tech and it should be under warranty if it's new. There is something going on, just by looking at the cut out front view of that sticker, the blade doesn't always follow the path (unless that is intentional), it is for sure cutting out of alignment, but that isn't the problem at hand.

 

[Zoogee World]

Another thing I forgot to ask, since your trying to cut through the entire thing instead of just the top layer, what is the thickness of the backer paper? As the printer your currently using can only cut up to 16 mil thickness, although I doubt it's that thick.

 

[Saturn]

Can you get 100% good results just doing kiss cut stickers?

If you can't, I would take perf cutting out of the equation for now and really dial things in on the simpler kiss cut only. Depending a little bit on how you're doing them, the perf/contour/flex cut stickers are always just a heavier/deeper version of kiss cutting, so when things seem really wonky like this I'd make sure the kiss cuts are 100% good before trying to solve more problems.

You CAN go too deep and heavy, and if the blade has chipped at all, you could easily be getting it where the blade is dragging the material out of position slightly. The material should in theory stay perfectly flat against the machine while cutting. No bowing or puckering or distorting of the sheet as it cuts.

Wish I knew more about the BN-20 and how it cuts, but I'm pretty sure there's some other forum posts on it too. I'm sure you'll get it eventually!

 

[SweetTea]

We didn't, there is no local anything. We bought it from Swing Designs, online. We want it to be die-cut and follow the outline, if that's what you mean. Only 1 of our designs has cut almost perfectly every time, we used the same settings for the others, and it doesn't work. I have no idea what the backing is. It's general formations 222 semi-rigid.

 

[Zoogee World]

I think you just answered your own question right there. If it says semi-rigid anything, then you know it's fairly thick stuff. Have you tried a thinner media just to see if that works. My guess now that you've said that, is that the media is too thick for that printer to cut through.

 

[SweetTea]

Can you get 100% good results just doing kiss cut stickers?

If you can't, I would take perf cutting out of the equation for now and really dial things in on the simpler kiss cut only. Depending a little bit on how you're doing them, the perf/contour/flex cut stickers are always just a heavier/deeper version of kiss cutting, so when things seem really wonky like this I'd make sure the kiss cuts are 100% good before trying to solve more problems.

You CAN go too deep and heavy, and if the blade has chipped at all, you could easily be getting it where the blade is dragging the material out of position slightly. The material should in theory stay perfectly flat against the machine while cutting. No bowing or puckering or distorting of the sheet as it cuts.

Wish I knew more about the BN-20 and how it cuts, but I'm pretty sure there's some other forum posts on it too. I'm sure you'll get it eventually!

Yes the few we practiced on were perfect. We thought about doing that, then cutting squares around them. But we've been selling stickers for a year now, all die-cut and I think kiss cut looks less professional. I'm not sure if our clients would be happy with the change. I think until we figure it out, we'll have to print on the roland and cut out using my silhouette. ‍ Which defeats the purpose of the roland.

 

[SweetTea]

I think you just answered your own question right there. If it says semi-rigid anything, then you know it's fairly thick stuff. Have you tried a thinner media just to see if that works. My guess now that you've said that, is that the media is too thick for that printer to cut through.

That would make sense. Unfortunately we haven't found any 6mil vinyl on thinner backing. The vinyl that came with the machine is 3mil and pointless for stickers. So I'm at a loss.

 

[Zoogee World]

I hate to tell you this, but you probably bought the wrong machine for the job. From my experience and I am a little bias, but the BN-20 is a waste of money, you would get better bang for your buck buying a used larger older model like a VS-300i or SP-300i.

 

[Zoogee World]

Not sure if you need permanent or repositionable, but we use a 6mil Repositionable media from Oracal their 3268M and it's backer isn't all that thick.

 

[SweetTea]

I think you just answered your own question right there. If it says semi-rigid anything, then you know it's fairly thick stuff. Have you tried a thinner media just to see if that works. My guess now that you've said that, is that the media is too thick for that printer to cut through.

The caliper says it's 12 and a bit millimeters.

 

[SweetTea]

Not sure if you need permanent or repositionable, but we use a 6mil Repositionable media from Oracal their 3268M and it's backer isn't all that thick.

Permanent.