S2 T160 - trouble cutting metallic

[Signed Out]

Having trouble with our summa accurately reading/cutting printed metallic vinyl. Printed on 3m metallic silver vinyl and laminated. What happens is sometimes it will cut everything off slightly. I'm pretty sure the sensor is having trouble accurately reading the crop marks. We are running off a bunch of decals, same file printed 10 times, about a 7' page size. 7 out of 10 will read and cut perfectly. The other 3 cut as if the cut file is 1/2" shorter than it is. They start off close but progressively come up shorter on the y axis, and by the end of the page the cutline is about 1/2"shorter than where it should be. If that makes sense?

Going to try and turn up the cutter mark darkness in onyx. But any other tricks I can try? I think the sensor is having trouble reading on the metallic material, which is annoying. Wish there was a way to get the printer to lay down some white ink before printing crop marks so you could print a white buffer area on hard to read materials.

 

[Snydo]

Scotch tape, the frosted kind you use for wrapping xmas presents works best..put a small piece over each crop. Using a different lam helps sometimes as well.

 

[Signed Out]

Scotch tape, the frosted kind you use for wrapping xmas presents works best..put a small piece over each crop. Using a different lam helps sometimes as well.

Thanks, I'll give that a try. Do you tape the barcode and long lines too, or just the squares along the sides?

 

[PHILJOHNSON]

Good morning,

What Snydo said would work and there is also a yellow OPOS filter that you can use with metallic and reflective materials as well to help with mark detection. Instructions for that process are attached.

Best regards,

Phil Johnson
Airmark Corporation
(800)527-7778, ext 112
philj@airmark.com

 

[Signed Out]

Good morning,

What Snydo said would work and there is also a yellow OPOS filter that you can use with metallic and reflective materials as well to help with mark detection. Instructions for that process are attached.

Thanks Phil. Would this yellow filter need to be removed when cutting regular white print media? Or does it work better for everything?

 

[PHILJOHNSON]

You would use it just for reflective/metallic/holographic type materials and remove it when cutting regular vinyl. You can print them yourself and all you need to do is print a translucent yellow on clear vinyl. I've used the filters quite a bit on reflective and they work well. There are a couple other threads here on the site where users have used the filter on other materials as well to improve mark detection.

Best regards,

Phil Johnson
Airmark Corporation
(800)527-7778, ext 112
philj@airmark.com