What is the longest...

[EbsWeb5150]

piece of printed vinyl that a Roland VP 540 can handle with just the 4 print & cut alignment marks added to the print. Because the Roland Manual says "When you want to perform automatic alignment with lengthy media, we recommend performing output with the data separated into sizes that are as short as possible."

I wish they would have gave an example of what they mean by that statement.
I have an upcoming graphic that will have to be laminated and is
at least 72" long, with some other graphic elements added on the 54" wide material.

 

[pure_media]

I just did a print and cut of a 4' x 6' piece, with a .1" bleed on all the colored letters. Most of the print was white letters except for main headlines (it was a menu board, cut lettering on chalk board). I took it out of the machine laminated it and cut it. The bleed wasnt big enough and most of the color had to be re printed and cut. I left the white alone and used it. but the material was moving about 1/8th in back and forth under the pinch rollers during the cut. It was also jumping all around the media cutting various areas, it wasnt cutting line after line, probably the way i set the contour cut in Flexi. It added a lot of time to the project.

I'd suggest breaking it down to atleast 3 areas. maybe 2. If its a lot of little letters and a lot of cutting, moving back and forth over a 6' length with the force of the blade and everything. I'd do individual pieces. Or a big color bleed.

 

[Mentor signs 440]

A lot of that has to do with how fast you are running your plotter the depth of the blade ans so on. We commonly run 8' pieces and plot with out cg-160fx2. make sure you use at least a .2 bleed on any cut colors from teh print to be safe.

 

[Malkin]

Lots of bleed.

Slow speed.

and most importantly...
Take control of the order of the cuts to reduce unneeded back and forth feeding and potential skewing of the vinyl.
Cutting order is determined by arrangement in the layer stack. The items at the bottom cut first, the items at the top cut last.

 

[CarNate69]

39" long x width of the media. Any longer, you're asking for trouble.

 

[petepaz]

i have done up to 8ft with no issues had about 1/16" bleed on the letters/graphics to cut out
vp-540 and xc-540

 

[trik]

8ft has worked for us several times, on our vp540. Roll it out and back, see how it tracks, just make sure it stays straight and you should be ok. Good luck!

 

[Mosh]

We cut 8' to 10' all the time with no problem. 1/16"-1/8" bleed is what we use.
Print/lam/cut.

 

[InkjetAuction]

Print / Cut Accuracy

When properly calibrated, Roland printer/cutters are typically very accurate... even when printing/cutting large graphics.

With that being said, there is a factory spec for print/cut tolerance on our beloved machines. It's simply this:

Error of less than +/-0.4% of distance traveled, or 0.3 mm, whichever is greater
​

So that's .192" at 4ft, .288" at 6ft, and .384" at 8ft (Yikes!)
​

Not too worry... as we usually see errors MUCH less than this, but this is the tolerance. Plan for it, and employ a few best practices to keep the error down to a minimum.

So what can you do to help print/cut accuracy?

1. Be sure that the Print Cut adjustment is done (duh!)
2. Be sure to do an Environmental Match (SP and earlier models)
3. Adjust the heat on the printer to the lowest setting possible for the media that you are using. Heat can introduce stretching in the media and reduce accuracy in the cutting features.
4. Slow down the Cutting Speed and Up Speed
5. Keep platen area and media clips clean and free from any built up adhesive.
6. Clean Grit Rollers (with a stiff nylon brush) and Pinch Rollers (with alcohol)
7. Use Media Flanges
8. Use the Prefeed feature (for better media tracking)
9. Be sure Blade Holder and Blade are in good condition
10. Check the Teflon cutting strips for any gouges or damage

Also, it's always a good safety measure to give the artwork an appropriate bleed.

...for what it's worth...

~E

 

[Malkin]

I had a job that involved making cut lettering (town names) & stripes as a border.
I set up 3 files that were all 4ft x 12ft with about 100 town names each and lots of 1/4" stripes.
While I gave everything at least a 1/4" bleed, the most it was off was about 1/16".
(See note above regarding cut order)
I cut them at a speed of "10" and each sheet took about 90 minutes.
This was on a VP540

 

[Gene@mpls]

Lots of bleed.

Slow speed.

and most importantly...
Take control of the order of the cuts to reduce unneeded back and forth feeding and potential skewing of the vinyl.
Cutting order is determined by arrangement in the layer stack. The items at the bottom cut first, the items at the top cut last.

Interesting- it looks like you are using Omega? How would you cause all
layers to cut together? Thanks Gene

 

[anotherdog]

As with everyone else, slow slow speed with low heat and If you can drop in a fresh blade.
I do the occasional 12-14ft print/lam/cut vehicle graphic.

One thing to note; Material. I changed to a different adhesive/lam that the rollers had a more difficult time gripping, had a lot of slipping.

 

[Malkin]

Interesting- it looks like you are using Omega? How would you cause all
layers to cut together? Thanks Gene

I would actually use Illustrator to setup any file for Print & Cut on the Roland.

I think Omega works similar. I know that usually the "oldest" objects cut first. But it's easier to just use the "sequence plot" option in the gsplot.

 

[JayMaxx]

4 x 22 feet banners... we printed 15 of them, all the same design just changing names and phone numbers...

 

[Gene@mpls]

I would actually use Illustrator to setup any file for Print & Cut on the Roland.

I think Omega works similar. I know that usually the "oldest" objects cut first. But it's easier to just use the "sequence plot" option in the gsplot.

I use Flexi to set up files- and while I can use sequence plot on my
Summas and enVision cutters- I don't believe that it exists in VersaWorks?

 

[Malkin]

You're right, it doesn't.

I control the order of cut by manually layering the cutlines into the order I want them to cut. (bottom cuts first, and up from there) It can be time consuming if it is a large complex file.