pitts-s1s-pilot

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About pitts-s1s-pilot

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  • Birthday 01/01/1

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  1. Group, First of all, let me say..... I REALLY LIKE MY COPAM!!!! I have zero basis for comparison but I have been very impressed. Sure, you can always buy the very best (Roland, Graphtec) for BIG bucks but I just wanted to stick my toe in the water. Needless to say, the water feels good and I will probably end up going for a long, long swim. The one item that would be nice would be a media basket for the Copam. Is there one available that I don't know about or do I need to fabricate my own? It wouldn't be hard but I like the turn-key idea. Pitts
  2. Everyone seems to be posting their method. Here is mine. I pull two or three feet of vinyl out the front and pinch it together (to the vinyl in the back) 2 feet below the cutting bed. (I make sure to line up the edges very carefully.) While pinching together the vinyl with the edges lined up and even tension at both pinch points, I have someone lower the roller arms. (Or do it myself if no one is around to help.) This has worked very well for me. Quick and easy too. Pitts Copam 2500/SBE
  3. pitts-s1s-pilot

    Soo frustrated! Still can't draw stars

    Prestonservco, THAT, is what I was looking for. I will now educate myself on how to import it into the sign that I am designing. Thank you, Pitts
  4. pitts-s1s-pilot

    Soo frustrated! Still can't draw stars

    So I did a search in help and got the instructions for drawing stars. It says to select "polygon" from the "draw" menu. I don't have that option, only polyline. Do I have an older version of SBE or what? I must be missing something simple. I'd like to draw a 5 point star for a sign and doing it freehand (using polylines) is a pain in the A$$. Help!!!!!! Pitts PS - I have seen the stars in the library section of SBE. Those do not help. I would have to edit nodes and all kind of stuff. SBE makes it sound like it will draw you EXACTLY (size, number of points, etc.) what you want under the draw polygon menu.
  5. pitts-s1s-pilot

    Tiling a large sign

    Kevin, The purple is not part of the sign. The jpeg shows the sign two different ways. The green and white will be how it usually looks. The red is to be a seasonal overly for two or three months at a time. Double duty from one sign location. "Custom Holiday Lighting" is actually 44" tall. Probably easier to tile between the letters than chopping them all in half. Everything else was sized to be cut out of 24" vinyl. Now that I think about it, the easiest thing to do would be to line up all five panels side by side and draw some light reference lines. I could apply and cut as required between any two panels. For the overlay SBE tiles "Custom Holiday Lighting" in 10 pieces. For the primary sign "Lawn Sprinkler Systems" could be cut in three pieces and "Installed & Repaired" in two pieces. Easy enough to apply using center hinge. I cannot imagine cutting the negative phone number in one piece. That baby is 20' long!!! I don't think the Copam has the tracking accuracy to pull it off. I'll probably break it down in three pieces. I'm not afraid to go on dry but...will probably go on wet to give myself a little room for error. This sign is for my company and a little extra time spent is no big deal.
  6. pitts-s1s-pilot

    Tiling a large sign

    Group, I am getting ready to do my first REALLY big sign. It is going to be 6' by 20'. The jpeg shows two different versions. The bottom sign is how it will normally look. The top sign shows a red overlay to be screwed in place each holiday season. Simple text and reverse phone number. Vinyl on MDO. I was going to cut 4 by 8 sheets of MDO down to 6 foot and put 5 sheets side by side. I'll be using my Copam with SBE to execute this. I will obviously be tiling and wondered what the best set-up would be. Do most people overlap and if so, how much? I was also going to tile with the vinyl orientated to keep the maximum length to 6' so as to reduce tracking issues. Any other thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Pitts
  7. pitts-s1s-pilot

    HELP!!! Cutter cutting wrong tile

    The problem has cured itself by shutting the program down and restarting. I don't know if I did something wrong or what. I was able to finish my sign with minimal waste though. Thanks
  8. pitts-s1s-pilot

    HELP!!! Cutter cutting wrong tile

    Group, Copam running SBE. I have a sign 4' by 16' and want to cut two 8' tiles instead of a single 16' monster. (I'm trying to avoid tracking/runout/application problems.) Under set up I set the vinyl size to 24" by 97" and it automatically tiled it in two pieces. When I hit cut it highlights tile number one but then cuts number two. What am I doing wrong? Thanks, Pitts
  9. pitts-s1s-pilot

    Help needed cutting stars

    Guys/Gals, I saw the stars in the library. None of them were exactly what I wanted. I didn't realize that you could "tweak" the nodes to get them closer to what you want. That said, I found and tried one and it seemed like a lot of work to get a very consistent/symmetrical star. I needed a five point star as depicted in the Texas flag. I'll play with it some more. Thanks, Pitts
  10. pitts-s1s-pilot

    Help needed cutting stars

    Group, I have a Copam running SBE trial version. I want to draw stars for a Texas flag sign and cannot figure out how to do it. I clicked the help tab and searched for stars. It sent me to a page titled "drawing polygons and stars". Under the drawing stars instructions it says to select polygon from the draw menu. That never actually shows up as an option. I can only select polyline. Needless to say, there doesn't seem to be any way to draw a star except freehand. I MUST BE MISSING SOMETHING SIMPLE. Any help appreciated. Pitts BTW - The Copam is the bomb! Cut straight out of the box and has done a great job thus far on anything I asked it to do.
  11. pitts-s1s-pilot

    My first signs and first vehicle for $$$$

    Took me a few minutes to resize and get it all attached properly! Pitts
  12. Group, The green and white sign is for a company I own. 8' by 4' on Coreplast We previously had someone else doing these but wanted to bring them in house to save $$$. I purchased a Copam to do these (hundreds of them) and love it. The Kelly Green is ShineRite from Fellers. Good stuff! The Toyota Tundra was for a friend who told me what he wanted and where. I think it ended up looking pretty damn good. It took 30 feet of 24" Oracal 651 and 6.5 hours to design, cut, weed, mask and apply (dry). Shockingly, I did all of it without making a mistake. Pitts
  13. pitts-s1s-pilot

    Could this be causing YOUR tracking problems?

    Kenimes, I think you misunderstand. I don't have a tracking problem. I simply noticed that a roll of vinyl sitting in the rollers of the media holder and rotated by hand, moves laterally 1/16" with each full rotation of the media. Roll the media far enough and it could possibley start to to pull on the vinyl feeding the machine and give you tracking problems. I just wondered if any other Copam owners out there have something similar going on down below. Pitts
  14. pitts-s1s-pilot

    Could this be causing YOUR tracking problems?

    My rollers are both on the inside slots. I have the brackets that slide over the crossbar too. It moves 1/16" of an inch with every full rotation of the roll of vinyl. Crazy. Pitts
  15. Group, So I put a 50 yd roll of vinyl onto my copam rollers and kind of mindlessly gave it a spin, to watch how nicely the bearings let it roll. I noticed that with every revolution it very slowly moves the roll of vinyl to the left!!!!!! On longer cuts or repeated panels this would surely slowly work left and apply pressure to the vinyl feeding into the machine. Could this be causing some peoples tracking problems on longer cuts or multiple panels? Thoughts? Pitts