pjmitchell

MH721 - thickness of vinyl

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Hi all,

What is the thickest vinyl we can run on the Refine MH721.  Also, is there just one size blade, or do we need different blades for different thicknesses of vinly?  As you can tell ... a newbie here !!

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Are you saying one tenth of a milimeter???  Or do you mean three milimeters?  or 30 milimeters.  Sorry, I don't quite undertstand, and I'm looking at a ruler and I think I'm mis-reading you.

Also, we just successfully cut a S425S Hartco Sandmask, and I am sure that is at least two milimeters thick. We are hoping we can do thicker.

.30mm is the thickest material it will cut.

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I think it is 3 mm, just going by what the specs say, and they say .30mm, but it is Chinese-English so........

I have cut stencil board without issues and I am sure it was at least 2-3 mm thick.

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The blade that has shipped with the machine will work just fine on just about any material...

You may just have to adjust the depth of the blade out further to compensate for the thick ness of the material..

Im interested in knowing what you plan on cutting on your machine that is that thick? Care to share?

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I don't have mine yet, but. .3 mm is as close to 12/1000 of an inch as you can get. I just calipered a sheet of printer paper, 20 pound stuff, and it is a little over 3/1000, so that would be about 4 sheets thick.

Ken, I hope you are right on the 2-3 mm, but 3 mm is almost an eigth of an inch.

I also, just now, measured the poster board that you buy almost everywhere, and it is just 12 thou thick. That is 3/10 mm. I would, a few minutes ago, have been willing to bet it was about 3/4 mm, about 30 thou thick.

PJ, above, says they are cutting at least 2 mm sandblast mask. That is about 80 thou of, I think, a rubberized material. If it will do that, it will cut darned near anything. 80 thou is nearly a 12th of an inch. Measured a couple magnetic calling cards/ads, whatever, and the thickest is 55 thou, though it may have been die cut, stamped out, it USPO.

Sorry if I offend anyone as to thous and mms. My background required knowledge of the Metric System. Users in the US don't have to be any more familiar with it than to know if they are getting short changed when they buy something at the grocery store.

Cheers,

George

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I would say that 3mm is out of the question.  3/10 of a mm is quoted by the manufacturer.  This refers to vinyl material.  There are two main aspects that determine the maximum material thickness.  First the blade.  60 degree blades are the standard for cutting thick material, and I would estimate that it is usefull for cutting no more than 2mm and probably less than that.

The other aspect (related to the cutter) is the strenght of the components.  The motors must have the force necessary to slice through the thicker material with a blade that has less cutting edge (so it will need more pressure).  Also, the carriage must have enough strenght to not flex under pressure.  What we found is that the Refine cutter will flex under significant pressure.  It can be partically compensated for with blade offset, but if you are looking to cut stencils, I would recommend the Copam.  The PCUT would probably also be better than the Refine for stencil material, as it uses a stronger carriage mechanism, but we have not tried it yet.

Now, if anybody has any material that they would like tested, please feel free to send it in, and we will test it on whichever machines you would like.

- Marcus

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Ah ha.....I should not have assumed. Thanks for the clarification Marcus.

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I have to agree with Marcuso here, too. Just got mine yesterday, set it up.

I would have thought the "blade" was just that, a blade, a thin flat shank, that goes in the holder, with a thin flat blade with a dogleg on it to give it caster action.

Instead, it is a pencil lead thick round, with a sharp wedge grind on it, maybe, didn't measure it, 1.5 to 2 mm diameter. To sink that chisel point into sand blast masking rubber, much less thick hard poster board over maybe 1/2 mm thick would take lots of down force and stepper motor torque. That wedge has to force material out of its path to cut thicker material. If it WILL do it, I would wager that the non-rubbery material would have a "burr" thrown up all around it.

Cheers,

George

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