sparkness

Contour Cutting in Flexi Pro with a Laserpoint

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Contour cutting in flexisign-pro with a laserpoint cutter. this took me a while to figure out so here it goes.

Their is not a specific driver in flexi for the laserpoint so I modified the "Creation-PCut.csm" configuration file located in

"C:Program FilesFlexiSIGN-PRO 8.1v1OutputDrivers" you can open this file with notepad.

Test page

I used the plotter pen to to test with and determine the laser offsets.

I drew a 1" square in flexi, checked wireframe in the Fill/Stroke Editor.

Select the square, click the effects and select contour cut, make the offset 0.00" and apply

RIP and print the job. make sure the position is .500 for X and 0.00 for Y These settings can be changed but the offset will have to be added to values in the driver configuration file. In the Advanced Tab of Rip and Print click the contour box and use Vertical Registration Marks

rip-print.gif

Remove the printed page from the printer and load it into the

cutter. Make sure the output media is straight, and align the

registration mark number 1 to the laser point of the cutter. Set the origin and put the cutter online.

Click the Send button, this should now print to your printer, and send the cut job to the PM

Contour cutting is now done through the PM

the file untitled.job under your cutter will not cut, it must be saved first then opened as a Plot File -a little tricky

pm1.gif

Highlight this file and save in native format (untitled.plt for example) then open it up with the cutter highlighted

pm2.gif

now delete the untitled.job and send untitled.plt to your cutter from the PM

you now will have 2 squares on the paper, measure the difference between the squares, mine were .172 and .600 measured with dial calipers

now we use these offsets to mod the Creation-PCut.csm file

make a backup of the file first

open C:Program FilesFlexiSIGN-PRO 8.1v1OutputDriversCreation-PCut.csm

change line "09:$1016.0,0,0,0,8388807,$" to "09:$1016.0,-.172,-.600,0,8388807,$" see where the -.172 and -.600 go

they will be negative values

modify line 09 as it pertains to your width printer

save the changes close the pm and restart it. Make another test, not from the file you just made, but create a new one from Rip and Print

pcut2.csm.gif

If all goes well the you will plot a square over the printed square.

--mark

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Guest fivestar

Excellent job sparkness.  I knew all that needed was a driver or modify a pcut driver and it could be done.  But that was out of my league so I sold my laserpoint and got me another Refine because you can do it with a refine and the Roland PNC-1000 driver already in Flexi.  Again wonderful work and this will help alot of people out.

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I just bought the laserpoint 48" cutter. We print on a Roland fj52 converted to solvent inks using flexi pro 8.1

Can you tell me what all I need to do to set up the cutter so we can continue using our flexi since we print from there?

Thank you very much

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Guest fivestar

I just bought the laserpoint 48" cutter. We print on a Roland fj52 converted to solvent inks using flexi pro 8.1

Can you tell me what all I need to do to set up the cutter so we can continue using our flexi since we print from there?

Thank you very much

Ummmm......Looks like that's what the OP did.  :thumbsup: Have you tried what he posted?  Did it not work properly?

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I've not recieved my cutter yet......I just wanted to get as much info and help before it gets here to save time setting everything up. I appreciate all the help i can get!!!!  :thumbsup:

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Hey Sparkness.....I've almost got it......the only problem I have is betting the contour cut set to where it needs to be. In the pcut driver on line #9, which value is for x and which is for y? I've done some measuring from the values you suggested, and it's still off to the right and to the top as you look at it in the cutter.

Thanks,

Joe

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Thanks to Sparkness!!!

I've achieved contour cutting out of flexi by following your instructions. Had to change the values in the driver several times in order to dial in the cutting parameters. Thanks again!! I'm ready to play....then make some $$$$$ with this machine.

Joe

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I have the US LaserPoint 24 and FlexSign 8.1 pro and have followed all the help from Sparkness and all the instruction about contour cutting from the Flexi's help site, but my LaserPoint  is still not contour cutting.

I am able to get the Laserpoint 24 to cut using the Laserpoint 24 driver from uscutter as well as using the pcut dmpl driver.

When I print out the image and align the registration mark with the laser and press cut, it does not cut around the image but is off quite a bit.  I tried changing the numbers in Pcut driver, but it was to no avail.

In the instructions for contour cutting in flexisign it says that when you send the cut to the printer it should ask you to configure the registration marks by setting the laser to each registration mark, but for me no option window pops up and the LP24  just starts printing.  I think this could be part of the problem, but I do not know how to fix it?

Also, in order for me to cut from flexisign as a contour cut, I have to convert the job file in production manager to a pct file and then cut.  Once again the LP24 cuts, but it is not contour cutting.

Does anyone know what I can do to fix this?

The only solution that I have found is to do two cuts.  That is I do a print, the cut it, then adjust for the error and re-cut it by lining it up to a registration mark that I draw on the page that is the same distance off from the actual registration mark as the error.  This worked ok, but is super cumbersome when you have a lot of images to do and it is still not actually contour cutting.

Overall, it seems as though the cutter is not recognizing the registration marks locations relative to the image as it never requests us to line up the marks.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks,

Steve

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Guest

Hello Steve,

Please refer to my response to your support ticket.

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thanks mark after a week of reading and studying this machine and the flexi software to make it work with out learning the new software. i made change after change in the values till i achieved accurate contour cutting. hadnt tried more than 2 lines of cuts  but believe i can do multiple decals of contour cutting. thanks again. brad

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I had the same issue as a few people above, the cut line was well off, when I measured the distance and inserted into the uscutter driver it didn't make any difference to where it drew the cut line (restarted the program after making changes and everything).

another few issues I had

1) under contour settings the registration marks option only has "none" as an option but it still does print the marks

2) when i load the paper into the cutter and align the laser over the first reg mark and click cut I don't get any prompt to align the second mark, shouldn't it be interactive to align the marks? it just starts cutting/plotting.

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Be "nice" if the driver sw reference (mentioned on a few postings)
referred to a "pinned" or sticky posting.

I'm about to try:
http://start.uscutter.com/laserpoint/cutter/driver

from http://start.uscutter.com/laserpoint
from https://support.uscutter.com/hc/en-us

If this gives me headaches, I'm moving to Linux;
http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/vinyl-cutting-on-linux-the-real-deal

https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&q=linux+vinyl+cutter+software
 

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