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I noticed the other day my cutter tracks slightly off over a long period of time. Just as a general question, is this usually an error on the cutter side, or how the vinyl is being fed in. I had the cutter on a desk and the roll just laying on the floor. It wasn't pulling from the roll as I pulled out plenty of excess, but there really wasn't any guide for the vinyl coming into the cutter.

I am about to make a stand, and I thought about making a custom feeding tray off the back of the cutter kinda similar to how a printer has the feeding tray for the paper to keep it from rotating sideways when being fed through.

If it is actually the cutter moving the vinyl then a tray is obviously only going to make problems worse and possibly wad the vinyl up.

Thanks for any input,

Alex

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Most entry level cutters will not track like a roland or especially a graphtec that totes a 70' accurate tracking length! I know I get issues with anything over about 4 feet on my Laserpoint. Basically what I will do is set my material in the holder and stretch it tight and line it up in the cutter, THEN spool off what I need. If the vinyl isn't lined up perfectly square in the first place your cutter will track it as such. Some sort of guides or tracking rails would be ineffective as it would just cause the vinyl to bunch up and turn into a sticky mess...

I make a point of cutting my vinyl off VERY straight and then using some sort of reference to line it up when loading the roll or sheet... thats the best way!

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What Vinyl Motivations said :thumbsup: . I align the same way & then lift the roll off of the rollers & gently sit it down , then unroll what is going to be cut . If the roll is not aligned , even after aligning the actual part of the roll that is gonna get cut , it will effect the tracking even with enough rolled off . I have gotten better tracking when cuting the length off the roll before cutting the decal . The longer the decal , the more waste I use on the sides .

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For the few times I had to cut longer than 2 or 3 feet, I wrapped the vinyl all the way around (under) the cutter and back to the roll. Pull it tight and line up the edges together, then drop the pressure rollers. I had great tracking to 5 or 6 feet this way (didn't spool any more than that). Once, I had to make a slight correction after alignment...

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