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livinloudgraphics

1/2 more on sign

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Doing a 18x96 sign and all the meaaurements seem to be perfect. But when it actually cuts the sign on one side it actually does 1/2 more than another. What could I be doing or is it the cutter itself??

post-17596-0-58798000-1406696352_thumb.j

post-17596-0-74939800-1406696386_thumb.j

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maybe show a picture of what you are describing,,   what is 1/2 more?  1/2 inch?  More details,,  need better description of problem

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could be tracking, if your trying to cut  8ft,  You have to really work to get a value cutter to track right on long lengths. One reason to upgrade to a professional cutter.   Much better tracking.  Without seeing the whole design it is hard to say what your problem is..

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You're asking a lot of that machine to be that accurate over that long of a distance. The relative humidity and temperature changes can make material grow and shrink, coupled with the cut accuracy of a "hobby cutter", I'm not surprised.

 

Even a Roland GX24 cutter has a cut accuracy of +/- .2% of the distance traveled. So in theory, two of the exact same cuts, 96" long, on a gx24 could have as much difference as .5" between the two of them in perfectly temperature controlled environment.

 

Looking in the store, I cant find any specs on the cut accuracy of the PCUT. I cant imagine it being more accurate than professional cutter.

 

 

If you are cutting vinyl to be applied to a substrate and that color needs to go all the way to the edge, Make it larger than the substrate and trim away the excess. other than that, looks like you need to get out the straight edge and fix the cut manually.

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That is point 2 percent? If so wouldn't that be a lot lower than .5" Just asking because if my graphtec was cutting that far off I'd be looking for a problem.

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I would say after owning one for 2-1/2 yrs that you are tracking off and the best way to deal with it is to use a cutting program that will cut step-by-step across the sign. SignCut Pro does this, don't know about the other programs. SCALP was talking like they were going to set something up like that too but I don't know if they ever did. 

 

In SignCut Pro you tell it to cut step-by-step and how long each step should be. I usually went 10 or 12 inches at a time. The program has a preview that demonstrates the whole cut in a little video sort of preview and you can see if the amount you set is going to stop in good places. If you have a lot of small details or text it doesn't work that great because the cutter isn't capable of staying close enough tracking to hit all the connecting cut lines but for large simple stuff it is a lifesaver on a P-Cut or other budget cutter that doesn't track well. 

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The OP shows in signature that they have Flexi 8,,,  You can use the panel feature to do this,(step x step cutting)   I use it to cut stripes. It will not cut across your design as panels.  as well as it does have optimize cutting order.  But like Wildgoose said with a lot of details, your cuts may not meet, because of tracking.  Your not showing the entire design...so we don't know what you are working with.

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