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Laserpoint II - Grounding?

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Would someone be so kind as to explain to me why my brand new Laserpoint II is stopping before cut complete at times, and at other times cuts a line or 2 right through the middle of my graphic. Its almost like I grabbed a node in the design and pulled it across the graphic before sending to cut.  Called support and was told to run a ground wire from housing to screw on rollers and then to screw in my electrical outlet.  Craziest thing I've ever heard and never experienced anything like that with any other plotters I've had.  Something to do with static I've read in some of these forum posts.  I've been in this business for several years and never heard of running plotter ground wires or spraying static stuff or rubbing vinyl with dryer sheets before.  Hope I haven't made a mistake ordering this machine.  Thanks in advance.

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It is not the cutter creating the static,  It is the vinyl, it has tons of static.   You don't have these problems with higher end cutters, Like Graphtec, Rolands, Summa, etc   Or Paper and pen.  Common for all value cutters. 

 

It is always best to have a value cutter on a serial cable, serial card or Tripplite Keyspan Adapter.  That is the brand name..  Value cutters do not have TRUE USB

 

Value cutters are all that some can afford, or don't want to spend a lot of money and  and not like it..  So, they start with a value cutter,   I did also,  Had a Seiki for 14 months, I wanted better tracking, which is also something you have to deal with on value cutters....Then I jumped on my new Graphtec FC7000 in 2008 and never looked back...  I got my son into vinyl also,  I didn't want him to have to deal with all the problems of a value cutter, So he went right to a Graphtec CE5000-60...  Many on here, do a few jobs that pays for their value cutters, then save back for a higher end cutter, if they are wanting to do a business or more than a hobby.

 

 

 

FROM USCUTTER SUPPORT

 

Grounding the cutter ( or "bonding" to be precise) is your best option for helping to discharge the static that has built up on the cutter. Grounding can be done by running a copper wire/speaker wire from a screw on the base of the cutter to a point on the stand. Contact points should be metal on metal, which might require you to scrape away some paint. You can also try a humidifier to dampen the amount of environmental Static Electricity in the immediate area. The only real solutions: A) Ground the machine.  B.) Get antistatic spray. You can find it at most computer or electronics stores or by simply doing a Bing search.

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If you are using SCALP make sure you have registered the software. It will cut lines thru the design while in demo mode.

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Technically, you don't need to ground the cutter, it is already grounded, but you do need to ground the vinyl. Typically that's accomplished by grounding the stand the cutter and vinyl sit on.

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Wow, thanks for all the helpful and fast responses.  Doesn't happen all the time but often enough I'm wasting time and material.  I backed the screws out a little where the rollers seat on the stand so the screws would directly touch the rollers and was able to make a cut for the first time after 4 previous attempts.  Picked that tip up here in a post.  Not sure if communication problems, because like I said works more often than not perfectly.  However, for $30 I may go ahead and buy the adapter.  I've seen you (Skeeter) mention that several times.  I'm using the Sure Cuts A Lot that came with the program.  I use Corel for all my designing and a cheap bridge software is all I've ever needed.  I went with the value cutter because this 54" size cutter did fit my budget at the time and the reviews were great for it.  I do a lot of graphics work at my shop so maybe should have went for a Graphtec 24".  Just liked the idea of the ability to make larger runs.  Looks like I need to run the ground wire and get the adapter.  Just worried about small pieces where the vinyl doesn't touch the roller or if I get to the end of a roll.  Maybe the static spray is the way to go there. 

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Technically, you don't need to ground the cutter, it is already grounded, but you do need to ground the vinyl. Typically that's accomplished by grounding the stand the cutter and vinyl sit on.

Have you done this?  If so, recommendations on best approach?

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And what previous cutters have you ran?   I own a 30" Graphtec and have never needed larger.  And I do decals up to that..  My Seiki was a 30" so I designed images for it,  So I still wanted a 30".  But don't need larger..  30" is plenty for my biz.

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I own a shop and my biggest cutter is 30". Never needed bigger and wouldn't want to app tape 54"

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Proper way to ground the stand..... With a volt meter, check continuity between the ground post on the cord and various screws on the cutter housing. When you find one that shows continuity, connect a wire to THAT screw and any screw on the stand. Now you're stand is grounded to the same ground that your entire house is grounded to.   I did mine this way, and run a USB cord with SCALP and a value cutter, never had issues with static, even when I can touch anything in the house and get a static shock. 

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Best way to ground a mh cutter is to take it outside and bury it  ;D  Sorry couldn't help myself.

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I originally bought a 48" machine (P-Cut) thinking like you did that I might want to cut some big stuff. It was only later I realized that my machine really wasn't as accurate as it would need to be to cut stuff that big. Like several noted above, I never had need to cut bigger than 30" material so I downsized to 30" when I upgraded and even then I rarely cut 30" except when a particular vinyl is only in stock in 30" locally. Have yet to find a sign that I couldn't make with 24" although theoretically I could see a backlit sign with translucent vinyl needing one big solid piece large than my cutter.

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I've been having the same problem on my laserpoint II. I ran the additional ground wire but still had issues. The problem happens even when I'm using the pen tool so it doesn't seem like it would be a static issue. It seems to happen most when I'm doing complicated artwork. I use Sure Cuts A Lot 3 Pro for cutting and Illustrator for creating artwork. I don't have a serial cable so I've been using the USB cable. I've changed the I/O board, carriage arm and motherboard and the problem persists. I've tried different file types for artwork; png, svg and tracing a jpeg in SCALP and it doesn't seem matter. I've figured out that if I pause the job mutliple times throughout the cut it will complete. Seems like it might be a memory issue. Any suggestions would be great, I have some big jobs coming up and I need to get this figured out.

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Have you tried a keyspan adapter? Solved many issues like you're having

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I've seen that mentioned in multiple posts but haven't bought one yet. I just found one on amazon so I'll probably pick it up.

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Make sure it's either keyspan or Belk in brand. Others don't always work

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That's the one I ordered, should be here tomorrow. I'm really hoping this works. Thanks for the help.

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I had to buy one for my lp2 not too long ago when I loaned it out. Worked for me and hopefully for you.

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Okay I received the keyspan adapter and got it up and running but it seems like it's actually running the same or possibly worse than before. I have some jobs that I really need to get done so I haven't had time to do extensive testing yet but I took some video to show part of the issue. In the video I'm running a job and at around 30 secs you can hear a change in the way the machine is running, it sounds like it starts stuttering.

 

 

This change in sound is how I first noticed there was an issue. The job will continue to run like this but if I leave it running for too long the rollers will stop moving and it will cut straight across the artwork. I've found that if I pause the job every so often it will keep the rollers from stopping. To me it seems like its running out of memory and by pausing it I'm allowing it to catch up. This happens with both the pen tool and cutting blade. I've also found that if I pause the job for an extended time after it starts to cut straight across it will return to cutting like normal but at that point the positioning is no longer aligned so it will cut over other parts.

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Just how big and complicated are your designs?  The value cutters are more limited on memory, than the higher end models.   Some designs just are not made for value cutters.     I have a Seiki as my first cutter,  and I had to turn that thing wide open on speed.  to finish some really detailed large designs,  or it would just quit and the head would go off to the left and cutter stop.  

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Most are under 15"x15" to fit in my heat press. I'm fairly new to vinyl cutting so I'm not really sure what is considered "complicated" but its usually just some artwork and text. The job that I first ran into this problem on was a set of shirt logos that fit into a 20" x 24" piece of heat transfer vinyl. I've used the same artwork with 18" x 24" newsprint and the pen tool and still had problems. It's just 12" x 8" logo for the back with a couple lines of the text and the front is a small logo at one line of text that's 4" x 2.5".  

 

I just did the same job that I used in the video with the USB instead of the keyspan and it definitely ran better on the USB.

 

 

Here's another video of what happens when the rollers stop. This test was done with the Keyspan and the file that I described above.

 

 

Towards the end of the video I pause it and then wait and the rollers work for a short time and then stop again.

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