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plain ol Bill

Origin - explain please

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Sorry to ask such a dumb question but this old brain just don't understand. When you are asked to set origin what the heck are they asking for? My brain tells me they want me to move the knife to the bottom right corner of whatever file I am cutting. Is this correct?

I just bought a used Summa cutter and am trying to figure out what in the world I am doing. I own and run a CNC plasma cutting table so hopefully learning to cut vinyl won't be too gigantic a step to learn. Thanks for any help folks.

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Origin is the starting point of where your vinyl cutter measures the design.   The blade will not start cutting at that point..The blade will start cutting at the point the design was created at...Example,  I make large designs,  many 8ft long.   The vinyl will advance and maybe even start cutting at 3-4 ft, where ever the starting point the design was created at, and will come back and finish the entire design.There is software that also has optimize cutting order, which with cut all of the design in the first section, then advance to the next section, and on til the design is at the end of the vinyl.  Not good to use Optimize cutting order for detailed designs.   Paths may not meet because of bad tracking,, But great for doing long stripes, etc. simple designs.

 

Also, say you have already cut a design on your vinyl, on the right side, and you have room on your vinyl to cut another design..You would move your carriage head over to the uncut area, and hit your Origin button, and your vinyl cutter will only cut in that area, and NOT go back over to the right area, where that design already has been cut.  

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Hello fellow Summa owner! (there are only a few of us on the forum) Skeeter hit it on the head. The origin IS the starting point for the cutter but may not be the starting point for the cut. It basically just denotes the zero point on both axis' and you will usually have to push the enter button once you move the cutting head and feed roller to zero it back out.

 

What model of Summa did you pick up? What program are you designing in and cutting from? My SummaCut D75R does a measurement when you load the vinyl and sends that info to the cutting utility called polling the plotter. Older machines may not have that feature. Some turn this feature off (Graphtec users in particular) so they can cut past the pinch rollers but with the Summa's the pinch is so hard that I've never wanted to try and use that piece of the vinyl anyway. 

 

In case you didn't know Summa's have life time free LIVE tech support regardless of who owns the machine so if you get truly stumped you can call them and get tips and tricks anytime you want. 

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Wildgoose I picked up a Summa T750 Pro. This is an old machine but Summa's are supposed to be built like tanks so maybe it has a lot of life left in it yet. I do not intend for this to be a business machine, just for personal use. It did not come w/ any sort of software and the outboard roller to hold rolls of vinyl is missing. I downloaded Summa Winplot to send files to the cutter and use Corel X6 for graphics work. Hopefully I can get it up and running without too many problems. This one is old enough it did not come w/ a USB hookup hookup so I ordered a USB to serial adapter so I can use it w/ a laptop.

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I hope that you didn't just order any old USB to serial connector... The only ones that will work for sure with a vinyl cutter is a Tripplite Keyspan Adapter or a Belkin.. Those are the brand names. 

 

Here is the Tripplite..  prices vary,  find the best deal

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TRIPP-LITE-USA-19HS-keyspan-high-speed-usb-serial-adapter-8801-/201343491100?hash=item2ee101dc1c

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Wildgoose I picked up a Summa T750 Pro. This is an old machine but Summa's are supposed to be built like tanks so maybe it has a lot of life left in it yet. I do not intend for this to be a business machine, just for personal use. It did not come w/ any sort of software and the outboard roller to hold rolls of vinyl is missing. I downloaded Summa Winplot to send files to the cutter and use Corel X6 for graphics work. Hopefully I can get it up and running without too many problems. This one is old enough it did not come w/ a USB hookup hookup so I ordered a USB to serial adapter so I can use it w/ a laptop.

Cool. The T series is actually tangential I believe so you may need more than the ordinary software but I think they will operate in drag knife mode too like you are trying to do. 

 

Here is a possible manual for yours or at least similar to what you are running. 

 

http://www.summa.be/download/ss_t_en.pdf

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Here is the main website for the US too (not sure where you live). I would be very surprised if they didn't have parts for your machine. Summa is absolute top of the line and as far as I can tell they don't really sell through dealers, it's more of a direct connection with the factory sales people. 

 

https://www.summausa.com

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I am still trying to figure out what a "tangential" blade is really (sounds dirty don't it :rolleyes:). Don't have a clue whether or not this cutter has their OPOS system (whatever that is). I purchased a cheap vinyl cutter several years ago and it ended up on the scrap pile behind my shop building a couple of days after delivery and is still out there somewhere covered up with weeds and scrap steel from the plasma cutter. Never did get that cutter to actually cut something that looked anywhere close to decent. I did buy a Tripplite USB to serial adapter.

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Wildgoose do you use the Summa two roller system to unroll your vinyl while cutting?

Absolutely. That is part of the reason they are renown for tracking so good. It's not that complicated. Couple high quality rollers and then some special tube inserts that go inside the vinyl roll and fit into little guides on the rollers. There is a pic or two of those in that manual I linked. 

 

Tangential means that the machine is capable of actually steering the blade as it cuts. Most cutters are just drag knife cutters and the blade rotates within the holder and the direction it is pointed to is determined by the movement of the vinyl and an offset blade tip like a caster wheel on a shopping cart. Yours will do both, but not having ever used a true tangential I don't know if there are any special needs for this kind of cutting. Tangential blades have a half slit in the top that fits into a keyway and the cutter will turn it to match the shape it's cutting. This is super cool especially on thick materials like sandblast resist that are hard for regular cutters to pull the drag knife through and make tight corners. I believe your cutter if cutting in tangential mode will actually raise the blade at tight corners and turn the blade then drop back down and continue the cut. I have a feeing it's slower when in this mode but again I am assuming a lot. My Summa and a lot of the other higher end cutters that are basic drag knife machines have what is called Tangential Emulation which causes them to raise the blade and back up just ever so slightly so that when they start the other half of a tight corner the blade hits on it's way in and has turned the corner by the time it gets back to full depth. In my experience after having this feature I don't use it. It's really not necessary and definitely slows the cut down. The idea is you can cut extra tiny stuff. Your cutter if working right is vastly superior in this regard but I doubt you will be cutting anything smaller than any of us do. If you do a lot of sand blasting then the tangential machine would be a dream because I think that is an area than it would shine in. 

 

OPUS Stands for Optical Positioning System and is used particularly for printed material that then needs to be cut around the outside (this is called contour cutting) These would be like stickers and full color decals. Unless you have access to a printer then it's nonessential. If you have it there will be a little light and an optical eye attached to the cutter head. I rarely use mine but it's nice to know it's an option. As I understand it Summa actually pioneered the idea and most of the higher end machines of all brands now offer some sort of similar option. Once you load a printed document the cutter will locate special printed alignment marks and then once it knows where everything is sitting it will cut a given outline around whatever graphics have been printed. Pretty complicated to get going at first to tell the truth and I do it so little I have to re-learn all the proper steps whenever I do it. 

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