Wind Gatherer

Origin Point Just Don't Understand Please Explain

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I have a new Seiki T series cutter and using scal 5
I've Googled quite a lot trying to understand about the origin point but I'm still very much  mystified. I seem to find conflicting views.Can't get my head around it I can't find any info specific to the Seiki or a clone.
So far I understand how to go offline can go offline ( leave button ) and move the carriage x/y left and right.
That said  I don't understand how to position the carriage in relation to the text I want to cut. I've read the origin point.... doesn't specify where the cut starts so even more confused.
Any help on clearly demystifying this would be greatly appreciated. Oh I've just read, putting  one of rollers inside the vinyl roll Is this correct? Until I read that I thought the roll  just sat on top of both the rollers.
Thank you.

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Hi, first of all, yes, you can just have the roll of vinyl sitting/resting on top of the two steel rollers, no need to insert through the cardboard tube. Always pre-feed enough vinyl for your job run and don't let the machine PULL it from a full roll.

Secondly, the Origin Point is where you manually adjust the carriage head and vinyl advance using directional arrows to a given start position for cutting. Basically you want that point (where the blade is positioned) to be at the right-hand corner and closest to the leading edge of the vinyl that's fed through the machine.
You may need to re-read the manual for your SEIKI unit to determine what buttons or button sequence is needed for that operation.

In the software, there are two options for cutting -- WYSIWYG and Origin.
Generally, you'll be choosing Origin (WYSIWYG has a specific function that isn't routinely used).

 

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To add to this.  When you click the Origin button, that is where your vinyl cutter starts to measure your design. When you click the ORIGIN button. Your cutter shows X 0  Y 0.    That is the starting point.  You should place your blade/ carriage head at the right lower corner of the vinyl. Click ORIGIN. That is when your cutter starts measuring the design that you send to to your vinyl cutter. ( The cutter may not start cutting there at that point. Most vinyl cutters start cutting at the point where the design was created. The cutter may advance on to the vinyl, but it will come back and finish the entire design.  I make very large decals and my cutter may advance onto the vinyl 4 ft, before it starts cutting,  but it will come back to the front of the vinyl and finish the whole design.) Make sure you have chosen the correct width and length orientation in your cutter software, so the vinyl cutter does not cut off of the vinyl or is too big for the vinyl.  No reason to use WYSIWYG.   You push the ORIGIN button before you send your design to the vinyl cutter. 

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12 hours ago, slice&dice said:

Hi, first of all, yes, you can just have the roll of vinyl sitting/resting on top of the two steel rollers, no need to insert through the cardboard tube. Always pre-feed enough vinyl for your job run and don't let the machine PULL it from a full roll.

Secondly, the Origin Point is where you manually adjust the carriage head and vinyl advance using directional arrows to a given start position for cutting. Basically you want that point (where the blade is positioned) to be at the right-hand corner and closest to the leading edge of the vinyl that's fed through the machine.
You may need to re-read the manual for your SEIKI unit to determine what buttons or button sequence is needed for that operation.

In the software, there are two options for cutting -- WYSIWYG and Origin.
Generally, you'll be choosing Origin (WYSIWYG has a specific function that isn't routinely used).

 

OK thanks.

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15 hours ago, MZ SKEETER said:

To add to this.  When you click the Origin button, that is where your vinyl cutter starts to measure your design. When you click the ORIGIN button. Your cutter shows X 0  Y 0.    That is the starting point.  You should place your blade/ carriage head at the right lower corner of the vinyl. Click ORIGIN. That is when your cutter starts measuring the design that you send to to your vinyl cutter. ( The cutter may not start cutting there at that point. Most vinyl cutters start cutting at the point where the design was created. The cutter may advance on to the vinyl, but it will come back and finish the entire design.  I make very large decals and my cutter may advance onto the vinyl 4 ft, before it starts cutting,  but it will come back to the front of the vinyl and finish the whole design.) Make sure you have chosen the correct width and length orientation in your cutter software, so the vinyl cutter does not cut off of the vinyl or is too big for the vinyl.  No reason to use WYSIWYG.   You push the ORIGIN button before you send your design to the vinyl cutter. 

Thanks. I intend to have a go at cutting later this afternoon and will get back to the forum saying how I got on.

Oh I ticked, notify me of replies but didn't receive any notification?

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Well I think I might be making progress, a little, anyhow. I cut the word    THE    ok. Though the position on the vinyl could have been better, for economical of use of the vinyl. Speed I thought I set at 300 but display is showing 260, pressure I set to 100.

Test cut when peeled it of,f had cut into backer but looks minimal. From reading up a bit, think will need to play around with test cuts quite a bit to get very good, near perfect results.

One reason I got the cutter was for cutting sandblast resist, stencil masks. No way would I be able to afford a  24 Graphtec. In past have read about disadvantage of a stepper motor compared to servo. Though that said, finding out a little more about vinyl cutters, slower and faster speeds for different size projects with varying degrees of intricacies etc, other types of angles on knives.

I'm starting to think I can get perfectly acceptable accurate cuts with my Seiki 720T, even though it has a stepper motor, perhaps reducing number of nodes in design would make for a smoother accurate cut too.

Is quite late here in the UK 20:53 and not had supper yet and a few other things to attend too. On Saturday,will have a go at weeding out the word and mounting it and forum can see what I've done.

Cheers,

Peter.

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It is best to weed projects after cutting, as the vinyl can self heal, and make weeding harder. Don't cut more than you can weed at a time. 

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25 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

It is best to weed projects after cutting, as the vinyl can self heal, and make weeding harder. Don't cut more than you can weed at a time. 

Ah OK hadn't thought of that, thanks for the tip.

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I set the origin point close to right hand corner of vinyl but why is word, THE,  so far, almost 4 inches from the  side  of the vinyl? As you can see, is quite a lot of waste. That said I did cut off the larger section, as might come in useful for future projects. A couple of small areas had a perforated cut line, should I increase the cutting pressure to avoid this? I have 4 words to cut out, the height of word THE including line squares is 29cm the width of vinyl roll is 60cm. If I reduce the size of the line up squares and the height of THE I can still maintain an effective word size. I could then maximize the economical use of the vinyl by have one word under the other. I'm wondering about boarder size or whatever I should leave to do this and still not sure about this setting of the origin point in regarding setting up to cut two words parallel to each other?

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Someone who uses SCALP will have to tell you how to set your design up to cut. I always used Flexi software with my Seiki. Never did like SCALP software.  Just from looking at your design, you cut a square and triangle up in the right hand corner. That moves the word THE over to the left.   Do some test cuts with the test feature on the vinyl cutter and get your blade depth correct. 

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" you cut a square and triangle up in the right hand corner " That was a test cut I did sometime before cutting out THE. "

"Do some test cuts with the test feature on the vinyl cutter and get your blade depth correct." I bought a A3 size cutting mat I'll use some of the offcuts, cut into small squares and mount them on the mat and use the test feature to get the blade depth correct.

Thanks.

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I too am not a SCALP fan or very knowledgeable about how it works. It is possible that after you did your test cuts that the program reset the origin point so that you didn't accidentally cut over the top of the reg marks again. My cutter does this internally, your software may have. 

On your other comments I recommend you search MZ SKEETER for a one of her many posts on setting your blade depth. Most new owners misunderstand the whole blade depth vs cutting downforce thing and cause themselves issues. Set the actual blade depth sticking out of the holder by hand with the blade holder out of the machine. THEN you can start to play with your cutting pressure to test the correct value to just cut through the vinyl. 

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