Kristof

Help!! Magnet cutting, machine hard to calibrate

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4 minutes ago, klcjr said:

I've already figured out that I will have to cut the material with the liner side facing down since the magnet sticks to the platen infeed and outfeed alot, didn't have that issue with the 'cheap' titan 2.

In hindsight I would've told my manufacturer to roll the magnet with the magnet side facing up for easier processing.

Have you tried rerolling the material back the opposite direction? And leave it like that for a bit?  I do that with vinyl and hold it for about 10 minutes.  It will lay flat then.  Not sure how that would work with magnet. 

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14 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

Have you tried rerolling the material back the opposite direction? And leave it like that for a bit?  I do that with vinyl and hold it for about 10 minutes.  It will lay flat then.  Not sure how that would work with magnet. 

I have not, but I will keep that in mind.

Ok, so I put in the blade that came with it and set the depth so that it would just scratch the surface of the magnet, and a 50x50 square is coming out as 39.64mm x 39.64mm.

Not sure what I need to do to change that?

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3 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

Are you using SCALP?   If so, which driver are you using?  

Yes, SCALP and, the built in one with mac, everything else is working as expected. Here's my settings:

I have the step size on the machine correctly set to 2032 to match.

SS.png

SS 1.png

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Your showing UNITS as inches in your settings from what I see.  I thought you used Metric.   And you can change the steps resolution.  Calibrate the cutter to the software.    Nothing more I can help with SCALP.     I was given a demo to try.  I didn't like it all.  I use Flexi software. 

It should not be on GP-GL  Command either.  That is Graphtec language.  for Graphtec software.   That software is HP-GL Hewlitt Packard language.   Anything other than Graphtec software is HP-GL   Flexi, Scalp, Signcut etc.   

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4 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

Your showing UNITS as inches in your settings from what I see.  I thought you used Metric.   And you can change the steps resolution.  Calibrate the cutter to the software.    Nothing more I can help with SCALP.     I was given a demo to try.  I didn't like it all.  I use Flexi software. 

Yes, I changed that to be 25.4mm, but when I reopen it, it reverts back to displaying Inches.

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Very few SCALP people on here.  Which is why UScutter changed to Vinyl Master.  And only offer SCALP to a Mac user to get started.  SCALP had too many problems.  It was designed for craft cutters.    Your tech support is at Craftedge.com

Did any info come with the cutter that allows you to get the Graphtec Pro Studio or GraphtcProStudio Plus? 

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When I change the calibration to the following screenshot, the 50mm square turns out correct.

 

SS 2.png

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Unfortunately, with the liner side facing down, I lost traction and the second pass was way off from the first one :(

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I think I lost traction because I didn't pull enough off of the roll accidentally.

Is there an external roller stand available to where I can mount on the wall high up and pull off let's say 7 ft (height of wall) at a time?

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That cutter does have Pre feed on it.   Pre feed and back.   It pre feeds  many, many feet.  I looked at mine and got to 90 ft.   

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16 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

That cutter does have Pre feed on it.   Pre feed and back.   It pre feeds  many, many feet.  I looked at mine and got to 90 ft.   

Does it put all the pre feed material in the media basket? The magnet would stick to itself.

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The machine will pre-feed, but where you direct your material to go when it's doing so is up to you. Most of us are vinyl people, so we don't have the same challenge as trying to pre-feed a really long magnetic sheet. Just know that when the pre-feed is done, it should have the same amount of slack when the machine pull is back to it's starting point.

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And that cutter FC will feed either direction if that helps. Back to front. or front to back. You can put the roller assembly in the front, if that would help. You could also cut 7 ft off and feed it off of a table. 

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So, I set the blade up height setting to 5mm to prevent dragging, but the blade doesnt go up to this setting before I jog, which can cause some faint scratches on the media.

I'm guessing there's not a setting to keep the blade always up in this 'parked' position until I initiate a cut job.

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I guess it does work correctly depending on what you're doing. The blade goes up 5mm (as I want) at the end of a cut job. If the blade is down when powering up the machine and then jogging, it won't go up though, which is what I'd like.

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I tried the pre feed setting as well, and it causes the machine to report 'media too heavy' even if setting it on the Slow feed setting.

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I think I might benefit from installing two additional pinch rollers in the middle; $255 each though.

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20 hours ago, klcjr said:

I think I might benefit from installing two additional pinch rollers in the middle; $255 each though.

I think you would definitely benefit from the extra pinch rollers. I think I mentioned that I once considered an FC machine and they last who was the rep had a 30" model that had been set up to go to a sand blast outfit who would have been cutting blast resist which is similar in thickness to magnet. They had at least one extra roller maybe two and she said it was to help feed the material straight due to the heavy pressure of that thick a cut. I was going to pull them off for what I do and just save them for replacements or something. 

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15 minutes ago, Wildgoose said:

I think you would definitely benefit from the extra pinch rollers. I think I mentioned that I once considered an FC machine and they last who was the rep had a 30" model that had been set up to go to a sand blast outfit who would have been cutting blast resist which is similar in thickness to magnet. They had at least one extra roller maybe two and she said it was to help feed the material straight due to the heavy pressure of that thick a cut. I was going to pull them off for what I do and just save them for replacements or something. 

Does it look hard to install/take off the rollers? The square bar looks like it runs through both sides of the machine and it looks like it needs to be taken out.

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 It is probably why they put 2 extra  pinch roller assemblies on this 30" FC8000 that I bought.  You could sure tell they were running reflective in it.  No one cleaned the cutter up.  It had a lot of grit on it and adhesive. 

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I'm having trouble locating the post where someone installed the extra rollers; I could've swore I found it on other forum before while doing my initial research of plotters.

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