GRAPHTEC FC 9000 Marks Trouble

[wavedaveprint]

I wasn't sure where to post this but since I'm printing on a wide format printer and attempting to cut stickers on our Graphtec, I figured this might be the best place.

We've had our Graphtec FC 9000 for a few months and haven't had too many issues so far. We've been able to run cut vinyl for vehicle decals as well stickers as recently as a few weeks ago. However, we don't have constant work so the cutter has been sitting for a couple of weeks.

I have a sticker project coming up and suddenly, I keep getting mark scan errors. There is nothing different about the process or material, so it doesn't make sense. It will read the first mark and then it fails to read the second and just gives me the error message that it can't find the mark. I've tried changing settings on the cutter and even printed the art with different type marks and nothing is working. I've been searching online for two days trying to find a fix but nothing has helped.

Does anyone have experience with this and any ideas at all?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[jwheeler]

We have a different brand cutter, but a few ideas to consider:

1. Are you ensuring the print is loaded level? Especially with wider media, it's critical that you load it in as evenly/level as possible.
2. Did you possibly scale the file on the printer but not on the cutter (print at 90% on but run at 100% on cutter for example)
3. I'm not sure what it's called on your cutter, but on ours, you run a "get width" function after loading the media. The eye on the head goes to each edge of the media to detect the edges.
4. Are you possibly asking the cutter to go beyond the maximum width? See chart below from Epson's specs. The max cut width is ~6" less than the max media width. Your printer can most likely print a lot closer to the edges.

 

[wavedaveprint]

We have a different brand cutter, but a few ideas to consider:

1. Are you ensuring the print is loaded level? Especially with wider media, it's critical that you load it in as evenly/level as possible.
2. Did you possibly scale the file on the printer but not on the cutter (print at 90% on but run at 100% on cutter for example)
3. I'm not sure what it's called on your cutter, but on ours, you run a "get width" function after loading the media. The eye on the head goes to each edge of the media to detect the edges.
4. Are you possibly asking the cutter to go beyond the maximum width? See chart below from Epson's specs. The max cut width is ~6" less than the max media width. Your printer can most likely print a lot closer to the edges.

View attachment 294117

Thanks for this. I always make sure to load the media as evenly as possible. Definitely did not scale the art at all. Everything is being run as I normally would. Printing on generic SAV and marks are clearly visible. Even if I've had mark scan issues before, I've always been able to resolve them fairly quickly. But not this time.

 

[jwheeler]

Hmmm...sounds like it might be time to contact Tech Support!

 

[Craig]

I know this is old and me have been solved, but in a pinch try putting scotch tape over the marks to reduce the glare. That has worked for us about 70% of the time as long as the marks are correct to begin with.

 

[wavedaveprint]

I know this is old and me have been solved, but in a pinch try putting scotch tape over the marks to reduce the glare. That has worked for us about 70% of the time as long as the marks are correct to begin with.

Tried that amongst many other things which were not the issue. Fortunately, it has been resolved and had nothing to do with hardware. Appreciate the reply, nonetheless.

 

[jwheeler]

Tried that amongst many other things which were not the issue. Fortunately, it has been resolved and had nothing to do with hardware. Appreciate the reply, nonetheless.

@wavedaveprint Can you please share what the solution was in order to help others in the future who have the same problem?

 

[wavedaveprint]

@wavedaveprint Can you please share what the solution was in order to help others in the future who have the same problem?

Sure. So, I'm fairly new to running this type of equipment and there was very little training on the hardware side and zero training on the software side. But, I figured things out, so I thought. I was able to successfully send cut files and get good results. But my method, it turns out, was not optimal and was at the root of the problem (although it had worked fine for a few months).

Cutting vinyl lettering is not a problem at all. Cutting stickers/labels using the cut marks was the challenging piece. However, I had figured out a way to do it. I was creating my files in Illustrator, including art layer(s) and a cut layer above. I would add marks using the CMS5 plug-in. But this is where I was going wrong – again, zero training – I was saving a separate illustrator file for cutting with the marks and dieline. Then, I would open that file in Graphtec Studio and send it from there to the FC9000, connected via USB cable. That was working fine for a while. But then I started to have the issues that prompted this thread.

I wasn't aware that cutting can be done directly through Illustrator, via the CM5 plug-in. With no previous experience, I simply ignored the "send to cutter" piece of the drop down after trying it initially and not getting results. Which, I can't recall why that was at the time.

Eventually, it was figured out that we could send files directly from Illustrator with the plug-in. Once we started doing that, everything worked fine.

 

[DYP]

I have CM4 working perfectly but I can't figure a bunch of things out in CM5. Why is Y Copy grayed out or how to rotate the job?