Vinyl Cutter/Plotter Info?

  • Thread starter Thread starter KWC
  • Start date Start date
K

KWC

Hope this is not too far off topic but:-

Anyone know anything about vinyl cutters? I was trying to work out how the blade
keeps the cutting edge always in the right direction to cut regardless of which
direction the plot takes. Is the blade on a swivel like a castor or is the answer a
little more involved.
Many thanks in advance.

KWC

Remove "My Hat" to reply
 
KWC said:
Hope this is not too far off topic but:-

Anyone know anything about vinyl cutters? I was trying to work out how the blade
keeps the cutting edge always in the right direction to cut regardless of which
direction the plot takes. Is the blade on a swivel like a castor or is the answer a
little more involved.
Many thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

I'm no expert but...

My understanding is that the knife is rotated to point in the direction it's
going to move by the CNC machine (eg It's not on a freely rotating castor).
I believe sharp 90 degree turns need a Knife Up-Turn-Knife Down sequence.

I was recently asked to turn a low resolution bitmap logo into a vector file
format for a vinyl cutter. In the past I've found automatic conversion tools
hopeless because any noise in the image causes the conversion process to
generate millions of very short line sequences.

This time I found a program called Algolab Ptvector from here (free trial
available)...

http://www.algolab.com/

I fed it this low resolution bit map...

http://ewc2004.users.btopenworld.com/Logo345.gif

...and to my surprise it did a really good job on the conversion. Only
minimal tweaks were required to tidy up the results. The output was used to
cut this vinyl logo which is about 150 cm x 50 cm.

http://www.befa.org.uk/WC2004/photos/banquet-10.jpg

(I have no connection with the company Algolab).

Colin (A Brit in Belgium)
 
PS. These days most sign makers have a vinyl cutter. Give a few local
companies a call - I'm sure they would be happy to show you a machine in
action.
 
And - unless you plan on going into business as your reason for wanting to
build one I would suggest just getting a shop to sell you the material and
the cut vinyl and you do the labor of installation or let them do that as
well...not very expensive if you shop around. You can also buy a used cutter
in good shape for anywhere from a few hundred to just under $5k dependant on
what you want and need if you are going into the business.

I've seen swivel cutters on some, fixed pinpoint ones on others. The more
the machine has to do with moving blade direction the slower the cut job is
overall due to the pauses. Otherwise the cutter is merely a plotter platform
with a knife in place of a cartridge (essentially, same idea)
 
CWatters said:
answer a



I'm no expert but...

My understanding is that the knife is rotated to point in the direction it's
going to move by the CNC machine (eg It's not on a freely rotating castor).
I believe sharp 90 degree turns need a Knife Up-Turn-Knife Down sequence.
Click to expand...


Yep its powered. as above. Also its weight dependant on the depth of cut.
 
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