I tried to post this question yesterday with an uploaded image but after I typed out the steps I took and uploaded the image (which was in the wrong area of my post) I tried to go back and fix it but I lost the whole post. Any way I won't go into a lot of detail on this post. I need some help from anyone that uses a Roland Camm-1 CM400 cutter. I cannot get my cutting to align with the printed image. Any help would be appreciated.
I don't have a Camm1. I have dealt with a few vinyl cutters and print cut machines. I think with the Camm1 it has optical sensors for Contour Cutting. I am not sure what software that cutter comes with. But critical to Contour cutting are the registrations marks. These are read by the cutter to align the cut job. There should be a way to add them in CorelDraw. But the normal work flow would be to create the artwork in the design program, (CorelDraw.) Import it into the rip software. The rip software prints it with registration marks and ques it latter for cutting after alignment. Is this your work flow or do you have something other? What is the Rip and or Cutting software for the Camm1? Is lamination involved? Which printer are you using? What is the media?
Roland software I have worked with in the past uses a user defined spot color, "CutContor" to specify that any hairlines are designated as cutting paths. It might be that you need to use this spot color in CorelDraw to define the cutting paths before the jobs go to the rip.
Thanks for replying David. I'm sure it has something to do with the alignment process but it doesn't seem to work. I use the following workflow: CorelDraw x6, EFI FX rip, CoCut 4x4 Pro, HP z6200 printers, Roland Camm-1 Pro CM400, and Windows 7 Pro. I've done this many times on our previous equipment but cannot get it to work on the above equipment correctly. The process: Design the graphic in Corel with 2 layers..one for graphic..one for the cut path. Send the graphic to print with registration marks to the HP printer. Load the printed graphic on to the Roland cutter. Go to the menu on the Roland and select "submenu" enter "cropmarks" enter "basepoint" enter "basepoint" ...at this time you have to use the arrow keys to manually line up the registration marks. (My cutter is not optical) I go to the lower left of the graphic (as per the Roland manual) and align the first registration mark and hit enter. This puts the "basepoint" measurement into the cutter. I then go to the "alignpoint" and repeat the process. I hit enter and the menu says "cropmark setting completed". I then send the second layer (the cut line) to Cocut 4x4 to be cut. It will cut the graphic shape just fine....but not around the graphic. I cuts to the left of the graphic. If I reverse the cropmark setup process on the Roland I get an error "cropmark setting failed,set again". So I am stumped! I will try yo insert a graphic to show what I get.
How far off the mark is it? Could it be the blade offset? Blade offset for a 45 degree vs a 60 degree blade?
With manually aligned contour cutting, an initial alignment is often done. This is often done by replacing the blade with an inkpen and using a piece of A4 paper to draw a mark(s). Then aligning the laser dot to that position and marking it. Three positions may need to be marked. This is inside the cutting software. When doing this alignment, the blade offset sometimes has to be set to 0 with the pen inserted, then changed back to the right value based on the degree of the blade.
If you are only off by a small margin, I would think something is up with the blade offset and or the initial alignment and that blade offset setting. If not, I am not sure.
Sorry I can't just hit the nail on the head for you, but perhaps I'll spark some idea in your own brain.
Alternatively, there is another forum I bang around in, the USCutter forums. They have one sub forum for "Competitor Cutter Help." Maybe a post in there would shed some light.
http://forum.uscutter.com/index.php?/forum/40-competitor-cutter-help/