A friend of mine and I recently (Sunday) purchased a vinyl plotter with grand schemes of cornering the decals market. Nothing fancy, just simple images ranging from 2"x2" to 6"x6".
We're currently practicing on an aged roll of ugly green vinyl left over from my uncle's dabbling into signs at his print shop.
Everything was running reasonably smooth up until this evening. We'd been test cutting some of our images. There were a few areas that didn't cut fully, or were a little ragged in the corners. We chalked this up to inexperience with the settings for blade protrusion, blade force, and speed, and we set about to play with the settings and test cuts.
By the end of the evening the quality is horrible. The blade skips across the surface leaving the vinyl almost perforated. I notice that if it does a long straight line this eventually evens out into a smooth cut. It's almost, to me, like the blade is failing to rotate smoothly in the direction of the cut.
The blade does not appear chipped or worn. The teflon protection strip is still clean and unmarked.
Eventually I gave up for the night and went home. I figured I'd be able to look up the symptoms online, but no matter how I phrase the search all I get are pages selling new blades.
The cutter in question is a Roland GX-24. The blade is what was included, I believe 45%. I do notice in the manual it mentions a pin that goes in the top of the blade holder. We did not receive a pin, just blade already in holder (this was a demo unit machine used at a 2 day tradeshow). If this steadies the blade, however, or helps the rotation I figure results would have been as poor from the start.
Anyway, at this point I'm pretty frustrated, especially with $1700 invested. Any recommendations on what might be the cause? If the blade is indeed not rotating properly would a half-drop of 3-in-1 oil help or is that a Bad Idea?
Mostly I'm feeling disappointment in the web. Usually I've found it to be an endless fountain of information, but on this problem all it wants to do is sell me stuff.
Thanks for any advice you can offer!
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