Vinyl cutter/plotter

[jleiwig]

What is an acceptable resolution for a vinyl cutter/plotter machine? This is going to be my warm up to my milling machine.

[balsaman]

What is acceptable to you? Usually a home made machine will have more built in "slop" than the min. resolution or the drive system. For example 200 step motors on 10 tpi screws gives you .0005". If you can build with less backlash than that you are doing better than I...

Eric

[DaSigntist]

Hi,
I'm in the sign business (you would never know by my name) and our servo plotter runs in the .003 to .005" range at a screaming 42" per sec. NOT per min.

[avsfan733]

anybody (especially signtist) used a cnc for cutting carbon fiber/kevlar? I am curious because I am thinking about also including an interchangeable head for cutting the stuff which I use a lot of and surrently cut to fit by hand which is a hassle, as well as time consuming and wasteful

[DaSigntist]

Nope, I’ve never done it or ever tried.
If cut with a knife I would think it would take a considerable amount of down pressure.
If with a router I would think it would fray the fibers (edges).
Sorry but those are two materials I know little about.
It would be nice to have a sample to figure it out.

[jleiwig]

Originally posted by avsfan733 anybody (especially signtist) used a cnc for cutting carbon fiber/kevlar? I am curious because I am thinking about also including an interchangeable head for cutting the stuff which I use a lot of and surrently cut to fit by hand which is a hassle, as well as time consuming and wasteful

I was looking at a website last night that has a machine that does just this. Of course it is of a professional nature but it uses something called a pizza wheel cutter...which to me looks nothing more than a circular razor. I'll try and find the website tonight.

*edit* here is the website:
http://www.aeronautauto.com/Index.html

[jleiwig]

Originally posted by balsaman What is acceptable to you? Usually a home made machine will have more built in "slop" than the min. resolution or the drive system. For example 200 step motors on 10 tpi screws gives you .0005". If you can build with less backlash than that you are doing better than I... Eric

Actually it'll most likely be run using pulleys, gears and wire for the motion. That's how all the printers i've been tearing apart have been run. If it's good enough for HP it's good enough for me!

I guess the resolution would be whatever the reduction is in the gears right? Like a 200 step motor with say 4:1 reduction would run at something like your .0005 resolution?

[avsfan733]

good link BigChev, Thats a definite bookmark, looks like they have a lot of good stuff, and a lot of good pictures to use as references