Trotec Speedy 400 pass through question

[Jay Selway]

So, I'm considering upgrading my system. The helix is just too slow for my needs.

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with registration of materials while using pass through. We plan on working with materials that are larger than the 400's bed, but my main concern is with how one registers the material after feeding it / moving it through the pass through openings.

I know they have the paper registration camera, perhaps that could be utilized to register materials after moving them.

Thanks for any insight from the trotec experts on here.

[Jiten Patel]

Hi Jay,

We have used it on a few occasions, but generally work the design around using the pass through as there is far too much room for error trying to match up rastering perfectly. To ruin a large piece of material is just not worth the worry. We work the design so that it is engraved to a point and when it is moved, it is engraved with a continuation of the design, but the two design elements do not meet (if that makes sense). This takes out the room for error aligning the piece as even 1mm would blow the job.

We simply line up using the red-dot marker and a few pencil marks which are carefully placed onto the substrate. So when it is moved, there are pencil marks to know where to place the artwork. Bit manual, but we found this works best for us.

Not too sure if the camera would help as this relies on registration marks from print. But saying that, I do not have any experience with TroCam to know. We will be getting it soon, so will let you know.

[Jay Selway]

Not too sure if the camera would help as this relies on registration marks from print. But saying that, I do not have any experience with TroCam to know. We will be getting it soon, so will let you know.

That would be really helpful. I wonder if you could engrave registration marks at the top of the material, then move it, and then have the registration marks pick up at the bottom of the artwork.

I drew this diagram to illustrate my idea. Basically you run the material on the first pass and engrave registration marks. On the second pass, you move the material, turn on the registration and pick up the registration marks for the second pass.

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[Keith Winter]

How big are your materials Jay?

If you go one size larger:
Speedy 500 is quite large 49x28
Trotec also has a new flatbed, someone posted a video on here awhile back, I think it's 4'x8' or something
Universal also has a huge beast of a machine in the ILS 12.75 48"x24" and XLS 40" x 24"

[Richard Rumancik]

Jay, I don't know how accurately the camera can resolve and I am not a Trotec user. But I would be very surprised if it would be accurate enough to enable you to continue a raster design without the "stitch line" showing. If you were rastering at say 300 dpi, (.0033" per line) then as a guess you would really need to locate the second image better than 25% of this for it not to show a seam. That would be better than .001" (.025mm) positional accuracy. That would assume that you are sliding the workpiece along a precision rule and the edge of the workpiece has a precision straight edge (so raster lines remain perpendicular.) (If it did not, the tiniest angular error would create a triangular disconnect between the two images.) So I am a bit skeptical if you want to use it for precise rastering of large items. Vector seaming might be a bit more forgiving, but I think you would have to build in an intentional overlap.

Practically speaking I think the step-and-replot method works well for text graphics (no border) where you can be several thousandths out between blocks of text and no one would notice. Or perhaps vector cutting where the glitch where it re-connects is not a concern for the part. But I would not have really high accuracy expectations for a camera/manual setup.

[Jiten Patel]

Jay in theory that probably would work, but in a real world scenario, I doubt it would. The reason for this is the 400 honeycomb as a tendency to move. It only moves maybe 1 or 2mm but it can blow things out. For example, I have lots of jigs which are set-up with markers on the plate. If I haven't run a particular jig for a while and come to use it, the markers which were perfect some jobs ago will be out. this is due to materials being loaded and unloaded from the machine and it moves. A very annoying problem that Scott and I are trying to sort out.

So you could move the material, but if the honeycomb moves, your sheet is done. Honestly, if you want seamless rastering or vectoring, I think a bigger machine is what you need rather than messing around with moving materials....from my experience, it is more hassle than it is worth.

[Jay Selway]

Eventually I want a Kern HSE, but don't have $150k to drop on one (yet).

If you used one of the more stable tables besides the honeycomb (such as lamellas), and you worked the design so it had a natural seam in it... maybe this method would work.

I know the Job Vision camera is incredibly accurate, having seen it work first hand at another shop that does nothing but paper cutting. I'll have to ask them about how it holds up with engraving work though.

[Bob A Miller]

Well I have to say we have not used ours yet, but have been curious about using it.

But I have seen the new tried camera system. Seems to integrate well, regustration if I recall was on a series of dots or circles & it worked amazingly well. Integrates into job control quite well. Was very surprised at the ease of use.