Orbit pases 2nd reg mark in SCAL

lwebb

Mac 10.14.2- SCAL 4.078 - Zing Orbit - PNC - Illustrator. Trying to reset my Zings after being down for a couple of years. Calibrated on 8x10 fine on card stock. Trying to calibrate on 12x27 on Gloss printed vinyl. Scan eye scans first mark fine but travels 3" past the second mark.  Placed frosted tape over reg marks. Marks scanned fine on smaller card stock. Can't figure out why it passes up the second in the larger test? Has to be a setting I missed.  any suggestions?

SandyMcC

Here's a document to check first and then if you still have issues, please post back.  I'll probably have you email me so that we can work one-on-one. 

https://www.iloveknk.com/Support/Tutorials/Klic-N-Kut/Borderless-Printing-Issues-with-PNC.pdf

lwebb

Thank You, Sandy, You're the best. I'll work on it again tomorrow.

SandyMcC

I should just add that when the head moves 3" too far, it's not a calibration issue (given that you have conducted the calibration).  It's also not a scanning issue because it's not scanning as it's moving from mark to mark. It goes to the location where SCAL is telling it the next mark will be found. 

lwebb

Morning, I agree it's going to where it thinks the next mark is but for the life of me, I can't figure out why? But this morning brings a new roadblock. When going through the setup process from the beginning, now I can't get the cutter to move over more than 18 clicks or three shift clicks beyond which no clicks move at all. 
I've reset the scal prefs, rebooted the zing and the mac and no change?

SandyMcC

Can you explain exactly where you're at when you say "the setup process from the beginning?"   Are you referring to moving the blade holder to the first reg mark or something else?  

lwebb

gone?

Crazy_Mr_Zing

@lwebb   I would suggest to you click the gear at the top right of you post and select edit
and then remove the image containing your serial number

lwebb

yeah, not smart, thanks 

SandyMcC

I still see it!!! Please delete it as soon as possible! 

lwebb

is it gone? I removed everything this time.

SandyMcC

In the meantime, I will try a PNC using SCAL4 on my ZO and Mac.

SandyMcC

Yes, it's gone now. 

lwebb

OK, Sorry, I originally wrongly thought it was going just to you. not smart. sorry.
Did you get to read any of the post? In brief, After recalibrating the laser, creating a new doc and going to print and cut to position the cutting blade over the first mark, it will mot move the blade after two shift clicks? Clicking on the arrows doesn't do anything?

lwebb

I've used the Orbit and the same process for years. Made several hundred cuts with no trouble. Unfortunately, health issues took me out for a couple of years and I don't trust my memory so started from scratch again. My two other Zings work fine. It's the PNC though that I used the most. The other Zings are dedicated to gasket and vinyl materials. I've evidently screwed up somewhere.

SandyMcC

Yes, I saw your screenshots and sorry it's taking me all day to get back to this. I'm going to test in SCAL4 myself.  But back to the issue again, I need to do a back to basics approach in order to better troubleshoot. Without doing a PNC....  JUST a normal cut, are you having the same Shift arrow issue when trying to move the head to set the origin?

SandyMcC

So, I'm on SCAL 4.094 and when I click on Set Origin, I was able to move the cutting head all the way across the mat using the Shift + Arrow keys.  So, if you cannot do that, then I suggest you start by updating your SCAL4 to the most recent version using this link to download it: http://craftedge.com/support/lostsw.php

Then report back.

lwebb

Sandy, Going to the craft edge site under version history,  4.075 the latest version they list for a mac. This version has worked in the past without a hitch?

lwebb

OK I have done loaded the latest version which is.078 in spite of the version history saying .075 was the latest. I'll see if itworks. 

lwebb

Quick test looks like that solved the immediate problem. You're an angel. 

SandyMcC

Okay... great. Now, let's move on to the PNC issue if it still exists. Let me know!

lwebb

Well Fooie, Now to the PNC problem. Again, when trying to move the blade over the first reg mark, I can only shift-click 3 times. Then none of the arrows do anything? At least it's three now. Before it was only two!

SandyMcC

I just tested a PNC of two basic arrows on 8.5 x 11 paper. No problems at all. When moving the blade holder to the first reg mark, I held the Shift key and moved left at least 5 times. I tried it with both clicking the onscreen arrow and clicking the left arrow key on keyboard... both worked just fine. I have NO clue why yours would be freezing up after 3 clicks.     

lwebb

It's never done it before and I've used the Orbit for years? I put in a ticket with Chad but haven't gotten any response?

SandyMcC

I reached out to Chad and asked him to read through this entire thread. He suggested that you test the trial of SCAL5 to see if it does the same exact thing... Even though I'm not seeing the same thing with my SCAL4.  Note that it installs separately from SCAL4 so it won't mess up your current installation of SCAL. 

Note that the trial is only good for 15 days after installation AND it will cut watermarks through  your project. But the purpose here is only to see if the same Shift+arrow issue results.

Here's the link for SCAL5: http://craftedge.com/download/download.html

lwebb

Thanks, Sandy, I truly appreciate your exceptional support.  I'm afraid I'm out of luck on that. I tried 5 when it first came out and realized 4 did everything I needed so when I try to open 5 now it says the trial time has expired.
What about firmware? 
I'm on a mac so I can't find the manufacture date. I think I got my first zing in 2014 and my Orbit a couple of years later. My memory has a random auto-delete feature though so I'm not sure about anything over two weeks ago. I bought the orbit at Accugraphic when I drove my Zing down to be repaired so my account online doesn't show when I bought it. At the time I was REALLY behind in orders so the two-day round trip was worth it. I bought a third Zing a year later just as a backup. 
Short of driving down there again, I try anything.

Liz_A

@lwebb - if I recall correctly, once you have installed a trial version of SCAL and it expires, you are out of luck, as it installs something that a new install would check for...to of course insure that people aren't just perpetually running a trial version of SCAL and not paying for a license. Even uninstalling SCAL5 and trying to reinstall it, that little marker is still there in the bowels of the operating system registry. From my testing experience.

SandyMcC

The Zing Orbit came out in 2017 and there were a total of 3 firmware versions:

(1) The original ZO firmware

(2) A one-time firmware update for the original ZO

(3) The newer ZO firmware (only for a later shipment of ZO's

When the newer ZO's came out, the factory had failed to inform us that it had a third firmware version and if these new ZO owners inadvertently updated to Firmware (2), then they had some issues with shape sizing being way off.

Back to your issue that has suddenly appeared and the fact you have older Zings, will you make absolutely sure that your Cut Settings window indicates Zing Orbit and not Zing or Zing Air?

Also, one possible work around... go to Cutter>Cutter Settings and you can change the distance the blade travels when using the Shift key.  Maybe doubling the Fast value or even more will allow the blade to get over that lower right reg mark and then you can test from there to see what happens? For now, it would be really great if you could just do a test project and print from SCAL instead of printing from Illustrator.   Thanks!  And please know that I'll continue to help you with any ideas I can come up with. 

lwebb

Hey, Thanks Liz, I know the reason 5 won't open but I sure can't for the life of me find that file. In the old days, we could set the clock back in the system but all this new stuff in OSX makes that difficult. 
Sandy if I have either of the others selected in the cutter window, it doesn't let me even talk to the Orbit. Good thought but no, I have the Orbit selected. I'm going to one more time remove 4 and all the hidden 4 files and reinstall from a newly downloaded install package. I'll let you know. Many thanks once again.

SandyMcC

Okay... note the Fast setting I mention in  my post above is unrelated to Zing vs Zing Orbit.  Just another thing to test out to see if you can get the blade holder over the reg mark.

lwebb

Sandy, OK I’ve made progress or at least got back to where I was when I first post.

 I’d already reinstalled SCAl twice but this time I used a program that also gets rid of any hidden files. I downloaded a new install and reinstalled SCAL from scratch. It got rid of the problem of not being able to move the bald are than two shift clicks. Now it reads the first but as it did when I started this thread, it goes about an Ince beyond the mark tying to fin it. I must have something set wrong but man I can’t find it.

I creature a new simple doc using reg marks that were slightly over 1/2 Inch for each leg, 1.25 cm. They are 4pt thick. That’s 1.41 mm and an offset of 1.27cm as well. The screen shots are not in a logical order.

SandyMcC

With SCAL4, it automatically assigns the reg marks to be offset from the overall boundaries of what outer shape will cut.  Thus, the reg marks it's using are located 1.27 cm from your white cut shape or approx. here, as I show in RED reg marks below. This is why it's going too far to the left to find the second mark. 

SCAL5 allows you to set the reg marks based on a distance from the end edge of the page which would work much better for you when using a different program for printing versus cutting, so keep that in mind. 

 

lwebb

Hey Sandy, I sent this via an email but just saw that it didn't go through
Ok, I’m confused. I don’t print out of scal, never have. I’ve always printed my own out of Illustrator so there shouldn’t be any marks out beyond mine, right?
Unless I've just forgotten something, Which is possible, I've printed from illustrator and then PNC this way and never had problems before?

SandyMcC

I did receive your email and responded.  Also, I do fully realize you're not printing from SCAL, but from Illustrator.  My point is that the red reg marks I used for making my point above are where SCAL is expecting to find the reg marks.  How were you thinking SCAL would know the locations of the reg marks you've printed? It doesn't recognize them based on a Layer name on the Layers Panel or anything like that.  It's based on the settings in Cutter>Cutter Settings. 

As I mentioned before, in SCAL4, the reg marks cannot be touching the cut lines... they must be offset based on whatever distance  is entered in Cutter>Cutter Settings.  That same distance must be used in Illustrator. I cover a process for this in Section 11.07 of the Zing Orbit user manual. 

If you can find a prior project that worked perfectly, can you send me the AI file for it at the same gmail address? That will help me explain things better, perhaps. 

lwebb

Thanks, Sandy, Sorry I just didn't see your reply. OK MAN do I feel stupid!!! The problem was I was importing the whole document into SCAL with the reg marks as well!!!
I looked at several older SCAL files and saw there were no reg marks? After looking at 4-5 older files my brain was able to find some still functioning cells and I saw the problem.  How did I not remember that?
Now on to the fine-tuning. I can't tell you how much I appreciate everything and for holding my hand through the last several days. I definitely need to get in line behind the hundreds of folks who are singing your praises. You're simply the best.
Lanny

SandyMcC

You're welcome and I'm so thrilled you figured it out! YAY!  Let me know if you run into anything else. I'm here.