Wizard 8000 - 8Ply Cutting Problems

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TwoThumbs

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Sep 6, 2005
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Port Chester, NY & Stamford, CT
We have a Wizard 8000, it has always been great until we started cutting a lot of Bainbridge 8Ply and UltraThick Top mats. :confused:

When cutting the outside of the mat, the cuts are off "usually" by 1/8", and more to the shortcut rather than overcut. (Nothing is 100% predictable!!) We have set the plunge depth (both in the software and the cutting head dial from 21<recommended> to 24) when this occurs. In our testing (on 4ply) if we use the same measurements and leave the plunge depth at 11 on both, the cuts are perfect! Its only off when we change the plunge depth for the additional thickness!! Also the overcuts are not automatically corrected!

I have talked to two other local Wizard users who have the same intermittent problem. Anyone else experiencing this problem?? Any workarounds??
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It has taken me the last 3 weeks (although we have been working on this with Wizard since Jan 30th) to finally get Wizard to "admit" and duplicate this problem!
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But no fixes yet - "their software people are working on it"!
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I've already lost a ton of production time ($$$$) not to mention the $$COST$$ of the "lost" 8ply mats!! Has anyone else identified this problem? Fixes? Workarounds?
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Warren
 
I have had the problem. I just take a razor and finish the cut. Doesn't seem like a big deal?

I usually pre-size the blanks and only "cut the outside" rarely, so maybe I can tolerate it more than you? Why are you losing mats?

I always figured I could fix it with a configuration change if it ever bothered me enough. Guess not uhh?
 
Yep I have had the issue of the outside being smaller than designed when cutting 8 ply on my 8000.

But it has not been a major issue because (a) when using 8 ply I'm usually dealing with a large mat size so being off by no more than 1/8 is not all that noticeable, (b) you can always tack on an extra 1/8 to overall dimension in anticipation, and (c) as long as you remeasure after cutting the mat you can make the frame to conform to the revised mat size, or (d) you can do as Cliff says and pre-cut the mat blank.
 
Oh, now that I read Andrew's post I understand a a little better. I have not seen the outside "dimensions" vary. Just the "cut" not completing. Thus, my razor comment.

I would pre-cut. simple.
 
I haven't tried the 4ply to 8ply razor cut but it just seems too risky on a large volume of mats, especially when a lot of them have large openings, and in addition to multiple openings, and then larger outside sizes. But the problem is also when the outside cuts are off - the borders are off too!!

**** I don't think that we're asking Wizard too much when we try to use the machine in a pretty "standard" way with "normal" options!! ****
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Configuration "adjustments" fix one part of the problem and then create another problem. This is where we have gone round and round with Wizard before their "admission" to the problem. This was the same way when we tested with them (on 4ply boards so not to waste the 8ply) everything tested perfect with config adjustments (set to 4ply plunge "11"), then we would hangup with tech support, go to our 8ply production, and "Whammo" ... offcuts again!!! That's where we were losing mats. Some were so bad they actually wouldn't fill the frame opening!

Warren
 
Hi Warren.. sorry about your difficulty with 8-ply. This one was a little tricky for us, since it took a little time to figure out what actually was happening.

The issue that Dave and Glenn here found is that when the configurations have a large enough rotation setting in the master configs, the flex on the blade is enough to force it to follow a shallower path in the outside cut with 8-ply, causing it to shrink the outside size a bit. So a user may or may not see this problem as it depends on that particular board's calibration.

Lenny here at our helpdesk offered you a work-around - simply save separate configurations for 4 ply and 8 ply (which, if any of our users remember the old 4.0 and 3.2 versions of the software, is what we used to required for simple things like reverse bevel and vgrooves).

We're looking at a couple options to address this a little more cleanly in the configs - right now the outside configuration set doesn't have a rotational adjustment for that cut type, so we'll probably add one in the next version to allow users to compensate for this problem.
 
We have several configurations set for different mats.

4ply - 12
black core 13
rag/suede/linen 14
6ply ??

I'm not at the shop, so I'm not certain, but I think 8ply is 24,

This has worked best for us, but I did have issues with the 8ply when we had a bad batch of blades in the middle of a pack. Ask Brian at Wizard about that one!! Steve probably remembers that one too!! Down for the whole month of May 2005, and it boiled down to bad blades - who would have guessed??!!

Wizard Tech is great, and I'm sure they will get to the end of it.


Good luck!
 
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