Hi all,
I've searched the forums and have found a couple instances of mats slipping and we have tried those fixes. For example, it was suggested that the pinch wheels be cleaned so we cleaned ours. We've also tried slowing down the cuts, a larger mat, a new mat, rearranging the order of the pinch wheels (in case one was bad), etc.
This is where we are at. We have a 13 inch Silver Bullet and the “13 and 15 in Mat”. We are trying to cut 0.01 in (0.25 mm) polycarbonate sheets. The sheets are 12x16 inches and take up most of the area of the mat. We first cut the sheet into strips with a cut all the way through using a force 170-190 grams at a speed of 60 mm/s. The cross cuts (only the blade carriage moves) work very well. When the long cuts are made (using the rollers) the mat slips when the mat reverses direction in the cutter. This slip is consistent to one side and only by a few millimeters. When the mat is loaded, I use the lines on the mat to run it parallel to the pinch roller. After the slip, that line is no longer parallel, it starts where it was originally but as the mat is fed through, the line displaces by 2-3 mm. This is an issue because it changes the size/shape of the pieces we are cutting.
The slipping also occurs with the second set of lines we cut, which are partial cuts using 90 grams and run the full length of the sheet. When the mat feeds to the end and reverses direction, the mat slips.
The slipping seems to occur when the mat reverses after being fed most of the way through the cutter (to within an inch of the edge). We do have a longer mat so we tried cutting the sheets on the longer mat but the slipping still occurs. I’ve also decreased the speed to 10 mm/s but it did not fix the issue.
Is there any advice or changes we could make to end the slippage? We have ordered new pinch rollers to see if they are not gripping enough. I was also planning to remove the roller assembly to make sure one was not loose.
Thanks in advance.