Technical Tip Of The Week: Using AVS for double sided cutting

The ability to cut opposing sides of the material accurately is an increasingly popular customer request. This blog describes how your AXYZ router can be set up using the AXYZ vision system to perform two sided cutting.

What is the AXYZ Vision System?

The AXYZ vision system is a high performance, low cost solution suitable for use on a variety of CNC applications. The power behind the AVS lies in its software which is fully integrated with the A2MC Control system. Widely used in print finishing applications, the AVS camera can quickly find and recognize conventional registration marks and adjust the machine cutting path as necessary to achieve exact alignment with printed shapes. The AVS is compatible with all cutting tools and allows virtually any printed material to be cut including card, vinyl, rubber, foam, aluminum, wood, acrylic and many more. The AVS system can also be used to facilitate double sided cutting.

Watch our video to learn more about the vision system.

How do you setup your machine for double sided cutting?

The machine will need a fixed datum position for locating the material. This is usually set to the machine origin where the X and Y axes are at zero. You can do this by using either a datum bar or pop-up pins so that your material can be repeatedly placed accurately into the same location.

The software is the next step. Draw your job to match up to the size of your chosen material, this way you will be able to have full control of flipping the job.

Finally, make sure you have printed registration marks in the same position on both sides of the material. The AVS system will be used to locate these marks and put the program in the correct position.

From here it’s pretty simple, run your programs, one for each side, making sure to use the AVS each time. If you’ve done everything right, the programs will line up perfectly!

Note: If you miss-align any part of the job, the error will double when you flip the job over.

Author: Ged Lodge is an Applications Specialist for AXYZ, a global manufacturer of CNC router and knife systems. Ged has over 10 years’ experience with AXYZ and over 25 years’ experience with CNC routers.