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I'm going to start marketing LED light up garage signs. These are my first examples. 2017-07-25 23.39.48.mov 2017-07-25 23.26.02.mov

not sure on where you was doing the research but in most forums the majority of the old timers have gone to the graphtecs - the ce6000-60 fits in your budget and is a very very solid performer. that is what I use for my business and have had several roland and graphtecs - going back to the graphtec every time. for me I had a 50" machine but it is difficult to weed that wide material, very hard to mask that wide without wrinkles and very hard to apply them. I figured out that almost all of the designs I do even for 8-10 ft signs can be broken down into elements that can be done on the 24" wide machine and they are easier to handle, weed and mask. Welcome aboard

search the net for don`t tread on me and you`ll find a vector of the snake. mark-s

No but it's pretty light film. I see a video of someone doing that online. Have never bothered with it with JPSS. I just cut around the image with an x-acto blade in about 15 seconds and press it. I leave about 1/16 to 1/8 inch around the edges and try to avoid straight lines in open areas. Not worth the set up time to contour although if you were doing 50 maybe it would. Maybe. I can cut them as fast as the printer can print them so I think it a waste of time.

FTDI driver http://www.uscuttersupport.com/downloads/Drivers/cdm20828_setup_windows.exe or try this http://www.uscutter.com/static/exe/mh_mk2_driver.exe I do recall a notice on the old Support page saying "The Baud Rate in the cutter settings needs to be changed from 9600 to 4800." (Within the Comm Settings)

I wish the VM program would run on mac without having to run parallels. I am a die hard AI user and probably always will be but the overall design capabilities of VM Pro are impressive and if I were a pc guy and starting into this realm I would probably opt that direction. I guess what I'm getting at is if you are going to end up needing a more robust program you probably can't beat VM Pro for a design program on a dollar for dollar comparison. The 3D and shadowing options alone are some of the most intuitive and easy to operate in the business, even better than Flexi IMO. AI does a lot of things well but Cast shadows and true block shadows are a PIA compared to the two second renderings done in VM Pro.

Typically you will have anything that is part of the file cut regardless of the art board size. There are notable exceptions to this such as Sure Cuts A Lot (SCALP) however they are the exception not the standard. Your cutter is looking at the design as a collection of lines and curves. It looks for the start point of the line (or assigns one) and starts the cut until it reaches the end then picks up and moves to the next line. To just cut what is within the boundary of your art board will cause unfinished lines to just end and you'll not be able to weed it. Take a look at the vector in outline mode and you will see what your cutter see's. The color associated with the individual lines is recognized and assigned by the cutting software otherwise it will just cut them all even if they overlap. If you use a scissors tool and chop the line you will want to connect it back to the other part of the line or you will have issues. It's a different concept than printing. Page size or art board size is used more to control your scale and alignment. If you are building a sign that is 12" tall by 24" wide then I usually make that my art board size and then drag in some guides to help stay the right distance away from the edges and use the whole art board to align and distribute objects. Easy peasy.

well it looks like the 9x12 maybe upgraded faster than expected. The friend I did the rush order for was asked who did his shirt. so he sent the guy to the shop. he just placed an order for 30 shirts, lettering both sides and rear door of enclosed trailer, and replace some lettering on the side of his truck. wow! I knew I shoulve started this a long time ago. lol

check out uscutter for the static string.. http://www.uscutter.com/Anti-Static-Kit-for-Vinyl-Cutters

USCutter sells a ground strap that hangs from the cutter and lays on the vinyl that would work for you here. You could also just make one, it's nothing more than a wire and some magnets to hold it in place. The key is to ground the vinyl, doesn't really matter if the stand is grounded or not, but with a metal stand it's easiest to ground the stand which then in turn grounds the vinyl that is sitting on it.

Actually the cutter itself is grounded thru the 3 way plug on it and that goes to the same place you attached to - but the problem is when vinyl rolling and rubbing builds static and with no metal contact for that the only place to discharge, when a charge gets large enough, is to arc thru the carriage - frying electronics. we haven't seen it much with the titan that most times comes with a metal stand and metal rollers but see it a lot with the MH and SC cutters

How much for that roll of tape?

So I had to move the laser to the garage. I wanted to upgrade the blower and the new one was WAY to loud for inside the house. This caused me to have to completely redesign the garage because I had no room for it. So the lasers been down for a few weeks. Here's the garage transformation. This is what I Started with. I good friend is letting me store my trailer and a few other big item to help clear some space. I started building a loft to store alot of stuff. Here's the completed project. Overhead loft for storage and a new bench. I built the bench 34" deep so I have plenty of working area even with the bins and drill press against the wall. That created plenty of room for the laser. I mounted the new blower up in the attic/crawl space. It's completely exhausts all fumes and smoke from the laser now. The 6" duct runs up and into the blower and then out through a soffit vent. There's a roar from all the air that it's moving but overall the noise isn't too bad. The new blower TRIPLED my CFMs inside the box. I then had to make a warning sign because................. You know I have a laser. And I started making key chains. Still practicing, nothing crazy.