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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/17/2019 in all areas

  1. 2 points
    Your using the the wrong cutter model for your set up. In Graphtec pro Studio That cutter is not a 20" CElite 50 Those cutters ARE only 20" Why aren't you using FC8600-75 like you should be? Thank you but I will have a Coca Cola. I don't think your too clear.....ClearG
  2. 2 points
    According to what you posted that cutter is 30" ...Graphtecs will not cut beyond the pinch rollers. There are magnets there. If you want to cut past the rollers go into background settings and turn the pinch rollers and media sensor off. I turned mine off on day 1. I can cut edge to edge of the vinyl. You don't state which software you are using, but the Graphtec driver should have your software at 29.6 inches width, you are saying that model is a 30" cutter. FC8600-75 is 30" cutter
  3. 1 point
    Hey everyone! My names Mikey, I been doing vinyl decals and very minimal sublimation work. I started off with a titan and now upgraded to a graphtec. I use illustrator as my program & as for my printer it is the sawgrass 400 (which to be honest I’m not enjoying the sub market) I might of pulled the trigger to early so I blame myself and I just don’t do enough volume and rather not waste ink by letting it sit, so I’m always doing prints every few days to keep the ink moving. Anyway I do work full time so this is more of a spare time type of deal I push a lot of decals and shirts and hoping to learn and grow along side with all you here. The next thing I wanting to take on is screen printing but being home having just a spare room for an office won’t work but some day ... some day I will get into that field :) P.s the username is for my love for jeeps (srts & clearly track hawks but unfortunately do not own one) lol *another note that sprayground sticker is not made by me. They are a backpack company that I love and currently own 2 backpacks and 2 luggage’s I use for travel and they always send stickers. Lol I’m aware and saw on this forum the copyright area so I just wanted to make clear it’s not something I did. thanks everyone looking forward to this little journey.
  4. 1 point
    This little blurb is specifically to help out those who are struggling with AI specific to vinyl cutting type applications. It is by no means exhaustive or all inclusive but hopefully covers some basics for the frustrated newbie or old hat who is more used to printed graphics. I am anti-monthly payment so I still use version CS5. Some of these tips may be different within your own version although CS6 is almost identical. I use a mac and the quick key shortcuts are slightly different between mac and pc so I will refrain from listing them out. There are a LOT of handy quick keys that are worth remembering if you find yourself using a certain function often. AI is designed for a lot of keyboard to mouse interaction. Preferences Settings Here are a few simple changes that you can make that will probably help. In Illustrator Preferences you have several panels that rotate through. In the General panel change the Keyboard increments to 0.2px. and check the box beside Scale Strokes and Effects. UnCheck the Append [converted] Upon Opening Legacy Files. The 0.2 px will give you finer control, scaling strokes and effects will maintain your outline appearance etc and when you send cut files they are often older versions and you don't necessarily want them updated to a newer version every time you open them up because it will then save them as newer versions and cause you trouble. In the Selection panel be sure the Object Selection by Path Only is checked. This will make it so you don't accidentally select objects you didn't intend to. You simply click at the edge of the part your wanting to select. You may want to adjust your anchor points and handle preferences while your there and I have the Show handles when multiple anchors are selected as well. In the Units panel set General, Strokes and Type all to Points. Finally in the Appearance of Black panel I run On Screen to display all blacks accurately and Print/Export to output all blacks as Rich Black. This isn't so much for vinyl but is a good setting Another HUGE side note. AI is the only program I have found that can turn off the Bounding Box. Once you have your selection set to select by path. turn off the bounding box View>Hide Bounding Box and you won't have that annoying box around everything. Your selected object will be visible by the highlighted path. You can always click it back on if you want to use it to upsize or rotate something but I just use the Object>Scale or Object>Rotate to do those functions and rarely have the box showing. I don't know if anyone else dislikes the bounding box but it irritates me to no end and I appreciate being able to turn it off. Live Effects AI has a lot of what are termed Live Effects. These include Stroke and all the warp options etc... These are handy and in some cases necessary for design but you have to at some point expand them in order for the final art to match the cut paths. A simple trip to View>Outlines will show you want the cutter will see. As for strokes, I use no stroke when designing cut files with the exception of applications where I want to do multi-layered work and have the bottom layer overlapped by the outlines such as HTV outlines around lettering. When using strokes and expanding them it will leave the original object centered in the stroke area. The rest of the time I use Object>Path>Offset Path to create these. Text is basically the same thing but called Live Text until it is converted to outlines (which also needs to be done to cut it. Depending on the method used you may have to expand text and then expand the appearance if it is warped etc... Some workflows will do this in one step. Objects When working with multiple objects and performing functions such "welding" (to be discussed next) you will find that most operations perform better when the Group is changed into a Compound Path. A compound path is commonly known as something with a hole in it like a letter A but can also be a group of objects. Illustrator looks at Groups differently than single Objects. Changing a string of text for instance into a Compound Path by Object>Compound Path>Make will let AI consider the whole string of letters as ONE object which lets special functions perform properly. You may stumble across Compound Shapes as well which are similar to a live effect and need to be expanded. "Welding" Although not an Adobe term, welding is an easy to grasp description that is widely used in graphic discussions. AI has several forms of this function thus finds the term lacking. For basic welding/joining the usual choice for beginners is the Merge function from the Pathfinder menu. Unfortunately this tool will create issues for vinyl cutters. A better choice is the Unite tool. (I think some of the older versions may have a different name for this) Unite will weld various objects together usually without filling in any existing "holes" within compound paths. Merge appears the same and in some cases is the only option if Unite decides to mess something up. However, Merge will also leave unfilled objects inside all the "holes" of an object. Failure to notice these has caused a lot of cutters grief as the cutter will cut that object out as well as the main cut meaning a double cut often messing up the project. The unfilled object problem can also surface when using certain presets in the live trace feature. I set my presets to ignore white but older versions do not have this option. Should you have unfilled objects within a compound path there is a simple remedy. Select one of the unfilled objects, I prefer to find them in the little preview pics over in the Layers panel. Use the little button beside it to select it and then go to elect same button and elect all the objects with the same fill. This will select all within the document and you can just delete them. You will notice that nothing in the appearance changed thus affirming the need to remove them prior to cutting. (As an aside, many cutting programs have a Cut-by-Color options that can also separate these out if you forget to do so.) Live Trace Most newbies see the Live Trace feature when placing an object into the art board and expect it to work miracles. Well, it won't. IF you get a really clean black and white image you can sometimes get a passable result but those are rare. There are some who have fantastic PS skills and can clean up an image and turn it into a traceable design but it takes practice and skill. I usually just trace it out using the Pen tool. Slower but yields great results once you get familiar with the keyboard keys used in combination to the mouse. Another side note. The Pencil tool is probably the least known jewel in the toolbox. If you have something that isn't looking good. Select the object in question and then use the pencil tool to draw over the part of the object that is looking bad and it will append the line to match your pencil path and also apply the auto line smoothing to that area and can help clean up a bad spot in a live trace. I don't pretend to be an authority on the program but these techniques have helped me over the years and hopefully they will help you. I was originally going to post this in the Instructional Contribution area but decided it was better suited to the AI section. There are lots of other tips and tricks but these is the basics.
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  7. 1 point
    Just a couple thoughts. Double check that your carriage has not partially slipped off the rail. And that your drive rollers are not loose. There are small screws that secure the drive shaft that have been known to come loose especially if you moved and it got knocked around. Also you said you had to buy new software to be compatible with your mac and the cutter. I believe the MH is one of the cutters that does not allow you to set the blade offset directly on the machine but is dependent on the software to make this adjustment. There is possibly some issue between the two. Double check that the increments for your blade offset are in mm. 0.30mm is an appropriate amount of offset but 0.33 inches would not be. I would adjust your blade offset both directions by a large margin and see if it actually changes. t's possible you have some issues with the program telling your cutter what to do. If you need a second option try the SignCut free trial and you will have something to compare with.
  8. 1 point
    Welcome from Michigan
  9. 1 point
    I tried many different things and then finally just decided to go spend the money on illustrator and I’m super happy I did. I don’t do crazy volume but it makes my life so much easier and super easy to learn. I never used it up till the day I decided to buy & after a few hours and some you tube I was able to figure it out. I’m not the greatest with curving the nodes but it’s all trial and error. Won’t learn till you try. The trace tool works but sometimes it can be a super pain.
  10. 1 point
    Thanks ! I’m sure you guys have great trails over there!
  11. 1 point
    Hello and welcome from Idaho. (Jeep country)
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  13. 1 point
    Figure out how long it takes you to cut and weed and process 1. Figure out your costs. Now make a profit. I don't go by any ones' prices. I figure out a profit for me. I don't care what others charge. And many charge less than me. I get and keep good business by my designs and service.
  14. 1 point
    Abandoned & Auctioned Storage lockers - gotta love 'em. A friend of mine obtained a locker recently and it contained a hat press, which he let me have for the low-low deal of $80. And then, astonishingly, on craigslist some fellow had a case of hats for sale (60 for $70). So, I'm now about to try hat making, while all I need is some HTV vinyl.
  15. 1 point
    OK, so I walked into a local restaurant (randomly just stopped-in to use their restroom). On the front door was residue from a decal that had been scraped-off with the name of the General Manager removed. I inquired inside about who the new GM was, and could I talk to him/her. He pops out from the back and I explained that I'm a decal maker, would he like his name placed there on the door? Sure, he said, they were actually looking to have that done anyway, but hadn't gotten around to it. How much did I charge? I suggested that the restaurant just 'comp' me a dinner in barter. Very delicious! mini-Meatballs appetizers, stuffed Baked Potato, Salad Bar, Seared Fish.
  16. 1 point
  17. 1 point
    I would recommend staying away from a multi platform press. I suggest a decent swing away press and you will want at least a 15" x 15" size. The reason for the larger size is that getting a shirt lined up square is much easier on a larger platen. Without your shirt square to something it is then hard to get a square to the world logo placement. A 16" x 20" is even better IMO but you can live with a 15" to start with and decide if you can build up that side of things and invest in something bigger and better later. HTV is great for orders from 1 to 25 or 30. I have done much larger orders than that with success but they had just a small 4" logo. As soon as you get a lot of coverage area the cost of the vinyl plus the effort to cut and weed soon price you out of the market (on volume orders). For short runs there is really very little set up costs with HTV so you have the advantage over a screen print operation that has to burn screens. As far as printed graphics on the shirts I think you'll find the options more limited. The JPSS is pretty good on white cotton or 50/50 but not good on colored shirts. The 3G mentioned above is an alternative for dark shirts but it is pretty sucky as far as feel (called "hand") I do a few but usually try to talk my customers out of it of I can. I know there are HTV options that you can print on should you end up with a solvent printer but just like the 3G you end up with too much vinyl on your chest and it makes a sweat box as well as feeling heavy and uncomfortable. The DTG guys rule that world but are similarly expensive and limited application. Best market to bust into it with is HTV at the start. There are custom wholesale screen print transfers you can buy from places like F&M Expressions that you can use your own heat press and they just build your screen prints on a paper transfer sheet. This is what I do to compete with the screen printers when I have a volume order too large for HTV.
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  19. 1 point
    Hi Jenn, I agree with Primal about experimenting but there are some "industry specs" : Left Chest = 4" Full Front / Full Back = 12" Short Sleeve = 4" Long Sleeve = 12" Leg = 14" Sometimes 12" wide is too big for the front...I have actually had customers request 10" wide. Hope that helps! Chrissy Say It!