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Greatly depends on what/where it's being installed. There's no generic answer. In some cases having a border or some sort of straight edge is very handy, others it draws attention if not lined up perfectly.

My Graphtec dropped data at 16 ft. I had to go back to 12ft. Not sure how a powered hub would work. 12 ft works great for me. Also I would want to be close to my cutter, when you hit send. Big jam ups could ruin your cutter.

Die cutting is not done with a blade, it is done with a die and a press. Blade life will be shortened when cutting harder material. 60 degree blade is recommended for thicker material and several on here use them for everything.

BigLodgeTypeFree (Regular) is what you seek. mark-s

Judging from that photo I would disagree. If the blade is set correctly it is impossible to cut into the backing paper as seen in your photo.

I run both my LaserPoint and Graphtec from an (old) MacPro (intel), MacBook Pro (intel), and Mac Mini (M1). All through Parallels. The Intel-based machines are running Win7, because that's my preference, the M1 runs Win10. The only issue that I've run into, is the LaserPoint on the new M1 machine, but it runs the Graphtec CE6000-60 Plus just fine. I can run the Graphtec Studio natively in Mac OS, and can run Graphtec Pro Studio and SignBlazer in Win7&10.

I figured out the issue. When in doubt reinstall VM, and install your new cutter upon it asking you when going over adding your cutter.

My two concern with not taping is scratching it during install and flimsiness of untaped vinyl. If you have a good felt squeegee though the risk of scratching should be minimal. And If the design isn't too big working directly with vinyl shouldn't be too big a deal. Give it a try. Worst that can happen is you mess up the vinyl and you have to do it again.

Suptac is calendared vinyl, according to what I looked up online. Using App-tape is the rule, of course, but if he's careful he can peel this thing directly from the backing and drop it. Hey, dakota, with inflation running so high these days, you should up that to a nickle.

Personally I would tape it to make sure there is no stretching and protect it when applied. A 7 year cast is pretty thin and easily stretched . Just my 2 cents

My name is Bridget and my handle is MacGrafix. I was a forum member from years ago. Life got the best of me and I had to duck out for a while. I ended up moving from big city life to small town life. I used to be very active here, so I am hoping that one or two remember me. Anyways, I am glad to be back and hope to learn more from the people who are still in the game. I dusted the old cutter off and away we go.

I cleaned up some old Koh-I-Noor Rapidographs, and these are by far the best results I've gotten so far. They're made for technical drawing, so that makes sense I placed them so the bottom of the colored rings of the handle were lined up with the top of the tool holder. All the Rapidograph tests were done at 10mm/s & 10g, using Yasutomo Sumi Ink. Here's the first 0.5mm tests I did: As a comparison, here's a test of the same file I did with the ultra-fine point Sharpie, after abusing it during lots of tests, and letting it dry out once (oops) - this may have been at a faster speed, though: Just to be fair, here's the same test with a new Sharpie, at 10mm/s & 10g - lots of bleeding compared to the Rapidograph: And finally, here's the 0.3mm tip with a 0.6mm hatching, which is super clean - this was the first test I used it on, so the beginning of the B was a little dry still: And thanks for all the advice regarding cutting! I'm going to try to mess around with cutting this paper using the carrier sheet this weekend.

The mat is only needed if your cutter needs it or if the vinyl being cut is too small. Just load the vinyl in your SC, shinny side down, mirror the cut and you're good to go.

Thanks so much, I'll give vinyl master a shot. I'm new to vinyl cutting, I don't know why I was so wrapped around cutting master. Probably because the videos I watched and software on the graphtec site with little to no other info on other softwares for plotters. Vinylmaster worked... y'all are awesome. Thank you. I don't know why my endless google searches never came up with vinylmaster.

Sorry for the late response. I finally figured it out. I needed to connect via r232/usb instead of parallel and now everything seems to be working.

This is what I do. I like a diamond or a triangle shape. I place them where I want them and then group and copy paste them on top of one another in each color layer so they are all on the same spot on the design.

If you have a Prismcut, use the "pause" button instead of the "stop" button.

That's looking really good! Thanks for keeping us updated and showing your results.

For the record, Mz. Skeeter is loved by many here --- she is a true gem.

Try the serial port on the cutter. The USB port on the MHs are just trouble.

It all starts with having the correct blade depth. That is where you start. Too many wrong instructions out there that just won't go away. Do not use a credit card or post it notes to set your blade depth. It is way too much blade exposed. Use the TEST feature on your vinyl cutter. That TEST cut should be right, before you go sending designs. Blade offset starts at 0.25mm. Then go 0.05 plus or minus and see what looks good. To start with, you should set your blade depth correctly, by taking the blade holder out of the machine, and firmly cut across a piece of scrap vinyl, you will be cutting. You should only be cutting the vinyl and barely a mark on wax paper backing, Adjust blade to get there, Then put the blade holder back in machine, and use the force of the machine to get there, same results, only cutting the vinyl and barely a mark in wax paper backing. You should barely see and feel the blade out of the blade holder. Regular sign vinyl is only 2-3 mil thick. You only cut with the very tip of the blade. When you think the blade tip is so far in the blade holder that you wouldn't think it would cut, It is probably about right. Illustrator does not have a way to set blade offset or blade overcut, which you need on a value cutter. Always make sure you have vinyl prefed to do the whole order. Never be pulling from a roll while cutting.

Sounds a lot like you are still thinking in terms of raster graphics and not in the terms of vector graphics the plotter uses. Conversion programs don’t work well with vector graphics that require tracing to make them readable with arcs and nodes instead of pixels. Vinyl master is a solid choice, I had several ce5000’s and they work with many softwares made for plotters

For $59. you can purchase Vinyl Master cut from Vinyl Master.com. and be on updated software. It's a download. Inkscape.org is Free design software. and they keep it updated. Open source. Export as .eps. import into Vinyl Master. I'm sure at 15 wasted hours, $59 is pretty cheap. You can even download demos. Cutter needs to be on Command HP-GL. Some people still use Signblazer, but it hasn't been updated for many years also, Uses version 8.eps. Not everything is free. Professional software costs $1000's. Example. Flexisignpro.

I am still running my Flexistarter 8.6 on XP, and never have problems. Have you tried to reinstall your Flexistarter? Do a system restore on your computer. Turn off the updates on your computer.

If it isn't 6" x 18" at a minimum, I just toss it. I'll accumulate some 'strips' of vinyl from 30" rolls that I run through for jobs that are only 22" wide (and I don't have any 24" on hand) -- but those narrow leftovers are normally 8'-16' in length, and have value. Strips are good for DOT#'s