gmatov

Ken, No problem here with that. It IS a competitor's machine, and it is a competitor's video. I'm sure the site owner has copyright infringement in mind, too, when he says no can do. Chance is probably very good that whoever makes their machine also makes your/our (I DID buy one, remember ) machine, or a goodly percentage of it. Actually, the only reason I know of that link is I am considering buying a laser from him, and he sent it to me to see how easy the laser set up is. Vinyl cutter vids were a bonus. Cheers, George

Ross, Well, my kid talked me into buying a Graphtec machine. Got it Saturday, tried it Sunday, couldn't get it to work. Got hold of the tech people and they straightened her out. Got there today and she brought me sample cuts, card stock glued to carrier sheet. Good cuts except for the glitches in the vector graphic. Daigonal lines I saw on the printed picture, with a jag in them, cut out with the same jag on them. So, it DOES follow the picture as printed with the reference marks. Still, I would like to see this on US Cutter machines, especially as an add on. That might be a bit difficult. At 350 for the 721, another 100 would get me to buy one for my other kid. I don't know whether she will take this one to do her work or share the new machine. At this point neither has enough work to monopolize the machine. If they DO get enough work, of course, they will have to buy their own machines in future. After all, if money's rolling in, spend it. Maybe I can use what's left of my money to buy a laser for myself. Cheers, George

Ken, I sent you the link. You reviewed it and liked it. You said you would try to get it "cleansed" and posted. I haven't seen it. My intent was that it is a video means of setting up the vinyl in the machine, not to sell a competing machine. Face it, if they are here, they have bought a US Cutter machine, need help. e-mail me if you want the link. Easy video directions. Worth a thousand words.. Chinese, so you won't GET many words, all subtitles telling you the basics.. My PM function doesn't seem to work. I can recieve, cannot send. I don't know why. Cheers, George I own a 721, I am not trying to get them here to buy another brand, mods can check that out if they wish.

Ken, dboy said 30 mil, that's .75 mm, 30 thou thick. And, it's rubbery, so gonna take some drag force to push the blade through it I have magnets on my fridge from .021 to .056. .5 mm to 1.4 mm. I have only the blades that came with the machine, 45 degree. I am assuming the 60 degree blades are ground 60 from the horzontal, so to get an edge on them would make a longer, narrower point, thinner for farther up the blade, easier to push, since they wont flare out the top of the rubber magnet, or poster board/stencil board, for that matter, nearly so much. I think they would be a bit more fragile, but carbide is a very hard material. Brittle but hard. Cheers, George

rrc62, I don't know what any of those other machines will do. I DO think that I can make a point on the paper that will get the cutter to cut out what I want it to. I have been studying th Graphtec Pro, and the pics it shows are TWO reg marks, one top right, one bottom right. I don't really believe the optical registration it brags about is as good as they say it is. F'rinstance, tack down a piece of paper to a carrier sheet, if you don't have it aligned to the in-out drive of the machine, I doubt that it will hunt all over the place to find the reg mark. I don't think it has the computation power built into it to determine much misalignment. I don't think, either, that it will use the computer's resources to aid in that. I have 2 kids trying to share this machine, think they are teaming up on me to buy a Graphtec Pro, because it SAYS it will look for those marks and adjust the angle of cut 10 or whatever degrees to cut out the graphic they print. Skewing vynil, if you will. Still gonna find the outline of a star they print on paper, just because it has REG marks on it, and the cutter has that HOLY Automatic Registration whatever built into it. I don't think it has enough of a computer built in to follow a line, like a plasma or oxy-acetyline burning machine. Half million buck machines, of course you can build a computer into it. I think a reg mark, right front and left front, look at where the knife falls, will give you a start point, IF the points are part of the file you feed it. If your machine or the software can do "pounce" or tearoffs, it should just bounce the knife down on the "reg" marks, go to the main outline, which, since you have created them ALL in the same program, SHOULD cut out what you want, or damned near enough that if tou dont have an "outline" that would show a little bit less here, a little bit less ther, should do it. Since I have to buy them this "God says this machine can do all you want this machine to do." and my kids want me to send tihis back, I am going to bring it home, MAKE the sumbitch do what they say it can't do, and some of you, also say it CAN'T do. What in the hell I am going to do with it, after, or if, I get it to work, I don't know. Since I am a little older than a lot of you, with failing eyes, and happy to be machining little things on my little machines, mebbe plotting largish prints to read the dimensions from the tiny prints I am now working from. Hey, a 7 X 10 print from a book, plotted to a 2 x 4 FOOT print, one I can see the decimals might be a good thing. Yeah, I think I will keep it. Cheers, George

Admins, Would it be alright for me to link to a competing vendor, a Chinese vendor, that has some videos available showing in detail how to set up the machine, from removing fron carton and bolting together, to aligning vynil roll material. Site also sells laser cutters, has laser setup and operation vids. If allowed, and if anyone does view, mine, at least, open in Quicktime, 2 X 3 pic or so. I DL'd and open with Win Media Player, Ctrl-Enter, and get full screen. Large enough file to see pretty well full screen. The 2 in reference to cutters are about 360 megs, combined, probably 20 minutes each. I am sure this would be a little more helpful than the advice given from some knowledgable Admins to people with maybe a little less mechanical comprehension I am almost sure to buy a laser cutter from this vendor, US sales office in Texas, price about half, or less, of the others I have seen. Said that all the imported lasers are built up from the same components from the same makers. I would rather pay 2 thou rather than 4 to 6 thou for basically the same machine. Just as I bought a Refine when I could have spent way more to get the same virtual machine, some cosmetic changes, for way more money. I am happy with what I recieved, should be happy with their laser, too. Please let me know with a "Yes you may link.", a "No, we can't allow you to do that.", or, at your discretion, put a "Deleted by Admin" to this post, or a "locked". Thanks, George An alternative would be a "No you may not link, but if anyone wants to e-mail or IM for the link, that is out of our hands."

Mine had absolutely no communication with LPT1. When I got home last night, went to SignCut, DL'd their instructions. They said to use Serial rather than parallel as the preferred, and to choose Refine 1, then try Refine 2, then Refine (something) as the preferred driver. Works, now, but it might have worked with Refine 1 and parallel, if I had loaded those rather than Refine 721. No matter, it works, which is better than last night. I had a computer, I had a cutter, I had no combination of the 2. Now I do. Cheers, George

I have sent 2 IMs on this Forum, 2nd just a few minutes ago. After it was sent, took me back to Messages page. Looked at "Sent Box", no messages there. Did a search with my user name. No messages. What is, or what AM I doing, wrong? Not being looked at is one thing. No one has to do that. It should, however, show up as a sent message. Will have to post the same question in the appropriate forum thread. Cheers, George

Ross, Thanks for your input. Man, I can't afford that VersaCamm. And, I can't see the other Roland products, cutter/plotter, being any better, as to "registration", than this one. If you have to have the printed matter, with registration mark, perfectly calibrated, this machine and my printer output, I gotta assume the Roland would have to be perfectly calibrated, too, to your particular printer. I am thinking of using either a period, say exactly 1/4 inch outside the cut area, say the tip of a daisy petal I have mentioned, that can be done, in pixels, I guess, in the photo programs, advance the paper exactly 1/4 inch, press "origin". Should cut from there. How to MAKE that petal the "start" point of the cut, I don't know. I guess I'll have to print some and cut them to see where it does start. Maybe be better to use that dot as part of the cut. Will always cut from there, direction of cut wouldn't matter. Have to check that out. Also finding that it does not cut stuff out of paper all that well. Cutting itself is good, but when you have cut the outline of a letter, and knife goes tou cut out the inside stuff, letter "e" for example, the outline of the "e" gets dragged loose, gets cut up, paper tries to wad up under the knife, quickly goes to pot. Not a problem with vinyl with backing. Needs carrier sheets, I guess, to hold it down, loose hold glue board, such as Roland sells for 2 for 20 bucks, and I have been told good for mebbe 10 cuts before loses its tack. Daughter has been told you can buy a spray adhesive to renew it, but seems to me that cutting through paper is going to eat at least a little ways into the carrier sheet, still have to replace them at intervals. Ah, well, what would I do if I didn't have something like this to do? Vegetate? Cheers, George I'm sorry to carry this post on for another question, this to Kenimes. Can't seem to send an IM, type, send, check Outbox, nothing there, so are they gettin' et up somehow. Anyhow. Ken, I pushed as hard as I could to free up the head end pinch roll carrier. Will not budge. I need that roll to hold the material down. Can you tell me, right here, whether I can bridge the head end casting with a 1 X 2 board, same on the carriage, and give it some mechanical leverage? It is jammed over half the diameter of the screw head under the carriage. Slide the center carriage against it, good 1/16 inch gap at the front, slide 2nd and 3rd together, less than 1/32 gap at the front. Stuck tighter'n a bull's butt in fly time. If I break it, will the Co. send me a new one? Machine Repairman all my life, think I can install a new one. Oh, yes, when I mentioned I moved the head manually, I forgot to mention that it was off the track. I had read lift up and push in to reraiil it. That was easy. Cheers, George

Marcuso, Thanks. I wasn't ignorant of how to install the RAM, just wher'nhell it goes.. Same as a BIOS chip. The test cuts we did didn't show ANY cutting of the fibre strip. I think I have the blade sticking out just enough to go through the matte photo paper. Spare parts, I am sure you can get to me quicker than the machine. That was 10 days, but clear across the country, by truck. Package of parts, priority mail, less than 3 days, at least for anything I have sold, as far as Oregon. If you do find the registration mark thing, let me know. My kid played with it, or tried to last night. Called me from work today, "Hey, what kind of return policy do they have?" Turns out she can't get anything to go to the machine from the computer. And, she doesn't like that she has to import into SignCut from Adobe. Wants me to try to return it and buy a Roland. I have it connected with parallel port, no printers installed on the machine I took over to her house. Checked that today. Hey, if I have to get her a Roland, she isn't going to get a 24 inch. 8 1/2 inch will be the cash limit. I can get a Laser cutter/engraver for about the price of a Roland GX24. Kenimes, Thanks. I just watched the videos dl'd from Rabbit. All the pinch rolls move on their machine. Looks just like yours, but the stand looks to be more substantial. No matter. I like it, she doesn't, but the reason she gave me is she feels "more comfortable" with the Roland. I asked how many times she has used a Roland. Never, but that's not the point. I am a little po'd at this point. Just as I have been at her insistance that I buy a 6 thou laser cutter from one company, rather than a 4 thou from another company, because the salesman told her it was better, and have found that SAME laser from another company for a bit over 2 thou. I would love to buy that laser cutter, mostly for her, but it would do a few things I want to do also. It doesn't meet the sweet talking specification of the 6 thou vendor, though. I'm closing out now. Blood's getting a little overheated. Cheers, George

Ken, Thanks. Soon as I get her network setup, I'll try that. Hope it is like a Win update. If not, probably have to completely uninstall and install the newer copy. We'll see. George

Tater, It won't be me that's a better "man", it will be she. She THINKS she can do it. I hope she is right. Absolute calibration between priner and cutter. I don't know how she is going to get around that. She does understand vector graphics, as does my other daughter, who will also use this machine. I dl'd Inkscape for her and she said she uses it all the time, already. Silly me, to think they're not ahead of me on such matters. I'll let you know if she does get it to work Cheers, George Ken, you posted while I was typing this, warning came up when I went to submit, read your post. Thanks for all the info. Two questions remain. The head end pinch roll is either fixed there, or it is jammed somehow. I still don't want to try to force it off that "rivet head like" projection under the edge of it. I don't know if it is supposed to be fixed there, or if that is a mechanical stop. The other is the 2 copies of SignCut, the one that came with the package, and the one I paid 60 bucks for. Since one is "free" with the cutter, we have a 3 year license available to us, via the certificate. Do we use the extra, purchased certificate to extend that to 6 years or should I go back to USCutter and ask for a refund for the unopened copy and send back the certificate as well, or credit toward additional spare parts? Thanks, George

BJ, I have DL'd the latest version, not knowing that it came with Signcut. It is a Win executable. Will it update just as any Win program will, or does it work as a lot of the Linux software updates do? Cheers, George

I have to agree with Marcuso here, too. Just got mine yesterday, set it up. I would have thought the "blade" was just that, a blade, a thin flat shank, that goes in the holder, with a thin flat blade with a dogleg on it to give it caster action. Instead, it is a pencil lead thick round, with a sharp wedge grind on it, maybe, didn't measure it, 1.5 to 2 mm diameter. To sink that chisel point into sand blast masking rubber, much less thick hard poster board over maybe 1/2 mm thick would take lots of down force and stepper motor torque. That wedge has to force material out of its path to cut thicker material. If it WILL do it, I would wager that the non-rubbery material would have a "burr" thrown up all around it. Cheers, George

Ken, Thanks. My daughter thinks she can do just that. I think she intends to make a mark on her printed material, or in the file she feeds the cutter. "Cut starts here, cut to here, follow outline of picture, finish here. Set up the cutter yesterday, cut a few "Tests" in matte photo paper, knife in front position. Couple questions, while I'm in this thread. I see the fibre cutting strip you mailed me about. Can that be bought for replacement, if and when it should get too ragged, like the nylon replacement strip I bought with the machine? The pinch roll on the head end of the machine does not move. At least not with any force I am willing to use on it till I learn whether it should or not. It looks to have kind of a round rivet head under the left edge, looking at it from the rear. I don't know whether that is to keep it in that position, or it is a limit to keep it from bieng moved any farther left, looking at it from the rear side. The other two slide like grease through a goose. I inadvertently moved the head when I was cutting the wrapping off it. Does it reset when you press the reset or source or whatever control. It does come to rest against what I thought was a reset button for a circuit breaker, but now think has to be a home limit switch. Bought 4 meg RAM for it. What little paperwork comes with the machine does not tell you where that GOES. Is there a better breakdown manual available on line for this machine? Extra/replacement motors are available from you, motherboard, too. Where in the heck do they go? Even more OT from my original question, machine comes with SignCut PE. I thought it came with LE. Bought what amounts to a second copy, for 60 bucks. Can I use both, for 6 years use? License is for 3 years on the one that came with it. Use both, or ask to return one for credit toward maybe a spare motherboard? Hope this isn't too confusing. Any answers to this post will not be apparent to anyone reading my original question. My daughter is the brains when it comes to this Photoshop and Illustrator stuff. PSP is about my limit. If she can get this thing to cut out a preprint, and explain it well enough to me to repeat it, I'll try to post it. If I am not clear, I'll try to get her to join and clarify things. Meanwhile, if anyone else knows how to do this, please let me/ all of us know. Thanks. George