ShaneGreen

Darcshadow, that's what I ended up doing. Had to create a makeshift pen cap to keep it from drying out afterwards, but the fineline sharpie made a nice thick, easy to read line.

If you use a straight edge and an exact-o it's not that hard to cut right on the edge of the weedbox. If you are gang cutting a handful of the same design all of the weedboxes will be the same size. If you are cutting a bunch of different decals at once, I'll sometimes create my own weedbox making all of the decals the same size (or maybe just the same width, depending on what I'm cutting). It's simple to line them up in the cutfile, then I can lay my 36" straight edge down and cut one side of a dozen pieces at once. Repeat for the opposite side and then just cut between each one to separate.

Thanks Mz Skeeter.

A topic I actually know a little about. Owned a web hosting company and built online databases for 15 years, still do a little of it. If it is posted on the internet and not password protected (in other words, you don't have to have a username and password to access it) then you can legally link to it from anywhere else on the internet. The key here is the word "link". - You CANNOT post a copy of an image or video from one site to another. Quoting text is a whole other matter. - The link must take you to the originating site. So a link to a Stahls video that takes you to their website or another host where Stahls has posted it (youtube, etc.) is perfectly legal. These types of links are usually encouraged as they drive traffic to their site and boast their search engine rankings. - If the link is to a static page then the link has to be descriptive text or the URL of the page it's taking you to. With written permission the link can be a screenshot or graphic. - If the link is to a video then it can be descriptive text, URL or a screen shot from the video. - The owner of the content (website, image, video, etc.) has the right to request you remove the link. If for some reason they request you remove it, you must comply immediately. This usually happens if the content of your site goes against the image the content owner is trying to project. So if you have a site dedicated to wild game hunting, the American Vegan Association might ask you to remove the link to their content. - If the owner of the site you are on asks you to remove a link to another site you must comply. For instance, USCutter has the right to ask you to remove (or remove it themselves) a link to one of their competitors on this forum. In physical world terms, if someone owns a custom car and keeps it in the garage, you have no right to go peeking in the windows or telling others to. If they park it in the driveway, you can drive by and gawk all you want. You can tell your friends where it's parked so they can drive by. But you can't drive it to your house.

I haven't used it on htv yet ( have never cut any until later this week) but it works great on 651 and some Greenstar I have laying around.

White 651 gives me fits like that. Don't know why, but I just can't seem to see where it's been cut. Bought one of these tracing lights off of Amazon a few months ago and it's been fantastic. Even on dark colors you can see a definite contrast where the cut lines are. Had a few small pieces pull up on me one day and with the tracing board the indentations on the carrier/backing jump out at you so it was easy to get them back in the right spot rather than guessing. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0747MB622/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I really wonder how much humidity plays a role in the longevity of a "completed" decal. There are a dozen or so sitting on a file cabinet that were cut and taped over a year ago and they are fine. But at other times, some have curled or wrinkled transfer tape in less than a day.

VinylMaster has a great YouTube channel with a ton of videos. I just started at the first video with my notepad and a cup of coffee. If I found something I knew I'd want to review later, I wrote down the video name and how many minutes into the video the information was. It will take a couple of days to watch them all but it was well worth it! Now, the downside to their channel is that they suck at telling you which version of VM the command is found in. So you sort of need to follow along in VM and see if the commands they are talking about are available in your version.

I'm confused by the statement "He said a design that uses fonts other than VM's own would have to be designed in some other program (Illustrator, CorelDraw, etc) and imported into VM as a vector file." The VM Cut that came with my cutter read what fonts were installed on my PC and made them all available for use. I've upgraded to VM Pro since then and am overwhelmed by the number of fonts that come with it, but it still offers me everything installed on my PC also. Maybe it's a Mac specific issue? Also, VM Pro allows you to see fonts in pt, in, cm, whatever. >Tools >Settings >General >Editing >Text Units.

click off of the image and text. Good chance you just have the text selected and so that's all that is going to get sent to the print spooler. Or another way to do it is to use the Select tool (arrow in upper left of menu) and drag a big box over everything so that everything get's selected.

In VinylMaster... >File > New Document >File > Import >File Grab the file you want and then it will put you back on the blank new document. Place your cursor where you want it and left click. Click on the image to select it and then >Arrange >Ungroup to make the bits editable. You can actually import multiple SVGs to the same document. { WOOT WOOT! 100 posts! I wish my high school guidance counselor could see me now!!! }

So a man named Ben Ayer had posted a video and I sent him a message and he sent me these pictures and another video. So the credit goes to Ben on this one. "Teflon cutting board from Walmart. 3” pvc pipe small board some felt and glue plus four screws was the cheapest way I found to do it Hope this helped" taper_video-1.mp4

Sorry about that, seems the video is only available to people in whatever facebook group that was. And I don't know what group. I sent him a message asking if he'll make the video public, so we will see.

I've been wanting to build this guy's version of a large taper: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1351769568258253&set=p.1351769568258253&type=3&theater

At 6' 7" I wear a 3X-Tall. Best friends owned a silkscreen shop until recently and they would throw an extra on for me all the time if they were doing something fun. It was almost always the same screen as they used for everything else and you really couldn't tell. When I would order for our volunteer fire department there were a couple of 4X and 5X, so they created a second screen with a bigger image, but it really wasn't that noticeable so we stopped doing it. Making a larger image can get to be a problem if you're doing multiple colors in silk screen. The weight gets to adding up. A 10x10 image is 100 square inches of ink, but a 12x12 is 144, nearly 50% more ink. You can really tell the difference. The shirt is already heavier and now it has all that extra ink. The bigger image also means a bigger sweaty spot.

I'm sure the pressure reading is a relatively arbitrary number and not a true gram reading. However, from one LPII to the next it should be reasonably comparable. With the factory blades I was running 185g. Switching to the CleanCut I'm able to get much better precision and easier weeding at only 111g. The blades made a huge difference. It was like upgrading the whole cutter. But the type of blade won't make make a bit of difference if the depth isn't set right. Mz Skeeter's instructions are everywhere on this board and are worth committing to memory.

I have an LPII, also and the same problem with white. The suggestions so far are right on the money. Mz Skeeter's suggestion of bumping up the pressure will help quite a bit. Wildgoose is right that the CleanCut blade makes a huge difference. Most importantly, don't let it sit. Weed it immediately. To test it out I cut a design one afternoon and didn't weed, cut the same design the next morning and then weeded both.....massive difference. The white definitely self heals. Even an hour or two will make a difference with white. It's not just 651, I've got some Green Star (USCutter's store brand 651 "equivalent" ). The white on it is the same way. Just last week I was on here pulling my hair out because 3M Scotchbrite reflective is so much harder to cut and weed in white then it is in red and black. I bought a lightboard off Amazon because I couldn't see the lines to weed it after less than an hour. Slightly interesting side note: balloon twisters have the same issue. Certain colors are much more prone to popping because the additives used to color the latex make them more brittle. White balloons are actually tougher. They don't pop as easily but they are harder to heat shape. So next time you see a clown making a bunny hat, remember that you have something in common.

1016 is what VM has for my LaserPoint II, so that is probably a good number like Darkshadow said. When you "Send to Cutter" it shows you a preview on a cutter. It shows the dimensions of the cut just like on a blue print. Are those dimensions reading correctly? Now they might be off a bit because of weedboxes, etc. but they should be pretty close. Also, when you send a test cut directly from your cutter, not from VinylMaster, what size does it come out? What cutter are you using so someone with that cutter can tell us if that's the right size test cut?

Ok, this was a really weird problem yesterday that I mentioned in another thread, but wanted to open this topic and see if anyone had an idea. Vinyl Master Pro on Win10 and Laser Point II. So I'm cutting a sign yesterday out of reflective and don't want to waste the expensive material so I fill the rest of the width with some clipart piece. There will be 4 different colors of vinyl used for the two jobs so I use "Send To Cutfile". In VM a "cutfile" is essentially a new image with a layer/page for each color of vinyl. This allows you to run a bunch of different images as one job for each color. I've used it a ton of times with no problem...until yesterday. The first issue is that within a cutfile there is a command, "cut this page." The command works fine, but doesn't give you access to the "Send To Cutter" screen, so you can't do multiple passes. I've got to run two passes to insure the reflective cuts all the way. Since "Cut This Page" won't do multiple passes you have to ignore that included feature and use the "Send To Cutter" at the top of the page. I'm wondering if this is causing part of the problem. The big issue happened when I started cutting. Everything is running along fine, doing two passes, until I get to the registration marks I'd added to the clipart. It cut each registration mark 8 times (or 4 times with 2 passes each, maybe)! Cut anything 8 times and you're going to have trouble. The registration marks lifted from the page and stuck to the blade holder to be drug around the image. The blade finally cut through the backing paper in places. - VM registration marks are a 5 piece image: 4 triangles and an octagon center. But it cut them out as two opposing triangles and then the remaining two and the octagon were one piece. Very weird. - VM states that registration marks are created once, but in a special color, rather than once per color/layer. Then when sent to the cutter, that special color is cut by default. That way you can create your own registration marks. - It did this on all three colors that had the clipart. - I verified, twice, that there were no copies of the mark hiding behind the other. - The clipart cut fine by itself, only cutting the registration marks once. I then created a new cutfile with just the clipart and it was fine. I added registration marks to another image and set it to 2 passes and it worked fine. So now I can't reproduce the problem, but it happened 3 times yesterday. This blade isn't going to hold up long if it does this again. Any ideas?

You're system would probably work better. Then I can make a registration mark that is more logical. The automatic one is 5 small pieces and that makes it real easy to knock a piece out of alignment. This white reflective doesn't stay stuck to the backing paper on anything smaller then about a nickle, you can easily slide small pieces all over the backing, so making a mark that is one piece would be helpful. As long as I make it their default registration color it will be cut on every page/layer/color. So that will save a few steps. Thanks!

I wasn't referring to an update from Vinyl Master. Win10 itself updates files nearly everyday, as do many other pieces of software, all automatically. If any update is tying up your system or restarting certain drivers, it can cause communication problems that are nearly impossible to track down. It sounds like you're having a communication issue. The usual way to solve those is to keep eliminating any possible causes until it's resolved. How long of a cable are you using? Some USB can get very fussy after about 8' and start being affected by all sorts of noise.

Has anyone ever tried adding some sound deadening material to the insides of one of these cutters? I've got an LPII and the stepper motors are loud, but usually it's cutting so fast that it's mostly a high pitched annoyance for a few minutes. Sounded like a dial-up modem on crack. But now I've started cutting a lot more Scotchlite reflective. . .at 100mm/sec and two passes. What took ten minutes now takes an hour and the slow speed and thicker material gives it a nice dawn-of-the-dead type moan. I need to cut for about 3 hours this afternoon and there is no way I can handle it with this sinus headache. So I'm thinking of lining the top cover and the inside of both side covers with some sort of adhesive foam. Has anyone tried it? Does anyone think it will help? I can't afford to upgrade for a while so I've got to do something with what I've got.

Slice...this model has just a little room on the front and back under the hood. I had some 3/16" weather proofing tape that is 3/8" wide. I managed to get 3 pcs in the back and 2 in the front without getting in the way. It actually helped a little. It removed one higher pitched frequency that I had noticed I could change by putting my hand on the hood. After its done cutting today I'll pop open that right side and see what I've got to work with. I wonder if there is room under the cutting surface (the base) to add some foam? If I place my hand on it while it's cutting there is quite a bit of change in the sound.

Added some foam tape under the hood that covers the track and that helped a bit, but not much room in there to add anything. Dakota, I may follow your dot matrix idea and build a partial box around it with some egg crate. Darcshadow, that's what I've done when I could, start it and leave the room but it's not always possible. And today it would have been a mess! VinylMaster decided to cut each registration mark 4 times...@2 passes each for the reflective, so a total of 8 cuts for each registration mark. Needless to say the vinyl didn't stay in place and the blade holder started dragging it around.

I may be way off base here, but at this point I'd be willing to try anything. Win10 does automatic updates and after it updates, other software will update to match it. During these updates there are two issues. The first is that they can really drag down the computer's speed and that could be messing with your file transfer. The second is that the updates may turn certain underlying programs off and back on to implement the update. If any of these affect your USB port then data stops transmitting. I really get in to outside Christmas lights and most of the controls are run via USB. If Windows updates during a light show there is a high probability that the data flow will be interrupted. Just turning off wifi doesn't do the trick because Windows starts throwing up warnings wanting to update and those can slow or stall data flow. Run wub.exe, a free download, on WIN10 computers to prevent the automatic downloads. It can't hurt to try. I'd disconnect anything else USB also: external harddrives, speakers, printers. Anything that could be stealing time from the USB drivers.