haumana

I agree with Scoot - the blade doesn't look like it's rotating freely, or easily as it should. you should also check that there isn't gunk or random teeny pieces of vinyl in the blade holder itself - when I cut tiny stuff, my blade holder would notoriously get bits of vinyl in the blade holder. sharp edges, intricate cuts, i usually go with a 60-degree and slow the speed down a bit. if it's thick, then i much prefer multiple passes versus increasing force/pressure. be patient, it happens to the best of us every once in a while, with experience and practice you'll get to know the quirks of all this stuff.

How old is your transfer tape? When I have difficulties with getting vinyl to release from the transfer tape, it usually means I need new tape because its gotten too gummy.

Cutting by hand is possible, but it's tedious. If you're not cutting anything too huge, consider getting a table top, hobby, cutter like a Cameo or something. If you're cutting larger, longer, or plan to simply just do more - save yourself some serious time, then get a cutter. As for slicing by hand and not cutting through the backing, it's possible, it just takes practice. I find the need to do that when I fail to cut relief lines through a design i'm working and don't want just one huge piece of negative space I need to weed. I've also had years of practice to know how much pressure to use on the various materials and colors. Amazon has a great Deal of Day right now for a Cameo package - I think it would well worth your time to put a few bucks in that direction if you're going to be cutting smaller things and doing it often.

a short video would be helpful, so we can see what's happening when it's wadding up. is the carriage moving up and down when it's cutting, or is is just down and dragging causing the wadding?

If you've adjusted the blade depth and it's still not helping, do you think you could post a short video of what's going on? Are you looking to change the baud rate on the cutter or the software? If the software, then you need to let us know what you're using.

It looks to be cutting the reflective part okay, but not really cutting the adhesive. Have you tried going over it 3x? I know that seems excessive, but at this point, it's worth trying the 3x versus tossing a bunch of reflective material out. You might also try a new 45-degree blade if you have it - that reflective is kind of harsh on blades.

Okay, just going to preface it with, "anything you find online has already been designed by someone other than you - so by its nature is already copyrighted." Had to get the legal part out of the way. That being said - an easier way to vectorize a raster image is by using Inkscape. It's a freeware and there are PC and Mac versions - at least the last time I checked. Do tell, what was the cheapest workaround you found to get your cutter working with your Mac?

Back to the OP's original inquiry - If you have seen that most people have recommended Clean Cut blades, why are you buying other stuff? When I bought my new Graphtec, I had the Clean Cut blades in my hands well before the cutter even showed up at the warehouse for me to pick-up - because that's how awesome they are. Blade depth is hugely important because that will help determine the longevity of the blade (see Scott's picture of the broken tip). That being said, you're not specifically telling us why you're needing to switch to a new one - is the tip broken? do you feel that it's just too dull? is it tearing up the vinyl? In my case, the blade angle (45 or 60), down force, and speed are determined on a case by case basis of material that I'm cutting, the design (or intricacy of the design), color of vinyl and age of vinyl - because even I mostly cut with 651, the different colors are different ages, and some require more force for the best cut than others. I know that you're looking for a blade that will last long, or at least longer than the USC blades you bought. I'm going to tell you right now that I've had a Clean Cut blade in my original LP and it's been there for the last 8+ years. I took the time to set the depth properly, and will adjust the cutter setting according what I'm cutting. Does it take time to make the adjustments on a case-by-case cut? yes, but it sure beats wasting my time because I've snapped off the tip and have to do the whole new blade set up. Try a Clean Cut blade, take the time to set it up properly, and you should be good to go.

Hurray!!! Now you're golden and will be cutting up a storm!! Freezer paper is kind of thick - not sure how much drag there would be on the blade for that. You would need to stick the freezer paper so some of kind (light) adhesive mat so paper will stay flat to the backing when it gets sliced. It's how stuff like Cricuts work. Same how the fabric cutters work too.

If there is nothing plugged into the USB port of the puter, do you still get the "!"?

Go into device manager and see if it's listed there, then look at the properties to see what port # it is assigned to. Go into the cutting software and you should be able to designate which port that the program should be using - set it to the port that your computer assigned to the cutter (do not use "Auto" setting). Set the baud rate to 9600. If none of that helps you - trying downloading Sign Blazer Elements and try it with that cutting software - it's free and you can search for the download link on forum. I do not have an LP2, but am going to hazard a guess that there might be both a USB and serial port. If something isn't working with one, then try the other. Your puter might be too new to have a serial port on it, so you would need to get a keyspan adapter for it. People he will recommend you go with a tripplite, but I can tell you a cheap one from eBay worked for me. I had the same issues when I first got my cutter, so keep the faith, and try anything and everything, and keep us posted on your progress. Good luck! Oh yah, I forgot to mention - because I still do this from time to time, make sure that your cutter is "online" or "ready". Sometimes I will have the cutter in a different mode because I was tweaking some settings, and I failed to bring it back online/ready.

I will jog my vinyl back and forth, using the ruler tick mark (or anything else) as a fixed reference point and see if the vinyl strays one way or another, and make adjustments then. Straight off the roller, and if the design isn't exceptional long, I'm good with just pull so that there is equal tension off the roller and locking it down that way. If it's a small(ish) design and you don't have to be that critical with the design cutting off the vinyl, it's not worth the stress of getting the cutter to feed ram rod straight.

I know that you're using VM, but you could also try Sign Blazer Elements. It's free and the only thing it will cost you is time. Do you always keep your laptop plugged into the cutter? If so, then the laptop and cutting software should be able to hold on to the correct information. If you are intermittently plugging and unplugging the software, then there's a chance that the USB port you're using that the port that VM wants to send it are two different port numbers. Use Device Manager to check what port the cutter has be assigned. Keyspan is definitely an option, but it is not the end all, be call of communication - neither is Tripp-lite. I initially started with a direct serial to serial, then went to (a cheap keyspan I bought from eBay), and when the serial port finally quit on the cutter, I had to go to USB. I'm not versed at VM at all, but I would like to think that there is some kind of setting that you can manually designate what Port # to use, so I would do that - "Auto" will not always pickup the right port for the cutter. I would also recommend that once you have it communicating again, to try and not unplug the cutter, and not to relocate it to a different USB port on the laptop. Once it's all good, leave it. Good luck.

try cutting a different design and see what kind of results you get.

Thank you Google translate!! I have been working with an 821 MK2 plotter for 2 years, I was working perfectly when suddenly it starts to make a noise and then it gets stuck, it does not move anywhere. What could it be?