williaty

A new Graphtec will come with Cutting Master 2, which is their plug-in for Illustrator and Corel. I don't know about compatibility with Inkscape. You can create registration marks, cut, and contour cut directly from your illustration software at that point. I'm extremely happy with my CE5000-60.

After requesting samples from just about everyone out there, it turns out Avery Etchmark is the closest fit to the look I'm after. However, I've read so many horror stories about problems with Avery vinyl, I'm a little gunshy about buying anything from them. Has anyone used Avery Etchmark? Has anyone had problems with it? Other thoughts on it?

Interesting comment on the vinyl adhesive and UV resistance. We've got some Oracal 651 on the inside of the rear side windows in my car that's been there for a couple of years now. No adhesion problems and the car is never garaged so it bakes in the sun every day. Rules specify color, height, and font, but don't say wither it has to be inside or outside, so I put it on the inside so I could still use an ice scraper to clear the window without ruining the vinyl.

Truck Norris doesn't require oil, it just drives into the past and eats a dinosaur. (Truck Norris is much better than Chuck)

Reflective tape?

I'll toss my vote in for the Oracal 631. I'd suggest using the Main Tape Preview Plus GFX101 rather than the Oracal HT55 as application tape. We got a sample of the HT55 and bought some GFX101. The GFX works considerably better. The HT55 only semi-consistently lifted the vinyl from the release liner and then required quite a lot of force to peel up from the substrate. On the other hand, the HT55 stuck to the release liner pretty well and didn't bubble/wrinkle as the RTA product was handled (which is important if you're selling them RTA). The GFX grabs the vinyl well (which is rate with 631), is easy to lay onto the substrate, is easy to remove from the substrate, and only shows any sign of lifting the vinyl from the substrate if you're cutting really THIN shapes. On the other hand, the GFX101 is slightly harder to lay onto the cut vinyl without wrinkling and tends to lift and bubble a bit if you handle the RTA graphic a bit roughly. Of course, then there's the whole clear vs paper debate, but that's not really about these specific products.

Power on the cutter. Let it figure the media out by selecting ROLL 1. When it finishes with that, what does the display say? I have a feeling that if you look at the very left edge of the display on the cutter, it's going to say "1", meaning Condition 1. Condition 1 is for using the pen, not a knife. Change it to Condition 2, which is the correct Condition for the default knife included with the cutter.

Phone systems often have a "alarm" that starts to annoy the workers if someone is left on hold for too long. That's likely what the guy was trying to claim. However, during all three of my attempted calls, the hold music/talk would briefly stop, there'd be a click or two, and then the hold music/talk would start right back up. 9 times out of 10, this is a guy in the call center picking up the phone and putting it right back onto hold just to shut the alarm up (briefly coming off hold resets the timer). This was happening at about 10 minute intervals to me, so I assume that's what someone at USC was doing to me. I would imagine the time I got hung up on, someone just screwed up the "ignore the customer" procedure.

No. If it works, it works. The Keyspan only can fix unreliable communications between the computer and cutter when trying to use the USB port on the cutter. If you are having no problems with the cutter doing weird things while you're using the USB port on the cutter, don't do anything. If, in the future, you start having weird glitches with the cutter, then it might be time to buy a Keyspan and use the serial port on the cutter to see if it resolves the issues.

Another 27 minutes on hold before they hung up on me just now. I am NOT a satisfied customer.

I just spent more of my anytime minutes trying to get a hold of USCutter than I'll use for the entire month otherwise. I held for over 30 minutes at two different times and never was able to get a human on the phone. Considering I was trying to touch base with them about a $2000 order, that pretty well freaks me out. Is it always this bad? If it is, that pretty much negates the lower price USC offers. I'd be willing to pay more than this to get a human on the phone without an hour of hold time.

None of the links you provided conflict with anything I said. I never said very long USB cables were usable. They aren't. However, it has nothing to do with high current draw (which seems to be your argument). I did directly address the LPs and PCuts by saying that the real problem with USB reliability on the cheaper cutters is the implementation of the USB<>Serial bridge embedded in the device.

This is total BS. USB ports are current-limited devices. They have automatic protection circuits that step in and shut the port off if the current draw exceeds the maximum allowed by the design spec. What you said earlier about the port talking too fast is also BS if the client device is properly designed. The client device can tell the computer "Hey! I'm old and slow. You can't talk to me any faster than XXX". This is why USB is backwards compatible from 3 to 2 to 1. The major reason that many devices function properly over serial connections and break oddly over USB connections is that the manufacturer of those devices cheaped out. Most legacy devices are serial devices. There'd be a considerable investment of money into re-working them from the ground up to utilize modern technologies. So, to try to sound like they aren't taking the easy way out, they include a serial to USB conversion chip in the product itself. It's basically an embedded version of the USB<>Serial adapter dongles. However, if you choose a crap chip and then poorly implement it, the results are what so many people see with cutters. Random drop outs, freezes, timing problems, etc, etc, etc. There are chipsets and implementations that work very well, such as those inside the Keyspan USA-19HS. A company could just as easily decide to embed a converter of that quality but most of them don't for cost reasons. I would posit that this is why you see very few people complaining about Graphtec, Roland, and Summa failing with USB connections and a lot of complaints about Cat-named-cutters not working with USB. EDIT: I do think I should clarify that I agree that buying a Keyspan USA-19HS is a great idea for any cutter that may have a dodgy conversion chip in it. The 19HS is a GREAT adaptor and is priced reasonably.

I've heard this stuff is wonderful for 631. However, I work with 651 and 752 as well. Would you mind trying it with the 651 or 751 and telling me what you think of it? It'd save me a bunch of money if I only had to stock one kind of tape.

Your article on "Kerning and Typography" makes a major error which I've explained in a comment to that post on your site. Basically, you mixed up tracking and kerning.