lee157

Just curious if there have been any updates I may have missed. Haven't used the machine in a while and never got my issues worked out with the system,, Freddy Krueger still hanging around,,,

Well I got almost all my stuff cut but I did end up having a random cut even with the dedicated computer but using the dedicated computer is by far better than what I had before. So it does seem to be a communication problem someplace but as of now I think I have it to a tolerable level anyway. I will add that the random cut was done on a text series,,, I had been drawing on my desktop then moving the files to the cutter PC, come to find out the font I used from my desktop wasn't installed on the cutter PC so it was cutting the closest match. I added that font to the cutter PC and it cut the same text error free, so maybe it was due to it being confused on the font? Ken is working on these problems so any detailed information people can give him I'm sure will be greatly appreciated. You may add to your report the specs and type of PC you are using plus any programs you may have had running in the background. I know my desktop computer has quite a few USB and Firewire items hooked to it plus several programs to hook Cell phones up by USB, my weather station runs on the serial port so I have a LOT of traffic on it and it has a LOT of USB item history all of which could be causing problems. So if you have an old laptop or desktop PC laying around that you can strip down to run the cutter you may see better results like I did. I would also like to try a virgin install of XP, just start from fresh and ONLY load the cutter on it and see what that does, not going to happen anytime soon for me though.

I seem to have things working smooth now,,,, don't want to get too confident here just yet,,,, BUT I have gotten my large cuts done with no mishaps,,,,, BUT******* I'm on my 3rd computer, This one I stripped of all programs except MS Office XP and Firefox,,,, so maybe this one's a keeper. Must be some USB conflicts and the way I understand it is the resolve is a work in progress but not nailed down just yet, so I am giving as much feedback as I can on the matter,,,,,, I feeling better about it anyway! Yes the support was the reason I bought the US Cutter PCUT I saw support even on other forums so I knew they were trying to make this all work. Had I not bought the PCUT I was going to cough up more money and get the Roland GX-24 but for no more than I need one I didn't want that much money tied up in a cutter. I set my price on this one from ebay but I bid on a bunch of them with EZ Sniper then one finally came at my price although I had seen them go for quite a bit less before I started bidding for one, makes sense, once I decide I want one EVERYBODY wants one,,,,, I have just finished my 3rd large cut with no mishaps,,,,, going for 2 more,,,,, WISH ME LUCK!!

Yea I know I never sleep, maybe why i get grumpy, Anyway, Freddy showed up again, I am now out of magic jelly beans,,,,,,,,

OK I read some other posts, there are quite a few on these issues,, I turned off my screen saver and went into BIOS and didn't really see any settings other than USB emulation and reading about it I don't think it would apply to this problem especially as the serial cable didn't change anything. What about drivers? Could this be some type of memory issue with the cutter, twice I tried large cuts and twice it died trying with 2 different programs. I looked in my COM setting in D.M. and there is an advanced tab but there are no help topics on these settings so if you got something to try let me know, otherwise it's set it to hardware like it's supposed to be and all other info matches. I read in the manual about clean power, now I have never had much power fluctuation here (I live 3 miles from the power plant) BUT I just happened to have an ITT power conditioner laying around so I'm plugged into it now and going to try some more cuts. Honestly I'm being more patient than normal here and am willing to try stuff but my goal is a properly functioning cutter. I know sometimes there are issues with things but honestly I have had a LOT of different toys hooked to my computers over the years and never had this kind of trouble getting things working. I have read stuff about EMF corruption, bad cables, static and etc. etc. but still I have 5 printers in my office all of which I think handle more complicated tasks than running a knife back and forth and not a single issue with any of them. I have a weather station that uploads to the web, exterior hard drives exterior DVD and CD drives and no problems,,, I even used to have a hobby of buying trashed laptops and making good ones out of several bad ones and everything just worked and I didn't need any magic jelly beans laying around. Sorry for the sarcasm but it's late and I am WAY past my patience with this thing, I will post my results again with my new changes. Have you ever took inventory on what PCs people were running that had issues? Mine is a DELL Dimension 3000 if it helps, I think I read one person had an E machine. This all leads me to think something is weak in these cutters or you wouldn't see all these issues I keep pulling up in the forum. What happened to plug and play? This should be a simple machine to operate compared to a printer that can print 10s of thousands of ultra small type and very large type and add full color pictures to it as well plus one of my printers will print both sides and stack it as a book. The PCUT just moves a knife side to side while the rollers move the material forward and back, seems simple in comparison. Any additional setting on the PCUT could be compared to a printer, blade pressure = color light or dark, offset = head alignment and so on. So in your opinion should I look for the ultimate USB cable 3 meters or less with Ferites on it (mine is 6 feet with gold plated ends) or are we past that issue since I tried the serial method? I do appreciate the help and I did research these before I bought. This forum and seeing posts on other forums from US Cutter was the reason I bought one, I just never thought I would have to make so much use of it all. So if I come off as a smart ass that's just me, I'm really I nice person just short on patience, I am involved in several state organizations to do with the business I am in and in most of them I gained the knick name "The Bear" anyway I'm know as being thorough and 3 steps ahead with no tolerance for mistakes and that's how I run my company so please excuse anything I say that rubs you wrong I'm just on a mission to get this resolved. Hopefully when it's all done we will all have learned something and not have to go through this with the next person or even better yet fix it at the root and make sure it never comes up again.

OK Seems Signcut don't work either So I now have tried Sign blazer and got butchered I tried signcut and got butchered I tried USB and Serial and got butchered each way I tried a different USB cable and got butchered have tried running no other programs other the cutter and got butchered I can try a different computer but the one I'm using is the biggest baddest thing I have (see prior posts for details) I will say that this time in the 2 cut jobs I did in signcut it did not do any random cuts but I have had that tiny bit of success out of blazer too. What it did do is just STOP in the middle of another big cut without finishing, the knife is still stuck in the vinyl and hasn't moved a millimeter since it stopped (a few minutes before I sat down to write this post) So is there anything else I should try before we point the finger at this cutter? Here is the last file I tried to cut and it died about 80% through it (just like it did in blazer) Well sorry I have tried 3 times but this forum won't let me upload the file

Hi Ken I sent a PM just to verify the phone # not sure what was up with that I had gotten a few calls over the day and we have call waiting. I think I may need to clarify my problem with "Waiting" on the LCD I noticed it always says that when cutting but what it's doing is just not finishing the cut and it just stops. I tried a large cut earlier tonight and it stopped without finishing it so I thought I'll just leave it alone. Picked up my daughter at school, went out to eat and now I'm back and it never decided to finish the cut so I guess I just lost 5 feet of 24" vinyl. Does this problem point in any direction? I will try this other software tonight but I gotta ask if it's the software am I now looking at buying some other brand of reliable software?

Humidity has been between 39% and 40% and temp has been about 71 - 73 (I'm picky about my indoor climate as I work outdoors and like it comfortable when I get home) I Have a Davis Weather Monitor that logs all that data each minute plus I upload to the web every 15 min. I have also since last post removed and re-installed sign blazer with no change. I have downloaded that other program but won't get to try it until later tonight with any luck it won't be a lot of trouble. I have also tried a shorter gold plated USB cable with no change and as stated I tried serial with the supplied cable yesterday with no change. I also got the WAITING thing again today, I have to turn off the cutter and loose what it was working on and start over.

"Vinylagain" emailed me and her problem was her computer, she was using an older slow PC while hers was down, she got hers going and then it worked fine. So not sure what requirements are but my PC is 3Ghz P4 800Mhz front side buss hyperthread with 2GB RAM so I would HOPE that is enough,,,, BUT with a new PC had to come moving the software so maybe there is a bug in the software. As for hardware I wouldn't be shipping it back and forth but more than willing to switch parts out but not willing to pay shipping. I will try reloading the sign blazer and then may try this other software. If the problem persists I would like to know the next plan of action,,, It did pretty good cutting late last night but today it's slashing again.

I'm curious as to what cured the problem "vinylagain" had? The problem seems identical to mine. If it were software wouldn't it be more common and well known? I read in a post where someone bought 3 machines and one was goofy like mine so they moved it to a different PC and the problem moved with it. I'm all for real solutions here but if all we are wanting to do is exhaust every other possibility, wasting my time in the process then I need to get rid of this machine. What complication am I to expect getting this new software to work with my machine and will I have to remove sign blazer to avoid conflicts? See we are already into several hours here,,,,,

I hope you are right,, Just pretty frustrated right now, this thing is basically brand new just been setting in my office for a couple months and I'm now just getting time to mess with it and now I can't use it. It is now cutting through my letters randomly in both Arial Rounded Bold and Brush Script, and it's still random even through the copies the death cuts are random. By the way I have the cover off the cutting head and the head assembly it's self is grounded too, it's just a magnetic coil and my guess it uses variable voltage to adjust the cutting force. So I don't think it's the head as it's just a coil, it will work or it won't, The problem is with what sends voltage to the head or signals for that act to happen. I'm curious if "vinylagain" got this problem resolved? This thread was dead for 2 weeks with no resolve mentioned.

This guy has the EXACT same problem with his machine. http://forum.uscutter.com/index.php/topic,4959.0.html I posted in that thread too, I am now seeing problems cutting through my letters not only graphics. Doesn't matter if I have programs running or not. I have tried rebooting my whole system (computer and cutter) between cut jobs and no change. Even tried hooking it up via serial port and no change, I just think I got screwed on the whole deal, I was excited about it all until I actually got time to sit down and mess with it, now I'm just ready to put it back on ebay and get something from Feller's or just forget the whole venture. I am not in the sign cutting business, I own an excavation company and we have a lot of free time in the winter and spring due to weather so I got this so we could decal our trucks, equipment and signs. I see now it was a mistake, lot of hours wasted drawing our graphics in signblazer just to have a cutter shred it all, I see it wasn't such a good idea now.

Hey not sure if you got this fixed yet but I have a 24" PCUT from ebay and it does EXACTLY the same thing so my FREDDY KRUEGER post in sign blazer software forum. I called them and spoke with Brad, nice guy but no solid answers as to what is wrong. 1) the machines are grounded via the 3 prong plug, the 3rd round prong is grounded to earth via a 8 foot long copper ground rod out side of every home or building hooked the a power plant. 2) I checked to be sure that the stand was grounded to the plug with an ohm meter and YES the stand is grounded (I knew it was anyway) 3) I can now say it does it just the same on the serial port. 4) I can't say it's done it on any lettering I have done (that I can recall anyway) just my graphics, several that were drawn in signblazer, nothing imported. 5) It is not a feed issue with the vinyl, the blade simply DOES NOT RAISE, it cuts it's way from start point to start point 6) I uncheced the weed feture and it still does the same thing, almost each and every time it will finish one copy then cut it's way to the next copy start point destroying what it just finished, if you are lucky you may get a clean last copy. 7) even if I just cut ONE single copy I still have about an 80% chance it will do a random cut from a stop to a start point. This is not a "NODE" issue, if it were it would be uniform each and every time, this is a roll of the dice thing. So my conclusion,,,,, Something in the software is NOT telling the cutter to lift the blade,,,,,,,, *****OR**** The cutter has something screwed up in it's self. My guess is your machine (vinylagain) and mine were built in the same batch and there are some bad parts that were unnoticed. I now I am getting that "I JUST GOT SCREWED" feeling and really wish I had spent more on a different manufacturer's cutter,,,, Of course I can't say this one doesn't cut,,, it just don't know when to stop!!!!

Any ideas on how to get 3M vinyl to cut intricate stuff without it peeling up in the process? I only have this problem on the cast 3M and cast Avery, I have tried several others vinyls (calendered) and they all cut great. I have a fresh 45* blade and tried cutting pressure changes plus adjusting the depth of the blade in the holder to where it is just cutting through the vinyl and tried deeper. It's when I have a narrow piece it generally peels up then wads in the blade holder and before you know it you have a mess. THANKS! Lee

I have a serial but it is being used by a weather station right now, have a parallel (I think, pretty sure) that isn't being used but the cutter only has USB and serial ports, would a Parallel / Serial adapter work? I have a long Parallel cable I don't use anymore but I don't have any long serial cables, well maybe this cutter came with one, yes it did but not too long,, Is this slashing problem software or hardware and maybe not communication? I'm new to this so I'm just asking, The way I see it, something sends a signal to the cutter and tells it to raise the blade, so,,,,, either the signal isn't being sent the signal isn't making it to the cutter or the cutter can't make use of the signal