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Can someone explain to me the best method to go about matching a font. Do you pros just know the common fonts, or do you just post questions on these boards? All of the fonts I have found on the internet have off the wall names, so unless you know the name, how do you do a search? Any tips for a rookie are appreciated. Chuck

I have a brand new PCut 630. I have only had it for about 2 weeks and have spent several hours getting it all fine tuned by testing many different cutting speeds, pressures and offsets. I have finally gotten everything pretty close, with one exception. I can not get the starting point and the ending points of letters to match up. Please take a look at the attached photo. Notice that the upper left corner of the T & E are not 90 degrees. Before weeding, this area was not fully closed, causing the weeding to hang up. I have changed and lubricated the blade and checked to insure the carriage is properly attached to the rails. I have tried cutting in several places along the 24" cutting length. I know similar topics have been covered many times, and I have read them all, but most don't have an exact solution. I am now getting very frustrated. Please help. Thanks, Chuck Specifics: PCut 630 SignBlazer Elements Pressure: 070 Speed: 010 Offset: 0.47

After about 4 months of dealing with this problem, I finally gave up and returned my cutter to US Cutter. Although I know Ken was working very hard on the support side, I found the company's ability to deal with the problems of these cutters to be entirely inadequate. I am sorry that you are now having this problem and that I can not offer a solution. Hopefully someone has discovered a fix. Good luck, Chuck

Hello folks, I am looking for a copy of Corvette's 427 emblem shown in the attached image. I really appreciate any assistance. Thanks, Chuck

Rod, Thank you very, very much for vectorizing that for me. I really appreciate the help. Chuck

Update: I received my replacement PCut today... but I can't try it out. US Cutter sent me a replacement machine, but none of the peripheral gear such as blades, blade holder, cables, stand, etc. This is really getting ridiculous. We are going on 2 1/2 months since I first bought this thing I am still not cutting vinyl. (Insert funny little smiley face guy pulling out hair) I know that we all appreciate the hard work that Ken puts in around here. I have not doubt that he is busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, but US Cutter really needs to get their act together. They obviously need more customer support personnel. Either their products are too defective, or they have way too many customers for their staffing levels. Rant Over I'll let you all know how the new cutter works when I get my cables and blades.

First off... I want to apologize to those who have already read about my PCut problems. I have posted about this in the PCut specific forums, and received several suggestions and a lot of help from TyKite, but have been unable to solve my problem. I was hoping it would get a few more views here and maybe someone might have another suggestion. I have been trouble shooting my new PCut 630 for over a month, trying to get it to give me a nice cut. I have gotten all of the parameters set that make the cuts look good, with one exception. Wherever the blade starts, it has a little curl to it. Then, when it comes back around to close the cut, they do not meet (See Attached Drawing). This is driving me nuts and I really want to get it fixed. Here are my questions: 1. Has anyone ever had this problem before, and if so, where you able to fix it? 2. Is everyone else's cuts closing properly, or am I being to demanding of these cheaper machines? I have samples cut by a Roland machine that are absolutely perfect. How do your's look? Specifics: PCut 630 Direct Serial Port connection. SignBlazer Elements PC Laptop 45 degree blade that came with it Speed 30 Pressure 140 Offset 47 Things I've already tried: 1. I have tested the cutter over the full range of all the settings above. This is what it takes to get the cut to look good and none of the settings have any effect on the closing of the cut. 2. I have also tried it with the Pen installed. The lines close perfectly with the pen. No indications of the problem I am having with the blade. However, the offset of 47 does not work with the pen. It needs to be more like 25 to get nice sharp corners, which is to be expected. With the blade at an offset of 25, all of the corners are rounded. 3. Checked the rollers for play/looseness. None. 4. Checked the drive belt for slippage. None. 5. Changed cutter selection in SignBlazer to Creation PCut CTE630 HPG. No difference. I appreciate any input or suggestions. At this point I will try anything. Thanks, Chuck Here is a link to my other troubleshooting thread: http://forum.uscutter.com/index.php/topic,4752.0.html

I am not using USB. I am using a serial cable and I have tried every conceivable setting combination I can think of. I thought that too and checked it out closely but couldn't find anything unusual with the tracking. I didn't wait long. I posted this problem in the PCut support forum and the PCut Discussion forum. Had some guys try to help, but no luck. I really appreciate the input guys. I have recently returned the cutter to US Cutter. They are going to send me a new one. We'll see what happens with it. I will post the results of the new cutter once it arrives. Chuck

No cure. Finally received an RA # from Ken and will be exchanging my machine for a replacement. Speculation is that it is some sort of mechanical problem. I'll post an update when my new machine arrives.

Thanks. That looks great! I appreciate you doing that. Chuck

Anyone have a C6 Z06 Logo like the one in the attached image?

Yes I have. Several Corvette logos, but no Z06.

Found a cool website that specializes in Automotive Fonts Check it out: http://www.autofonts.com/

Ken, That would be great. If you don't think there is any way to resolve it then I would like to send it back. I appreciate you answering this. I know you are busy. I was hoping someone else on the board had experienced and solved a similar problem. Thanks, Chuck

I can not find any reference to the Overcut feature. I am using a PCut 630 and SignBlazer Elements. Does this apply to either of these? If so, please let me know where to find it. I have also checked the rollers for play/looseness and they are tight. The drive belt also seems to be in adjustment. Thanks, Chuck

I tried the PCut CTE630 HPGL setting. The cuts look exactly the same. Any other ideas? Thanks, Chuck

Ken, I sent you an email 4 days ago and a PM today. If you received these, please respond. Thank you, Chuck

Thanks anyway. I really appreciate the effort you put into it. I hope a new blade holder will make a difference. We'll see. Thanks, Chuck

Here ya go. It does happens on every file, but is much more pronounced when cutting letters and when the cut starts and ends at the corner of a letter. I have tried it on drawn files as well as fonts. I have checked the nodes at the corners to make sure they match up, and they do. I don't know how the computer decides where to start the cut, but when it is started on a straight line, it matches up better, but still kicks out one way or another just a bit. When it starts on a 90 degree corner, it is very pronounced, like the drawing I did above. In the file attached, the P in Porsche always comes out like my drawing above. It also happens when I type in a P using all of the fonts I've tried, like Arial or Arial Black, but depending on the orientation of my P, the computer starts the cut at a different place. The P in this Porsche file always starts the cut in the upper left corner. I do not have any other cutting software, but I have cut files that were created in both AI and Signblazer. Both had the same results. Unfortunately, I do not have another computer to try it on. What do you think it means that the file comes out perfectly when using the pen, but not the blade? Edit: This forum will not let me attach a .plt file, so I emailed it to your sales@tykite.com address. I hope that is ok. Thanks, Chuck

Here ya go...

Yes it is. I have also tried it on several different places along the cutter. I also checked the rollers to ensure there was no play, and I checked the roller drive belt to insure it was not slipping or too tight. All of these things seem to be in order. Keep'm coming. I appreciate the suggestions. Chuck

I do not have a camera that can get a good photo, but I drew a picture to show exactly what mine is doing. c1truz, is yous doing the same? Thanks, Chuck Incomplete Cut Example.pdf Incomplete Cut Example.pdf

I have the same cutter, the PCut 630. I have tested the offset from 0 to .70 with the best results occurring at .47 to get the corners sharp. Anything above or below that either makes the corners rounded or overshoot. The recommended offset is .25, but that makes my corners rounded. Regardless, all of the offset settings I tried had no effect on the closing of the completed cut. I am leaning towards a problem with the blade holder. When I put the pen in place of the blade, the cuts close perfectly and the offset, when set at .47, is not correct. When I set the offeste to the recommended .25, the pen makes perfect corners and still closes the cut. This indicates to me that there is something wrong with the blade holder, but I don't know that for sure. Ken mentioned sending me a new blade holder, but I haven't heard back from him. There seems to be about a 3-4 day delay in answering emails. Thanks for the suggestions. Any others? Chuck

The blade is in the rear holder.

Thanks for the reply Ken. There is no slop in the rollers and the belt seems fine. No slipping, but not too tight. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the blade or blade holder. Here's why. With the blade in and the cutting depth properly set, it takes 120 pressure and an offset of .47 to get nice sharp corners, but it still has the problem of not closing some of the corners. However, when I replace the blade with the pen and run it on the same settings, the offset is much too high, causing the corners to overshoot. If I adjust the offset to a lower number, like the recommended .25, the pen's corners and the corners close. However, If I put the blade back in, the corners are rounded and don't close. Basically, the pen seems to give the expected results, where the blade has to be set to a non-standard offset to get descent performance, indicating a possible blade/blade holder problem. Any thoughts? BTW, I did read your post about a similar subject being related to USB or a PCMCIA serial card. I am using a laptop with a regular serial plug. No adapters of any kind.