darcshadow

When you say cut through both layers, do you mean it is cutting through the backing paper? If so, you have way too much blade exposed. No matter how badly a cutter is behaving, it should NEVER cut through the backing paper if the blade is adjusted correctly. Search the forums for Mz skeeter's instructions for setting blade depth.

Rather than trying to convert all your files, I would suggest just converting them as you need them. Open in SB, export to eps, then open in what ever new program you are using. This way you don't burn yourself out converting files, that you may never actually use again.

As for converting your signblazer files, there is no good way to do it other than one at a time. What I would do, is just leave them as Signblazer files till you need one, then open it and export it as an EPS then open it with your new cutting software...assuming you find one that you like and works for you. However, I suspect the cutting software is not your problem and that the problem is you don't have the communications between the computer and the cutter setup right yet. You said earlier you started using a USB-2-Serial adapter, what sort of serial cable are you using? Is it a null modem cable, or a straight cable?

I do have to admit, I had relatively little trouble as well, but it did take me awhile to get it dialed it in to handle the high detail I was wanting.

Yeah, guess that should always be asked first before pointing people to an adapter, if you have a serial port use it. It will work so much easier than any USB setup.

True, but at the same time, unless you have the patience and basic trouble shooting and computer skills the MH can easily discourage you and cause you to give up on the endeavor. The MH can be a great teacher if you're willing to work it but it is not a simple plug it in and go machine.

Do you have to use a particular type of vinyl? I always heard that the low energy plastics used for dirt bikes and ATVs caused issues with vinyls sticking.

Are you using the serial cable that came with the cutter? That should be a null modem cable, if you're using a straight cable it will not work. As has been said before, the make of usb-serial can be a factor and while the tripp lite version is known to work, there are others out there that will work as well. If the unit you bought is a true Prolific unit I would expect it to work, Prolific is a pretty good company, however there are a bunch of counterfeit chips that identify themselves as Prolific and are of a lesser quality.

If the cutter is recognized correctly, Windows will assign a comm port number. Open the "Run" dialog box by pressing and holding the Windows key, then press the R key ("Run"), Type devmgmt.msc and hit enter. Click on the plus next to the Ports list, there you should see something, I forget exactly what it is called but it is basically a USB to serial bridge and there will be a comm number assigned to it. In my case I use an ATEN USB-2-Serial adapter so in my case I see ATEN USB to Serial Bridge (COM1). I would then go into my cutting software and tell it to use COM1. If you do not know what you're looking at in the device manager screen, take a screen shot and post it here and we might be able to help.

If you try to cut a square does it come out as a rectangle? Could just be you need to adjust your scale calibration.

Don't discount good old RS-232 comms. They actually have a few advantages over USB. The protocol is extremely simply and easy to implement, hence it's cheap. The data being sent to a cutter is pretty small, a few hundred K usually so there is no need for the super high speed of USB. And the range of RS-232 dwarfs that of USB, you can easily have a 30' comm cable with no problems, but USB anything past 6' and you can start to get flaky results and require a powered hub/repeater to get further distance. It really is a shame comm ports are no longer common on computer because they are so very versatile and there are tons of hardware that still use them, especially in the test equipment world. The perceived advantage of USB is that it's universal, which in reality, it's not. Every device that is USB requires a driver that the computer has to load before it can even use the software to talk to the machine, yes there are tons of drivers pre-loaded in windows but it's not truely universal. Where as a computer with a comm port can talk to anything else with a comm port, you just need the software and correct settings.

Also, keep in mind, unless you're cutting the full width of the vinyl a little drift is not a big deal, so long as the cutting head stays on the vinyl your final results will be good. But yeah, trying to the use the rulers won't work. They are just slapped on there and it's just luck that they are lined up as close as they are. Load the vinyl run it in and out a little ways and watch the relation of the edge of the vinyl to a roller. If it drifts, lift one roller, adjust the vinyl slightly then try again.

I'm not sure what is in the spooler are actual files. I believe the program stores that info in a database type system. It'd be best to not depend on the spooler history and just load your vinyl master file and send it to the cutter.

I'm not a mac user, but if your cutter has a serial port and you use that, there is no need for a driver and no logical reason why you wouldn't be able to cut from a Mac, so long as the software sends the correct HPGL commands over the serial port that's all you need.

PNG files are a "new" type of bitmap, so you can simply open the files with MS paint and save them as bmp. You'll loose any transparency color but that shouldn't be an issue. You then import the bmp into signblazer and trace/vector it. Unfortunately, the vector capabilities of SB are not the best and I have never been happy with the results I got from it. I switched to using Inkscape to trace/vector the image and save the file as an eps, that can then be imported easily with SB.