darcshadow

You're opacity is set to 0, try changing to 100.

Ms Skeeter is correct, SB can only "open" SB files, all others have to be imported. I tried opening her EPS and I got the same as you, just a blank screen. Wildgoose's file import just fine.

What version of AI file is that? I can't open it in SB, but I could open in in VM and Inkscape. I then converted it to EPS and it imported just fine in SB. SB is OLD and you have to use the old version of ai files as well as eps files.

If you can, post the vector file and I'll try to open it.

I just check, and on mine anyway, EPS files do not have a preview, they are just black but import just fine.

Did you actually try to open them? The preview screen does not always work, and I'm not sure it shows previews for anything other than sbd files anyway.

Have you tried just basic shapes and text that you create within SB? Need to figure out is this a cutter/software issue, or just an image issue. JPG and Tiff are raster image formats and can not be cut. EPS and AI are vector formats, but they can also contain raster images, which sounds like you've figure out already.

Is the carriage seated properly on the rail? Is the belt slipping? Sounds to me like something is simply preventing the cutting head from moving freely. The grinding noise is typically a result of the motor turning, but the belt not moving.

Your SB designs, if you saved them in native sb format, will have a .SBD file extension. Search your PC for those and copy them as Mz Skeeter said. It would be a good idea to get in the habit of saving your designs in EPS format so that in the future if you ever want to switch to a different program you will have your designs ready to go. EPS is pretty much a universal format, just about every vector program supports EPS files.

Is it just the angle of that photo, that square does not look square to me. Also, the corners look a little rounded. Lets get the rounded corners fixed before working about extra cut. And if that square is not actually square, that's a more pressing issue than the extra cut anyway.

Wildgoose is correct, the offset on a MH can not be adjusted on the cutter, it is a software thing.

After you arc the text, click on the text tools button at the top of the screen, then on the left, click on the Text on Arc tab and you have 3 options, above, above and below, or below.

As other have said, the marks will go away. In fact, the marks are not actually on the vinyl, they are on the backing material that the vinyl is conforming to.

my pleasure, happy to help.

And just for clarification, you need to ground the vinyl, this is typically done by grounding the stand, typically done by running a wire from a bare metal point on the stand to a bare metal point on the cutter. The cutter is already grounded internally, or at least it should be.

What sort of problems were you having? Are you new to the world of vinyl cutting and vector graphics? If so, it's possible that your problems are not solely the machine but a combination of lack of experience and the machine being cheap. People new the cutting world also often times have expectations that are not always accurate and some times just wrong. Please don't get offended at any of this, just trying to get a feel for your level of experience/understanding. I'd hate for you to go through the hassle of returning the cutter, getting a new one, and still having issues. I have a MH, which as Dakota said, is about equivalent to yours. I will attest it is not the best but after quite of while of playing and tweaking settings I've been able to get it to do what I need and have learned what the limitations are and have a pretty good feel of what I can and can not do with it.

Maybe, but the product works on your computer and falls on you to know if it would work with your external hardware, which it does. You've simply failed to fully research everything. Don't take that as an insult, it happens to lots of people when they get into something new and don't fully know what questions to be asking.

Ok, well that image is not going to auto trace well in any program. There are some guys on here that could probably do it pretty quickly, and there are several online services that will do it and usually do a pretty good job. But that image is going to have to be done manually to get a decent result. I think Inkscape would be better suited for this than autocad but it's been years since I've touched autocad. VM would work as well although I'm not as practice with VM and generally default to Inkscape for stuff like this. The thing I like about Inkscape for doing this, is you select the Bezier tool, draw some straight lines only really paying attention to where you put the nodes, then go back and grab the individual lines and drag/bend them to shape. If you can't get the shape you need, pick a point on the line, add another node and continue adjusting. At least that's how I do manual traces and for most stuff it works pretty well, can just be time consuming for large complicated images such as this one. As an example, I've attached a zip file with a dragon image I pulled off of google. I then vectorized it with both Inkscape and VM default settings for both. There is a very slight difference between the two but not enough to be of notice. I put the two vectors in a single EPS file. I then opened that file in Inkscape and VM and saved it off as a DXF using the default settings in Inkscape. I have not tried to reopen the dxf file as don't have a cad program to open them and Inkscape or VM would just do a conversion back to something they can use. I did notice the dxf file created by inkscape was quite a bit larger in file size than VM. For going from a raster graphic to a DXF Dragons.zip

Have you converted the text to paths? I wouldn't think it would matter, but worth a shot.

I have my OC set to 1mm, probably a bit high but it doesn't seem to cause any issues.

Messy how, just bad corners or are the edges not straight? If it's just that the corners are not square that would be an offset issue.

You were on the right track with changing the units per inch, the calibration routine above will set the units per inch. for reference, my units per in on my MH are 996.08 x 997.6. Also note, you'll need to do this for each cutter as each cutter is going to be a little different. Once you get this set correctly and if the dove trail problem comes back that would be an offset setting. Dove tails are a result of too much offset.

Go to your Vinyl Spooler, Under Calibration, the last option in the list should be Calibrate Cutter Scale, run that routine.

Try cutting a large square then measure it. Since you don't have the pin you'll have to waste some vinyl but you need to know if your step counts are correct. Cut a large square and measure it to see if all sides are the lengths expected.

Are you wanting to import or export DXF files? Or both? From your initial post I thought you were only wanting to import them. In either case, if you have a sample file you can share, post it up and we can do the VM conversion for you so you can see the results, I have VM DSR V4.0 which will import/export DXF files. I'm sure others with the different variants of the program can help and find you the cheapest version that will meet your needs.