darcshadow

Does it always do reverse of what you want? If that's the case I'd look for a setting in the software someplace, sounds like your tool head IDs have gotten swapped.

What software are you using? Did it cut completely through the backing paper? If so, you're cutting strip is now damaged, at least in that area, and will cause issues down the road. No need to do anything about it right now as you need to figure out the double cutting problem first. But once that is taken care of you'll want to replace the cutting strip. Till you get it working, I'd suggest switching to a pen and paper so that you don't waste any vinyl and don't do any additional damage to the cutting strip or blade.

One of the down sides of SVG is that it is open source and not strictly controlled. As a result different programs do slightly different things with the SVG format. The copy and paste is one of those that I've noticed. As you found, the only work around I've found as well was to group all the objects before pasting, in my case I was pasting into SignBlazer. The size was never correct either, but since the objects were all groups resizing them was not a big deal. From the description of your text problem, sounds like text is another thing that Inkscape and VinylMaster handle slightly different. Did saving the file as a plain SVG make any difference? Inkscape can also save files off as eps, might try that then importing the eps into VM. One other option, it is possible to cut straight from Inkscape. It's a very basic setup and you don't have all the various tools of a true cutting program, but it can be made to work, and it's pretty much all I use. Note, I only do decals as a hobby so I don't really need the various tools of a true cutting program.

If you watch the machine closely, you'll like see it's not cutting each shape seven times but rather the lines where the various colors meet is being cut multiple times. I do not know of any way to quickly get rid of the over lapping lines. It will require a good bit of welding, punching, and node editing to get the desired results.

Inkscape is a decent design program. It is free, but like a lot of free software, can be a bit clunky at times, but it's pretty powerful and can be a great learning tool before buying something though.

Yeah, missed the Mac thing. Still though there are various free trials of programs that could be tried before completely giving up on the cutter. Inkscape can also be configured to cut, although it's not as straight forward as most would like.

You might also look into finding a maker's space that has a laser you can use. They seem to be popping up quite often these days.

That kind of sounds like a software problem to me. Before you give up on the machine I'd try a different cutting software and see what happens. Signblazer is free, I"d download it and give it a try to see what happens.

Do you have those instructions saved off some place and just copy and paste them here? Those instructions should just be at the top of the forums on every page. ha!

Signblazer does not control pressure so the problem would be the cutter itself and/or the blade depth.

yes. WIth MH cutters it's also recommend you cycle power to clear the memory. I have a MH and I personally have not had to do that but others have reported that they do.

Are you using Heat Transfer Vinyl?

I just do this as a hobby, but for the most part I don't think in terms of cost per quantity of vinyl used. I think in terms of time. If something takes me an hour to do vs something that takes 15 min. I'm going to charge more for the hour one even though it maybe smaller than the one that takes 15min. I will admit though, customers don't think this way. They think the bigger something is, the more it will cost, when in reality, bigger items are often times cheaper to produce in terms of time, and time is the real cost of vinyl decals.

Oracal 631 vinyl is matte, intended for inside walls. Don't know if you can write on it or not, never tried.

I do not, and actually I was recalling old post that after thinking about it I believe were talking about the MH or SC cutters. Someone else might be able to shed some light of the possibility of replacing the z-axis chip on a titan.

That sounds like the z-axis chip has gone bad. I believe you can replace just the chip for a buck or two, as long as you are comfortable with soldering.

What software are you using, and have you tried something different. The fact that it picks up for the individual letters but then drags to the next word seems like a software issue to me.

Might be a loose connector inside some place. Just guessing at this point though.

First guess would be static, although this is not the usual static problem. Does it do it if you use pen and paper?

thanks

Anyone know a good vinyl that is close to the Indianapolis Colts Blue? My sister is looking to make some decals for a motorcycle and doesn't web colors. Anyone in Indy have a color sample book she could stop by and look at?

If you use the serial port I don't believe you need drivers. The computer just sends the HPGL commands to the plotter using standard communication protocols that all computers should support. If you don't have a serial port you should be able to get a converter that works on macs.

Quantity discounts only make sense if it is actually easier, faster, or cheaper to make multiple items. With vinyl cutting since so much of the cost is your time weeding and preparing and that won't really change no matter how many you do a quantity discount doesn't really work. Some designs are rather simple and can be easily grouped in a way that weeding and preparing can go quicker so you could apply a discount then, but it would be determined by your time rather than anything else. Now if you're printing it and you just hit go, a decent discount would be reasonable, since you'll only do a bit more work, but produce a lot more quantity. On the spreadsheet, personally I'd change it so that your labor cost are cost per hour rather than minute. I'd also rework the material cost so that you simply enter the size and cost of the roll your using, the length of vinyl to be used for the decal, and the qty. This way you factor in the cost of the waste vinyl if the design doesn't fill the width, it also adds a little bonus if you can get multiple copies within the width. But unless you're working with expensive vinyl and large designs the material cost is usually pretty small and a very small percentage of the actual cost.

For both of those processes you don't specifically need a vector file, do you? Obviously a vector is better for scaling but a raster image can be made to work, correct? At any rate, to answer your first question if you have photo shop you should be able to use the eyedropper tool to select and change colors in a raster image. http://www.dummies.com/software/adobe/photoshop/photoshop-cs6-eyedropper-tool-lift-or-sample-color/

Check that track that the rollers run in or look for anything else that would be stopping the cut head from moving. The grinding noise is simply the motors and pulleys trying spinning and the belt not moving. Not good, but it sounds a lot worse than it really is.