darcshadow

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Everything posted by darcshadow

  1. darcshadow

    Cross with praying hands and rosary

    Here are some hands and rosary https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/75776-prayer-vector
  2. darcshadow

    Signblazer. Crashing

    What OS, and how much stuff is running in the background? Unfortunately the creator of SB passed away several years ago and development of the program stopped. Outside of uninstalling it and reinstalling it I don't think there is too much you can do. I'd suggest at the very least switching to a different program for design, Inkscape is free and very powerful, then only use SB to cut or make small quick changes to a design.
  3. darcshadow

    A Fix for HTV Cutting Problems

    The SC2 had two larger grit rollers and 3 movable pinch rollers, correct? You should be able to move the pinch rollers around so that you could cut scrape vinyl that's about 2" square. Now getting scrape vinyl lined up straight can be a bit trickier but so long as the scrape is a decent size larger than the design you just make sure the design is far enough away from the edges to start with and you should be good to go.
  4. darcshadow

    MH721 needs replacing

    Here's a post regarding offset and overcut If you want to continue down the road of getting the MH to work, if you could post photos of some of stuff you've tried to cut that would help as well.
  5. darcshadow

    MH721 needs replacing

    If you have the money to upgrade by all means do it the MH are loud, but you should have been able to get it to cut reasonable well for hobby projects. The first step is always getting correct blade exposure. I know you said you adjusted it, but did you follow Mz. Skeeter's method you should be good to go. Then you'd want to adjust your offset and you should be cutting pretty good. If your software supports it, adding a bit of overcut would help as well. From Mz. skeeter and the method used most for accurate blade depth
  6. darcshadow

    MH721 needs replacing

    My first question would be what is it you're not happy with? That'll determine the level of machine you'll want to look at.
  7. darcshadow

    what tape top use for doing layers?

    So the vinyl is not sticking to the other vinyl? That seems odd, from what I've found, there is nothing vinyl sticks to better than other vinyl. What type of vinyls are you using?
  8. darcshadow

    what tape top use for doing layers?

    You want to do it in reverse order. Say your layers are red on the bottom, white in the middle, blue on top, you tape the blue with enough extra that it will cover both the white and red layers. You then put the blue on the white, then peal the backing off and put the blue and white onto the red. Then when ready to apply just peal the backing off and apply. Although as I type this I realize you may be apply to the substrate directly, which is the better way to layer. If that is the case and your tape is pulling the vinyl back off of the substrate you have a problem with the lower layers. You shouldn't be able to pull vinyl off a substrate that easily.
  9. You're problem is HARDWARE! If the cutting head does not move up when you first power on the unit, no software is going to fix that.
  10. If it doesn't go up when you turn power on you have a hardware fault. Most likely a fried Z-chip or possibly a bad solenoid.
  11. Inkscape is a good free program for design. First step will be to learn what a vector file is and understand how it is different from a raster image.
  12. You said the blade holder goes up and down freely when powered off, but does it go up when you power on the machine?
  13. darcshadow

    Image Formats. . .convert to SVG?

    Most likely related to transparency of the background color. Or could even be that a background color is not specified and one program defaults to black where others go to white. You'd have to open the file in a text editor to know for sure. edit: I just confirmed if the background color is not specified Inkscape will set it to white.
  14. darcshadow

    Image Formats. . .convert to SVG?

    That's part of the love/hate thing with open source file formats such as SVG. Anyone and everyone can use the format, but there is no forced standard so different programs implement options in slightly different ways that are not always compatible with other programs. An interesting note on SVG, it is essentially an xml file and can be edited as such...if you know what you're doing.
  15. darcshadow

    Image Formats. . .convert to SVG?

    If your're familiar with batch script files you could create a batch file to do it using Inkscape. The inkscape command is Inkscape.exe Filename.eps -l filename.svg
  16. Yeah, it's a tough call on because part of the issue is the fact that you're still learning how to do all this. So while it may have taken you 6 hours so far, in a years time you might be able to do all this in an hour.
  17. I suspect when you drew your line in Inkscape, then imported the desgin into your cut software the line was converted to an object and you now have two lines, one on the inside and one ont he outside of your line drawing. If that is the case, in Inkscape, remove the stroke color, and add a fill color. To do that, select the shape, then click a color option on the bottom of the screen to set the fill, then hold down the shift key and click the little red X on the left of the color selection and it will remove the stroke color. You rarely want your final design to have strokes. And if you do want a line like that, it's better to convert the stroke to a path. Till you get the hang of everything, it's also a good idea to take a look at your design in wire frame mode before hitting the cut button.
  18. Vinyl is actually the cheapest part of the whole thing and more often then not can all but be ignored when figuring price. Figure the time involved, how much you want to pay yourself per hour and go from there. For example, if you pay yourself say $50 an hour and a design takes you 0.5 hours to design, cut, weed, and tape up then you'd charge $25. Size doesn't really matter, If the design is 5"x5" and takes you 5 hours to design, cut, weed, and tape then you'd charge $250. However if you have a design that is 6'x6' and only takes you an hour to design, cut, weed and tape then it'd only be $50. There is one minor problem with this logic though, and it is that the custom doesn't think in terms of time, only product and they're willing to pay more for a larger product even though in reality it's cheaper for you to make. So even though the math above says $50 for the 6' design, you could very likely get away with $100, or even more depending on the market and your customer.
  19. darcshadow

    Help with this

    Just a comment from a design stand point, do you really want the flag design showing through the skull design? Unless the skull is glass you wouldn't be able to see the stars and stripes. Changing the design in this manor would also make the inline unnecessary and the creation of the design a bit simpler.
  20. darcshadow

    getting an error message

    That seems like a flaw in the program design to me.
  21. darcshadow

    How can i get these designs out of this picture?

    The puzzle pieces, while time consuming, should be pretty easy. Start by drawing a box, then draw a circle and either weld it to the box, or cut it from the box depending on the piece you're trying to make. If you're buddy created that in Paint, he needs to get a better program, just image what he could create with a real drawing program.
  22. darcshadow

    How can i get these designs out of this picture?

    side note, from a design stand point, I think I'd take off that extra bit at the top left, it doesn't flow with the design. The whole design looks as if it could be a single brush stroke, except for the extra bit, something like this flows better, in my opinion that is.
  23. darcshadow

    How can i get these designs out of this picture?

    It looks like you tried to put too many nodes. For this image, just put a node at the points. The green circles are where I would put my nodes to start with. Note, some of the points are actually off image. The wheel well for example. You can tell the intended design would have a point about where I marked. Once you do that you will end up with a shape like this. Then you node edit to adjust the nodes to be exactly where you want, and change the straight lines to curves. If you do this will a fill as I've shown, it's easiest if you set the fill to be slightly transparent so you can see the design below. Keep at it and you'll get the hang of if it. This quick ruff trace took about 3 minutes. Now you can go back and cut out the portions that you don't want around the wheel well and the bottom. However, if this is being installed on a truck, I'd leave them there, and then just trim the design to the truck after it's installed.
  24. darcshadow

    How can i get these designs out of this picture?

    The bezier tool is a little different, but I just put the points in the general location of what ever I'm tracing. Then once the shape is formed, go back and zoom in and node edit to move the individual nodes, adjust the curve, straighten lines, etc. And if you need to have two points exactly lines up, you can always copy and paste the x or y coordinates of the points you are wanting to line up.
  25. darcshadow

    How can i get these designs out of this picture?

    Looks like the tool in VM is a polyline. There's a video in this posts that I think will help.