darcshadow

Kind of sounds like you might have absolute positioning turned on and your design is not at the origin of the drawing space. You can use Inkscape if you like, there is a built in option to plot in the newer version, Under Extensions->Export->Plot

That could be the problem right there. Drafting CAD programs don't usually play nice with vinyl cutters. Their curves are typically a series of short straight lines. They have been known to do other odd stuff that vinyl cutters don't handle well.

So sad that the last one is true. ha. First time I drove a stick I just jumped in and took off, no instructions of any kind. Only stick experience was video games. I just don't get how people don't know how to drive a manual. I can understand not being good at it right away, but anyone should be able to get one moving.

My two concern with not taping is scratching it during install and flimsiness of untaped vinyl. If you have a good felt squeegee though the risk of scratching should be minimal. And If the design isn't too big working directly with vinyl shouldn't be too big a deal. Give it a try. Worst that can happen is you mess up the vinyl and you have to do it again.

I never upgrade OS unless forced to. sticking with Win 7 on my main computer till it dies. Hell up till just a few years ago I still had 95 running on a extra PC.

Cutter drivers are only needed if you want to use the USB port which is not recommended anyway. Get a TrippLite Keyspan adapter and use the serial port.

Be sure you have your blade depth correct. Shouldn't matter what pressure you are running it if the blade depth is set correctly you will not cut the backing. MZ Skeeter has posted hundreds of times how to set the blade depth and I believe it's a sticky under Instructional Contributions.

Have you check the blade? They do wear out after awhile.

The vinyl being off after feeding through 46" as you noted in the back is can simply be a sign that you didn't have the vinyl perfectly square to the cutter when you loaded it. This is not necessarily a problem with the cutter, just a matter of not having it perfectly square to the cutter when you loaded it. Have you messed with the tension on the roller clamps? If you have that could be causing issues. Adjusting the roller pressure is a trial and error process and can be very tedious to get the pressures equal across the rollers. cutting stripes like that might be slightly better, but you'll still have drift, but it might not be noticeable after placing the stripe on and lining things up manually. Try turning on the cut in Strips option and set it to like 8". I can't find any documentation, but I believe they way that works is it will cut the design feeding through only 8" of vinyl. So in the above screen shot, it would cut each of those stripes only 8" long, then it would advance the vinyl and continue the cut of the strip for another 8". The idea behind this is even if the vinyl is drifting, in that 8" the drive should me minimal enough that the cuts will all still line up.

You might also try converting the text to paths before saving as EPS. Text doesn't always play well between programs.

Technically no, vinyl cutters can not do die cut. Die cut involves large heavy equipment that stamps out the cut, kind of like a cookie cutter, the cookie cutter is the die. Can an LP3 contour cut printed decals? Yes. Can it perforate cut, sort of. In order to accomplish this you need to cut completely through the backing sheet of the vinyl, in order to do that on most vinyl cutters you need a cutting mat that the vinyl can stick to during the cutting procedure. This is how hobbyist cutters such at the Cricut work. The actual perforation cutting would be controlled by the software you are using.

Getting 3 parallel lines 46" long from a budget cutter is going to be tuff. Honestly the easiest option would be to make those cuts with a knife and straight edge. The stripe feature of the cutting software might work, I have not played around with that option but I believe you are thinking of the stripe in the wrong direction when you set it to 46.5". I don't believe that will cut your design in stripes. You want to change that number to something like 10" or 12". That should make it cut 10" or 12" inches of the design at a time which should minimize the apparent drift between the parallel lines.

ah! I wish people would learn to use their phones. My wife is horrible about it. She'll send me a screen shot of a web link.

You posted a screen shot of your phone, can you post the original image that was sent to you?

If it's just orientation that is the problem my question is, is it really a problem with the software/machine, or the user? Often times people don't corelate the origin point of the plotter and what it considers x vs y to what is displayed in their design screen. Once you get the orientation thing straight in your head things work as they should.

To get the multiple designs, are you laying out multiple copies on your design or are you letting the cutter do the repeating on it's own?

Blade depth would be the first guess? How did you set the depth?

Are you using Glass Eye to do the actual cutting or is it just the design software?

A 45 would probably last a bit longer and as long as you're not doing super detailed work it should get the job done.

Paper will dull the blade surprisingly quick.

If you're just looking for a way to go wireless, you might look into a wifi USB hub. It is a pretty new technology and I haven't heard of anyone on here trying one out but might work. Although when I google it, I don't get many results and the ones that I do find are sold out/unavailable.

If you're really tech savvy you could probably rig up something using a RaspberryPI, could be a fun project but probably cheaper, certainly easier and faster to just buy a Prism

+1, trying to get a cad/DXF file to work on a cutter is a nightmare.

I suspect you have more wrong than just the cutting strip, but the cutting strip is not helping matters. Get that replaced and we'll go from there. I suspect you'll see an improvement, but it won't be perfect.

slice is correct. the MH is a very "dumb" cutter. It just cuts, no smarts to it at all.