darcshadow

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Posts posted by darcshadow


  1. When you say 2" drift what exactly are you referring to? I've used a MH to cut a 6' long 4" wide strip and the start/stop point was only off by about a 1/8" of an inch.

    And I'd strongly suggest taking down nearly all of those images on instagram. You're just asking from trouble from Disney and Dodge.


  2. While I wouldn't recommend adjusting the pressure, if you do, do in in small increments, and do it equally across all points. I believe the SC pinch rollers have two screws on either side of the roller, if you want to adjust them, I'd suggest no more than a quarter, maybe a half, turn of each screw, on each roller to start with. If that doesn't solve the problem, and doesn't create any new problems, repeat till you either solve the indentation problem, or develop a tracking problem. Keeping the pressure equal is the key.

    Keep in mind, you will never get rid of the indentations, but once you peel the vinyl off the backing, the indentations should pretty much disappear. The indentations that you see are the vinyl conforming to the indentations in the backing paper, the vinyl itself should only have very very light indentations, if any at all.

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  3. That's a pretty slick option in the software, but if you already have design software I wouldn't buy new software just for that feature. Manually scaling a drawing is pretty easy with Wildgooses technique, or you can just do some quick math as well.

    known measurement / on screen measurement * overall onscreen drawing measurement = new overall drawing measurement

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  4. Watching that video, it appears VM has a combine tool, that may do what you want in one step. At time 1:48, the video selects the Weld tool, in that same menu there is a Combine tool, that judging from the icon of the tool it will do what you're after in a single step.

    I'm not a VM user, just going from what I'm seeing in the video. If that doesn't do what I think it does, the punch method I described first will get the job done.

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  5. Like this? I use Inkscape, it has an Exclusion tool that removes the parts of two shapes that overlap. Don't know if VM has that or not. If not you can still do it using punch and weld.

    Take your image and duplicate it then slide it off to the side. Punch the wording through the background image on one, and punch the back ground image through the wording on the other, then slide the two back together. You can then weld them if you want, but that's not necessary.

    path4133.png

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  6. From the image, and your description it sounds like you have two.

    1. From the image it looks like it's cutting ok on the bottom, but not towards the middle/top. That could be a cutting strip problem. Is the strip worn/flattened down more in one place than the other?

    2. From the image and your description, your cuts are not actually finishing. A small gap can be expected and the blade offset and over cut advice given above will help with that. But in the case of the K from your image, it's missing a large portion of the actual design. That seems like a software problem more so than hardware. If you could post the file you're working with we can take a look and let you know if there is anything wrong with it.

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  7. I don't know anything about VM, but the effect you are wanting is called a block shadow and according to VM's comparison page, that option is not available in VM Cut. Do you have any other design software you can use? I know this effect can be accomplished in Inkscape, although it's not as easy to do as in other programs.

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  8. The two keys to operating a computer, being able to read, and read everything that pops up on screen, and not being afraid to mess with things. For the most part the computer will warn you before you do anything really bad, and if you're not sure, just google what ever it is you're not sure about. Nearly ever problem I've ever had on a computer someone else has had it too and there is usually an answer out there. May not be the answer you want, but it's out there.

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  9. Any basic design software should be able to recreate that for you. Just pick any font you like, draw a box through the middle of it and punch it out. Add the black box borders and you're done. Pretty simple. If you post exactly what software you're using I'm sure someone on here can give you exact step by step instructions to do it.


  10. If you want to use Inkscape to auto trace, open the image in Inkscape and select it, then from the menu bar select Path, Trace Bitmat. The default settings are ok and you can simply hit the OK button to get a pretty good trace. The trace will be directly over the original so you'll need to click on the original image and drag the selection off to the side.

    If you adjust the Brightness Cutoff Threshold you can improve the trace results, 0.450 is the default but I've found that 0.65 typically gives me better results to start with. Virtually all auto traced images will need some manual touch ups to get it looking just right. This image for example, the eyebrow will need some work as well as the lower part of the face/head.

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  11. 24" is probably the most common size of vinyl rolls and even designs larger than 24" can usually be broken into pieces so that you can create something much larger. And if they can't you can simply tile the design so that it's broken into 24" wide stripes that you just need to line up when installing.

    You're question has been asked over and over again on the forums, and most people that have or have had a large cutter say they rarely needed the full width, and 24" was usually more than enough.

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  12. Just a note regarding the electrical problem, sounds like an open in the wire. Most likely at a bend point in the wire, the wire inside the insulation has broken and is just barely making contact. Should be a simple fix, just a matter of finding the break.


  13. 14 hours ago, Seaside Embroidery said:

    Yes, I do select all the letters before I hit the weld button, and I tried welding some random shapes together and they work fine. I paid $10 for a pkg. of fonts.

    I will check on buying  the $20 Package. It will be worth spending a little not to be frustrated. Thank you for the suggestion.

    Judging from the screen shot it appears you bought a file that contains individual letters, and from the image of the letters it appears to be that Harold's Vine Font I mentioned above. Don't know for sure, but to me, this seems like a copyright violation on the seller's part. Appears what they have done is bought the font, then typed out each letter/symbol, converted them to shapes rather than a font and saved the file off in multiple formats. Just for future reference, be wary of "fonts" that are not an actual font format, .TTF or .OTF are the two most common.

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