darcshadow
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Posts posted by darcshadow
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Lighting Ever, http://www.lightingever.com/, has the best prices I've found on LED light strips, under 8 bucks for 16'. They don't come with a power supply, but you can get one from them as well for $8. There are even cheaper power supply options out there if you are comfortable with a little soldering.
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17 hours ago, COACH H said:Dakotagrafx I mean depth Im new into this terms, but yes I used 170 depth and 500 speed, Thanks @ Wildgoose for the response
If you're talking about the settings on the cutter, they are for speed and pressure. Depth would be controlled by how much blade you have sticking out of the cutter and there are probably a hundred or most post on the forums about how to correctly set the blade exposure. Do a search for them and follow the instructions then it'll just be a matter of adjusting your speed. I run around 150 on mine for standard vinyl.
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Inkscape has a built in cut tool with Inkscape 9.1, under Extensions->Export->Plot
Takes a bit of playing around to get things sorted out, but once you do, it's a nice option. It only works via a serial connection though.
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My only real complaint about SignBlazer is it doesn't have an overcut option, which until recently I never knew how nice that option is. If your cutter has a built in overcut, then you don't need the software to tell it to, but the MH does not and now that I have software with the over cut, I'll never go back. I'm actually using Inkscape to do my cutting now. It's not a true cutting program and is a bit clunky to get to work, but the overcut on it is worth it to me.
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Experience, Pay attention to how long it takes you for various jobs at first and as you do it more you'll get a feel for how long a particular job will take you.
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Don't know what effect it would have on the banner material, but VM&P Naphtha is suppose to work really well at removing adhesive. It was recommended to me for removal of adhesive from cups when powder coating. I have not tried it yet, so far Acetone has worked for what I needed.
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Even with the pressure way up high, you shouldn't have cut through the backing like that. You have too much blade exposed.
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On 12/3/2016 at 8:59 PM, livinloudgraphics said:yes i have both cables and have them hooked to the computer but my computer has them listed as com 1-4 then file what would the serial port be? thanks
You don't want both USB and Serial connected at the same time, just one, ideally the serial.
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This would be a pretty easy one to hand trace and the way to go. In the future, for dealing with gradients, I'd open the image in something like photo shop and work on it there to try and get it as close to a solid black and white image as possible, then do your trace.
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If you have a serial port on your computer no need for a keyspan. Keyspan is just a way to convert USB to serial.
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Learning to trace is a great thing, but in this case, if you do a search on the forums you'll find all 50 states already in a vector file. Most states also have a Wikipedia page with a vector drawing as well.
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yeah, if it won't cut anything now sounds like a setting was changed. Are you using the USB? If so, did you plug into a different USB port on the computer? Once you setup the plotter and get it working, you want to keep using the same USB port. If you change ports you'll also have to change settings in the Cutter Setup screen mb20 posted above.
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Do you have multiple colors in the design? If so be sure to have the color you want to cut selected in the cut preview screen. If you post a screen shot of your design and the cut preview screen we might be able to help more.
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Yeah, your math is good. If you're just wanting to know the profit at the end of the year just look at expenses vs income.
Basing cost of decals off of size alone is foolish as often times larger decals can actually be easier and faster to produce than small ones so in reality you could sell a large decal cheaper than a small one. But people don't think that way and are willing to pay a higher price for a larger decal even though it cost you less time and time is money. As I said, most of what I sell I charge what I would be willing to pay.
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To keep it simple, just figure the cost of vinyl per inch. For example a 24"x10yard roll of vinyl is say $20. That works out to 5.5 cents per inch. Now lets say you make a decal that is 10"x5". take your 5.5 and multiple by 5 and you're at 27.5 cents double that to cover cost of app tape and you've got 55 cents of material wrapped up in the decal. In reality there is actually much less so as you can see unless you are making huge decals, the material cost is pretty irrelevant and the price really comes down to how much time do you spend to make the decal and what do you want to pay yourself per hour. If you're doing the install that is additional time, and you want to account for travel.
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I just do this as a hobby, but anything I sell I just price at what I would be willing to pay for it. A little more professional way to do it would be to simply figure up the cost of the material you are using and then add in your time at a reasonable hourly rate and you have your price.
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SB doesn't do it very well, Inkscape does a decent job. Import your image into Inkscape, then select it and choose trace bitmap from the Path menu. The better the image is to start the better the trace will be. Editing the image in photoshop or something to clean it up prior to vectorizing it can help a lot.
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You are trying to cut a raster image. You'll need to vectorize the raster(bitmap) image before you can cut it. Just saving an image as an EPS or SVG it doesn't make the image a vector.
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you using the serial connection or USB? If USB, be sure to have the correct driver installed and the correct plotter selected in the SB setup screen.
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Inkscape can be used to cut as well. although not a true cutting program it lacks a lot of features, and only works via a serial connection, it does allow you to set blade offset and overcut. Signblazer is an easy program to pickup and work with but it does not offer overcut and with a MH, overcut is practically a necessity.
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You shouldn't need a blade offset when using a pen, a setting of 0 should give the best results. Blade offset is to account for the fact that the tip of the blade is not centered in the holder. That would not be the case with a pen.
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Question, why mylar? If it's because you can reuse it multiple times, that makes sense when buying the stencil, but if you have the ability to create stencils when ever you need them vinyl would work, would be cheaper, and any cutter could do the job. Depending on how detailed you may want something better than a value cutter, but even those can do pretty decent work.
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You have to find a program that can open it in the first place then save it as an older eps version.
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I've not done it, but I would guess, yes, depending on the coarseness of the etching.
Help with x8 and MH871 mk2
in Corel Draw
Posted
agree, it's an excellent program and I'd love to keep using it but the overcut ability really is a necessity, especially with budget cutters.