PhaedrusZen

Unfortunately, Golem, when I bought my Titan II, I was under the same impression. Then I upgraded to a Graphtec and realized that spending "that much money" is a relative term... The Graphtec does away with the rulers altogether and instead has ribs running from front to back that you can line the edge of the vinyl up against. Much more effective, but I still use tape to mark my place to speed up lining the rolls up accurately.

I cut mailbox decals (Cutting 200 right now) and the max size I've been using is 16"x 8". Not sure if that's what you're asking...? If you're asking for a graphic of a mailbox that's been flattened, yeah, that's definitely an odd request. I'd love to see if someone can pull that one out of their bag of tricks. =)

I ran into the same thing Golem, and the TItan 2 was my first cutter. It would be nice to use them to verify that the vinyl is loaded straight, but I ended up just using different color electrical tape to mark the edges of a roll of vinyl once I had it perfectly installed. It ends up being quicker to load that way anyway since you have a more distinct visual cue to work with. I did the same thing with the rollers, so I know where the roll of vinyl should be sitting when the vinyl is lined up in the cutter. I'm now on a Graphtec, and even though it comes with hard ridges that run front to back, making lining things up WAY easier, I still used the tape to mark where the pinch rollers should be, and where the edge of the vinyl should line up.

I've had a number of long wait times with US Cutter, but it's always been worth the wait. Just keep in mind that maybe the wait time is because they're thorough with their troubleshooting and customer service, and they're giving the person before you as much time as they're willing to give you when you're up. I haven't had a bad experience with them yet, and when I've come to them with an issue that I've tried to troubleshoot on my own, they've always taken that into account, and will bump me up to reps with higher expertise as needed without wasting my time. I've also spoken with a few of them in person, when I had to drive 3 hours north to their warehouse in Seattle because my cutter crapped out, and they made sure I was good to go before I rolled out to go back home so I could get my orders out on time. I even got a follow-up call to make sure I was up and running. Yeah, wait times might be long, but hang around and you'll get good advice. Use your time on hold to take the advice you get here on the forums! I've solved a ton of problems by searching old posts; sometimes you just have to get creative with your search criteria. =)

But which one SHOULD I buy, Skeeter? I really want to know! BTW, this is my favorite solution to that problem... Which vinyl cutter should I buy?

No critical need here, but I was thinking of making a decal for myself of some type of optical illusion, and wondered if anyone has seen any cool svgs that might fit the bill. I've turned the cube into an svg, but think I might see if I can sharpen the file up a bit. I haven't been able to get the path to translate into a clean svg yet. All ideas/ images welcome. I'm just having fun with this one... Optical Cube.svg

Brand new laptop, so if the HD or power supply are going bad, I've got serious problems. I actually got some extremely fast replies from Craft Edge tonight, especially considering the time of the evening that I sent the support request. Not sure what they did, but it looks like I can at least create new projects that will open for me. They had me reinstall SCALP 4 again, and when I looked it was still version 4.018 (same as I had before), but seems to be better. Still can't open the projects I created when it was having issues, but it opens all my really old files, as well as the SCALP 3 files that I get from others in my company. Scratching my head, but if it works from here on out, I guess I can't complain! And, again, I was pleased with this round of support from CE. =)

I'm having trouble with my saved SCALP projects recently. I lay out all of my decals for a project at once on my off days, so when I'm able I can just cut away and not have to worry about laying decals out. The past three projects have become corrupt after I have saved them and tried to open them later. Haven't changed anything recently with the software, and I'm definitely frustrated. Any ideas, or anyone else having these problems? I tried to upload the trouble files but they're too large. When I highlight the projects to open they show up correctly in the preview screen. I'm at a loss.

Still having trouble with saved projects on SCALP 4. It's been almost 3 weeks, and no help from Craft Edge's forums or support. I submitted another support request and hope I hear something soon. It's killing my productivity... Tried uploading another file I was having trouble with, but got a message that I can't upload a .scut file...

Just curious what any of you think... what is the worst font you've ever had to weed? I've run into a few that aren't much fun and a couple that have made me want to bang my head against the wall. Anyone else experience this?

I actually like that Ink in the Meat font, but I'd NEVER suggest it to a customer! =)

I'm dealing with one called Sudtipos Feel Script right now that sucks because I'm in the habit of weeding from right to left, and it has a ton of huge looping capital letters that don't weed at all going that direction, especially the capital B's T's and F's... =/

That's a bummer. It's always tough dealing with curveballs, especially when you get so used to the feel of a certain vinyl. I'll be messing with Chalkboard vinyl for an upcoming order, and wonder how that's going to go...

I ran a couple test cuts with that logo, and was able to get everything up in a single pull except the insides of the "O"s and "D". Are you having more trouble than that? If you're cutting a bunch on a single sheet, just weed the top decal, then refer to it when you're trying to locate the insides of the letters on the rest of the decals... does that make sense? I don't have any camo to work with, but I'd assume that unless it breaks apart as you weed, it should still be mostly a single pull if you place a weeding box around each decal.

I'm paying just over 50 cents a tube (Sometimes cheaper when I can order more at once), and am able to ship First Class, so shipping is between $1.93 & $3.47, with very few exceptions. My rates for priority with a "free" priority tube would cost me $5.75 minimum. The extra room and insurance would be nice, but for the added cost plus assembly time for the triangle tubes (it's minimal, but adds up when you have to put 200 of them together at once), I'm happy to ship a new decal out if it should happen to get lost or damaged using the smaller, cheaper tubes.

I'll be using 2" tubes with plastic caps to ship larger decals to customers, and was wondering if it matters at all whether I ship with the vinyl rolled to the inside or outside. I know the vinyl itself would be fine rolling to the outside since that's how it was originally on the roll, but does that change once the transfer tape is added? Also curious if I need to tape the ends of the tubes in addition to using the plastic caps. I've got 100+ orders going out on the 17th, and trying to get it dialed in before I ship. Thanks!

I'm almost done with an order, 86 pieces total of 4 different types. I'm finishing up with the white peices, and my machine started shredding letters on a particular design. I've already cut 13 of the same design, so I know it's not an SVG error or something. I first tried switching settings, slowing the machine down from 750 to 600 mm/s. Still did it, so I cut a different design, with no problems. Cut the problem design again and it screwed up again. I pulled the blade and checked the depth which was good, and increased the pressure a bit, to 75 g. Still no dice. It seems to be screwing up on the same spots of the design each time. I've got about 250 yards on the blade (on the entire machine, actually; it's brand new). I'm not getting fuzzed cuts or split ends, so I really don't think the blade has crapped out, plus I've read on these forums that blades should/could last 6-12 months. The cutter seems to be catching on the edges of certain letters in the design, and even pulls a few letters right out. The letters are about two inches tall, so not too terribly detailed. Any ideas? I'm always up against multiple deadlines and need to try to get this figured out... I've already wasted about 4-5 yards, so it's really starting to irk me. Test cuts come out clean, as do other designs, as I mentioned.

I just upgraded from a Titan 2 to a Graphtec CE6000, and like what I've seen so far.

When I set up my Graphtec on my new laptop, I had almost the same exact problems. I had to drop my firewall before it would recognize the cutter. Not sure why, and I can't remember where I read the suggestion, but it worked for me so give it a shot, and hopefully it'll help.

Any larger sizes? It's kind of hard to make out... =?

Major meltdown of my machine. It was great when it worked, but I had tried replacing the IO board and the motherboard with no improvements once it did start having issues. (It was stopping mid-cut and telling my PC it was completed, and this was multiple times a day, so I was wasting literally yards of vinyl on aborted decal cuts.) USCutter worked with me to try to resolve it (Their customer service was awesome on all levels), but when it was clear I had to return it for a warranty replacement, I asked if I could just pony up the cash to pay the difference on a better machine plus a little bit more for the service/return hassle. While the Graphtec was definitely a challenge to set up, especially after coming from a plug-n-play machine like the Titan 2, I'm liking it so far.