PhaedrusZen

Members
  • Content Count

    143
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Everything posted by PhaedrusZen

  1. PhaedrusZen

    Shipping with tubes... Vinyl in or Vinyl out?

    Followup post almost 6 months later. I've been shipping anything that doesn't fit inside a 9x12 inch flat mailer inside of those 2" tubes and haven't had any customers with issues so far. What works for one person might not work for another, but I thought I'd mention it for those who are looking to maybe save some time or money in shipping costs. When I have 200 decals to ship out at once (Typically they're all either the same or similar design, with the same dimensions), the tubes make it relatively quick and easy. We do ship the decals with a set of instructions for the customer to go over the decal with a credit card, or a squeegee if they have one, prior to removing the backing paper for installation. I have seen some tunneling on my longer decals, but have not seen it affect the decals themselves. I'm using tubes that are anywhere from 9" to 24" so there's a pretty good range to work with. Worth trying out if you haven't! Especially if you're hand building your shipping boxes each time you send a decal out. (That would definitely be a little cheaper, I'd assume, but I wouldn't have the time to build 200 boxes/ custom flat mailers prior to my shipping deadlines, even if they were all the same size... =/ )
  2. PhaedrusZen

    Shredded letters... =/

    I realize this is a crazy old post, but I didn't see a need to create a new thread for this update. Switched from a Titan 2 to a Graphtec since my original problem, and I had a very similar occurrence yesterday and today, so I did what someone else suggested and pulled the blade holder out. It looked good, with no visible problems, but I cleaned the surface that contacts the vinyl near the blade with rubbing alcohol really well. Popped it back in and the next few cuts have been nice and clean again. Cheers!
  3. PhaedrusZen

    Saving Work Space

    Mine works as well, Queen. I set up the workspace the way I want it, including mat size and what windows/tool bars I want opened, and then go up to the Window Menu> Workspace> Save Workspace and then I just click save, so it's still titled "My Workspace" That makes it the default setup when you open the program. If you rename it when you save, I think it will still default to the "my Workspace" option and you'll have to select the one you want each time. I do save the custom mat size under a different name, but whatever mat size and orientation you have loaded will save when you click Save Workspace. I've done this successfully on SCALP 3 & 4 so far.
  4. Ah... and that's why I need to click links before I go postin'...
  5. I swore I saw it on USCutter before, but couldn't find it to link to it, so Seiki gets the traffic this time... =) I've never even heard of them until now.
  6. PhaedrusZen

    The back of the transfer tape dispenser

    From the album: Home Workshop Setup

    There is a lip to the dispenser that keeps it from pulling forward when you pull the tape out, but I recommend clamping it to the edge of the table as well, as pulling too hard will cause it to flip forward, lip or no lip.
  7. PhaedrusZen

    Transfer tape roller

    From the album: Home Workshop Setup

    The tape is fed between the two rollers and pulled with the sticky side down. The red tape on the front roller lets me line the edge of the transfer tape up with the edge of my cutting mat to keep the tape completely straight when I lay it down over the vinyl.
  8. Here's the application tape dispenser I use... The tape feeds down between the rollers, and then you pull it out and across your vinyl. There is a lip on the bottom that you can't see that keeps it on the edge of your bench top, but I have mine clamped down so I can pull harder/faster. It's on sale right now too. =)
  9. I use something very similar for holding my transfer tape, 500, but it has a little more clearance. I don't see why you couldn't use yours for app tape as well as for holding vinyl. You could use this as a home-grown solution for transfer tape, and even for vinyl, although it'd be a bit cumbersome sliding rolls on and off of that bar repeatedly...
  10. PhaedrusZen

    Graphtec USB cable

    I paid a little extra to get a 15 foot gold plated USB cable. Just switched from a Titan 2 to Graphtec because of serious cutter issues, and I'm trying to avoid any potential for issues again. Maybe the gold plating is just snake oil, but I haven't had any issues at all, so far, and prefer the extra slack to avoid any kinks or stress at the plugs.
  11. PhaedrusZen

    Stamps.com

    This is a side job for me, but it's a full-time endeavor most of the time. ( I put in 56 hours a week, averaged, at my other job, plus whatever it takes to get my orders done. Yesterday was a 24 hour shift, followed by 11-12 hours of vinyl cutting at my home office today). Everything I ship is first class with delivery confirmation, and I ship in either 9x12 flat mailers or 2" tubes, ranging from 9" long to a full 24" long. I'm with Skeeter on the smaller decals. The bigger the better, as long as it's not too much of a crazy, complex welded design. (I'm still developing my skills). A lot of what I ship in the mailers is actually as long as 3-4 feet, but can be folded between breaks in the design so it fits well in the mailer. Some of the sites I use pay through Paypal, but I get paid after the fact through Dwolla (I work as a independent contractor for a friend, I guess? I could make more on my own, but I'm happy to let them handle their portion of the business and just take care of the cutting/shipping.) I've called Paypal customer support fairly recently (before we switched to Shipstation, and if they used to create APO labels, they no longer do so, and I had to go to USPS to create those labels, which was an entirely different kind of pain in the butt. I wish I could have seen some of those intergration aspects you're talking about Skeeter, but I always had to download all my orders from the website I received my orders from as a csv. file, upload it to paypal as a bulk shipment, create the labels and then I had to get creative on ways to get the tracking out of Paypal, as I never found a csv. download for tracking numbers. I ended up opening the recent orders window (can't remember what exactly it was called) copy the information, then paste it into a spreadsheet that I had to format so I could re-upload to the deal site to get tracking entered for my orders so I could get paid. It might be worthwhile for someone like myself or other relatively new cutters, if someone put together a tutorial for how to navigate some of those aspects in Paypal that I, for one, couldn't find or figure out. Their forums only ever turned up garbage for me personally, and customer service was generally less than helpful... =/ I might try to do something similar for Shipstation once I get a little more comfortable with it. They have pretty good customer service, so I've always been able to talk to someone and trouble shoot through whatever I was trying to accomplish, but it'd still be nice to have some condensed information for those looking into it, or trying to troubleshoot on their own. I looked into it a bit, and I'm not sure, but I think we're using the Platinum plan through Shipstation which allows 5 users and 5 different managed websites, as well as manual channels for websites that aren't supported yet. It's Just under $100/month, which is $20/ month for me personally, to use it. I know it's $20 more than Paypal users, but It's worth my money for what I do & how I use it. =) (BTW, I'm never trying to piss anyone off, least of all Mz Skeeter, since she's saved my bacon more than once, either directly or from her previous contributions/insights on this forum. Just giving my dissenting opinion on this subject. )
  12. PhaedrusZen

    Stamps.com

    If you're only selling on Ebay, and only sending package sized deliveries then sure, paying $35 a month for a program that already does what Paypal does on Ebay would be silly, but we're talking apples and oranges. Paypal doesn't intergrate with other websites outside of Ebay (at least not that I was ever able to figure out), and their interface is extremely limited, and unable to handle APO or FPO addresses. Saying you would never pay for a service without doing business in an environment that uses those services is like me saying I would never pay for Amazon Prime because I never purchase things from Amazon. It obviously makes sense, but for someone who uses Amazon all the time, Prime would be a great time/money saver over the course of the subscription. (FWIW, I do use Prime, and it gets paid for in free 2-day shipping, in no time at all.) If DC is shipping via smaller envelopes and needs traditional postage, that's something that Paypal doesn't offer, and it makes sense for him to go to something like Stamps.com. If he's shipping in sufficient quantities and/or selling on compatible websites, then it might make sense to upgrade for the Shipworks/Shipstation software to accompany the postage service that Stamps.com offers. So, yeah, keep the $35 a month because you don't have a need for those services currently, but realize that there's a reason some of us are willing to pay for it. I wouldn't go back to a free service like Paypal while I still sold on websites other than Ebay. =)
  13. PhaedrusZen

    Stamps.com

    Check out Shipstation, Mac. I think the prices are comparable to Shipworks, and it uploads tracking and sends emails automatically for a lot of different sites. Saves me even more time! =) There are 4 of us all using the same shipstation account, and we can keep our orders separate but still streamline billing for postage.
  14. PhaedrusZen

    Stamps.com

    Just switched from Paypal to Shipstation, which uses Stamps.com. Worth the cost to have order information download automatically from the sites we sell on, and then upload tracking automatically once I'm done. Having used Paypal & Shipstation/Stamps.com, that "$35 a month shipping employee" Mac mentioned is well worth it IMO, and saves me a lot of time and headache. Also ships to Military addresses with absolutely no hassle. Same discounted postage rates as Paypal.
  15. PhaedrusZen

    Graphtec CE6000-60 Firmware

    I just started cutting with a 6000-60, and I'll have to look tomorrow what the firmware is, but I haven't had any issues as of yet. I'll let you know.
  16. PhaedrusZen

    SCALP 4 Projects becoming Corrupt

    I've posted on their forum as well, and submitted a bug report, but it seems like there's never much response over there. Just wondering if anyone else here is encountering it as well, or if it's just me...
  17. Good to keep in mind. I do think it's weird that the advance-after-cut feature was available for my Titan 2 with SCALP, but not for my Graphtec. I'd think they'd make a software feature available for all cutters across the board, as long as the cutters themselves are capable of the function. I'd love to try out different cutting softwares, but am stuck with SCALP due to needing to be able to share files with co-workers. =/
  18. Right now, I'm hitting "view" after the decal finishes which auto advances the vinyl to a certain point, but still have to manually advance it to clear the decal completely before cutting. Annoying after being spoiled on the Titan, but still happy overall with my Graphtec so far. Just working out the bugs, one by one.
  19. It's in the menu settings Pause/Menu: "ADV" or Advance (the down arrow): then option 4 on page 1 (roller sensor), and option 1 on page 2 (media sensor)
  20. I've got the cutting controller and need to get used to putting it to work. Just re-downloaded SCALP 4 (got a new laptop in the midst of switching cutters), and it at least has an origin point vs wyswyg setting for where I want the design to cut on the vinyl. That will save me time during the layout process. Also gives me hope that they'll add the advance-after-cut feature down the road. =)
  21. PhaedrusZen

    Step by step cutting

    There is a "Tiles" option in Cutter settings that I think might get you what you're looking for, clhyer. Let me know if you find it and if it's what you're looking for.
  22. SCALP showed that option when I had the Titan plugged in, but has a completely different set of options with the Graphtec. Sounds like I might be SOL, unless they add the feature later. Does that mean you have an "advance" option in your software? I'd try the software my cutter came with, but I'm working with a few other people who all know and use SCALP, and have no interest, inclination or ability to learn additional software, or even to figure out how to save files as .svg's for sharing, as opposed to proprietary .scut3 files... =/
  23. PhaedrusZen

    Step by step cutting

    I've used SCALP 4, but what do you mean by step-by-step?
  24. Haha, nice. =) Is there a way to change what the cutter does after it finishes a cut? I've got two options on the menu (View or Home), but I'd love to have it automatically feed a certain amount of vinyl out after it finishes so I can cut it off and start the next piece without having to manually advance the last decal first.