first try with pcut / signblazer

[martymoe 0]

i finally got the vinyl i ordered for my new pcut yesterday

played with it a while last night and everything works good except for one little issue.

when i cut smaller detail the vinyl sticks together at start and stop points, i see refrence to an overcut setting that i cannot find in signblazer,

i played with the blade height and pressure. it either doesnt cut the whole piece and leaves the little stuff stuck to the weeding stuff or it tries to cut through the backing..

for bigger stuff it works well, i just have to hold down the pieces i want to leave and when i pull the weeded part up i break the little tab.

is there a way in signblazer to make it overcut or go past the start point just to cut that little tab?

i may have messed up the terminology i literally have about an hour in this field that's why im asking the same question in 3 or 4 different ways.

thanks for your help.

[Guest fivestar]

Marty I am not familiar with signblazer but you are looking for knife offset.  Also try slowing you speed down when cutting small detailed stuff, that will help alot.

[Guest sciondrgn]

Im still new to all this as well but if I remember right the Knife Offset setting in Signblazer is in the Cutter Setup Screen..

from the main screen in SB click on Cutter Then Setup, these will be in the top toolbar.. The knife offset is in the middle of the setup window that opens!

[martymoe 0]

i may be wrong, even though i am not familiar with vinyl machines i do have a cnc plasma table and a couple of cnc milling machines..

would not the offset be to account for the width of the blade?

on the plasma machine there is a kerf setting that you set to make your parts dimentionally correct by correcting for the width of the cut.

is that not what cutter offset is?

i will play with the blade offset setting this afternoon, but that doesnt sound like the answer to me..

keep in mind i dont really know what i'm talking about here..

[Guest sciondrgn]

This is a bit from Jerry about the blade offsets. I hope it helps.!

I have the blades that came with the machine set at .30

Hi Everyone,

There appears to be great confusion over correct blade offset.

So here a few tips to help.

First of all the offset quoted for all blades is in millimeters.

Now how do you translate 0.25mm to inches?

My trusty calculator tells me that this is 0.0098425 inches.

So what do you do?

Well in SignBlazer when you run the program in Inches the blade offset stays in millimetres. 

So just enter 0.25 for all normal blades marked as Roland Equivalent.

For normal blades marked Mimaki or PCut the offset is 0.30

Blades with other angles have other offsets.  These are usually marked clearly on the packet.

Sometimes I get asked what blade to use for different thicknesses of vinyl.

Here is a guide for PCut Blades. For Roland blades simply use the nearest angle and offset.

Now you have to understand the difference between angle and offset.

Angle is the angle of the blade in relation to the centreline of the blade.

Offset is the distance from the tip of the point to centre of the blade.

So you can have a 50 degree blade with quite different offsets.

A 50 degree blade could have an offset of 0.15 or 0.30 or 0.50.

1.   For small letters (quarter of an inch or less ? 5 mm)  Blade angle  should be  50 degrees and an offset value of 0.15 (these are not cheap and hard to buy).  You use these blades on only 7 year calendered or cast for small letters.

2.   For standard calendered vinyl the normal blade supplied and sold is 50 degree with a 0.30 offset. This is used for 90% of all work.

3.   For Cast Vinyl a special blade is made and sold.  Again this is not a low cost blade and may be hard to find.  The angle for cast vinyl should be 36 degrees with the same offset of 0.30mm

4.   For heavier vinyl such as fluo a heavier angle is needed.  So the blade best for this work is 50 degree blade with an offset of 0.50.  Sometimes the blade angle may be 60 degrees.

5.   For heavy rubber and very thick materials you need and even higher offset.  The blades used for this usually have an offset of 0.75. The angle will be 60 degrees.

Executive Summary.

Blade angles are from 30 degrees to 60 degrees.  The higher the angle the thicker the material cut.

Blade Offsets can be from 0.15 to 0.50. The smaller the offset the thinner the substrate being cut.  The bigger the offset the thicker the material being cut.

Now sometimes you need to be able to set the offset yourself.

If anyone wants a ---how to ---- on this just put a post up to this reply and I will give full instructions with illustrations to calibrate the perfect offset for any blade.

Jerry from SignBlazer

[martymoe 0]

after reading that, i get the impression that i was wrong..

so the offset pertains to the distance between the cutting tip and the centerline of the blade holder..

i appreciate you posting that.. i'd been searching around and found a nice long blurb from jerry that was close to that but didnt exactly answer my question.. if i understand correctly, my question just got answered..

thank you.