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muddywaterpirate

The MH-721 thread, let's discuss connections

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I've put in a support ticket on Monday night and got a reply back at 10:43 a.m. on Tuesday morning.  Replied back on the ticket Tuesday evening, and as of today, still haven't heard back from US Cutter.  I am losing my faith in this company VERY fast.

I was using USB to USB connections with no problems, then all of a sudden the cutter couldn't complete a job without freezing.  I have been told to go with a USB to serial or serial to serial, so I'm working on getting that cable to try it. 

Tonight, after not getting a reply from my tech support ticket for the second day, I decided to check the crappy instructions that came with the MH-721 again to see what else I could find out.  It states in the first part that the Parallel Printer/LPT1 Port is the "recommended method to connect the PC and the cutter.  I had a brand new unused parallel to parallel cable, about 4' long that I connected.  I made sure the computer had nothing set to LPT1 and then set the Signblazer software to LPT1.  Imported an image, sent it to the cutter...nothing.  Rebooted.  Created some text in Signblazer, sent it to the cutter...nothing.  The software opened the sending box and completed but the cutter never did anything.

So, what am I doing wrong? 

I'll tell you what, I've stumped every user and the US Cutter support team on this one.

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What port were you using with USB... I know very little about computers but when my son set mine up he finally had to use COM4 to get the USB to work

and USB is the only one we could get to work.... But works fine

MM64  ;D

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What port were you using with USB... I know very little about computers but when my son set mine up he finally had to use COM4 to get the USB to work

and USB is the only one we could get to work.... But works fine

MM64  ;D

I was using COM3, which had always been working great.  I don't know why it all of a sudden just stopped working.  I made no changes from when it worked great.

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I have heard of teh com setting changing on it's own..in fact it happened to my brother.

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I had to go in and delete some of my com port settings I didnt know how I just typed in ( How to delete com port settings) in google and found one that would work. I could use usb but had to delete com ports to add usb to serial connector dont know why but that worked but I have a Pcut maybe this will help jhelms

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occasionally windows has a problem that it will reassign com ports or change settings that make them mess up. I have had machines that worked fine for years, then windows updates something and messes up the port. So sometimes it is best to go it, and delete the comm ports, reboot and let it reinstall them. If your go into your device manager, (Right click on My Computer, then select Manage, and click on Device manager int eh screen that comes up, and see if any of your ports have the Yellow exclamation point in them, if they do then there is a problem with that port. . Also you can look and see what ports you have available. Most of the time Com 1 on a pc is already assigned to an internal device like a modem or serial port plug, so when you add a USB to serial converter or a USB port it may create a new port for that device. You can go to the device manager after installing it to see what port it is and assign your cutter to it.

Kevin

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If he's getting partial cuts and then it stops in the middle of the cut, it shouldn't be a com port issue. It sounds like USB is losing connection halfway through his cut. Only other thing I can think of is trying a new usb cable?

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Okay, here is the latest, and still nothing is working, and US Cutter has failed to reply to my ticket (this company is officially on my "they suck" list).  I rarely get off work in time to call them, and when I open a support ticket, I got one reply then no one ever got back with me.

hockeygirl, I have tried 3 different USB cables that all work on other hardware, so that's not the cause.

Here is what I've got on my desktop computer ports:

LPT1

LPT2

LPT3

COM1

COM2

COM3

COM4

FILE

MICROSOFT DOCUMENT IMAGING WRITER PORT

XPS PORT

USBONE

In my signblazer port set up with USB connected, I get:

BLAZER.COM3: - USB SERIAL PORT

This one is what I've always used and it used to work, now stops cutting in the middle of project.

COM1 - Software sends to cutter but cutter does nothing

BLAZER.COM1-COMMUNICATION PORT - Software sends to cutter but cutter does nothing

I thought serial to serial was supposed to be THE fix?  I can't get the cutter to budge unless I'm using USB, in which it's hit or miss whether it finishes or not.

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Can you also go into Device manager - USB Serial Port Settings - Port Settings Tab and see what the "Flow Control" is set to? Try setting that to Hardware.

Then go to Advanced option under the same tab: Make sure Serial Printer box is checked and nothing else. Also, do you have a Latency Timer setting? That should not be higher than 16ms.

Yeah, I've never been able to get the Serial or Parallel ports to work... I had found those to be the most optimal settings for USB. Hope they work for you too...

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This might be a long shot but I just had a problem with mine yesterday

I had moved the plotter to get behind it and I heard the gong on my coumpter that lets me know USB has been disconnected or connected

Got to checking and the plotter end of the cable is kind of sloppy in the plug

so if I wiggle it even plugged in all the way it will make the gong sound

So I took the load off the plug by taking the tension off the plug and then zip tied the cable to the stand leg

Now I can roll the cutter around and it never  disconnects  ;D

MM64  ;D

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This might be a long shot but I just had a problem with mine yesterday

I had moved the plotter to get behind it and I heard the gong on my coumpter that lets me know USB has been disconnected or connected

Got to checking and the plotter end of the cable is kind of sloppy in the plug

so if I wiggle it even plugged in all the way it will make the gong sound

So I took the load off the plug by taking the tension off the plug and then zip tied the cable to the stand leg

Now I can roll the cutter around and it never  disconnects  ;D

MM64  ;D

not a long shot at all! The loose fit has been discussed before..I had to duct tape mine when I was using USB. It would sometimes wiggle loose just froma  puff of wind.

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Everyone, I appreciate all of your help and suggestions on this so far.  I'm going to go into those settings in my device manager like hockey girl said and double check the usb connection as well. 

I might be frustrated with my cutter and the tech support, but the forum people really do a great job helping each other out.  ;D

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IF there is nothing wrong with teh cutter,and IF your ports are not messed up on your computer..you should be able to just plug it in serial to serial and connect through Com1. That's just a fact. No special drivers needed..the computer just sees it. I have 3 cutters on 3 computers now,and all I ever had to do was plug them in, set the right port and drivers in the software,and cut.

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Hi all, I'm new to the forum, I've used Signblazer for 4 years now and the best connection is on a serial port. USB never worked, try LTP3, my PC always picks it up (OS XP home)

Q. Does anyone know whats happening with the Signblazer support issue and the American CO that has taken over.

The last email I had from Jerry (Color Crome Australia) last year was that he was amazed that it was working on XP, formerly I had it on Win98 and no problems at all, but who wants to stay in the dark ages?;)

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What I realy wanted to ask any one out there is that I'm using Signblaser Pro on XP home and its fine but installed it on XP pro and the program just stalls, any ideas?

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