Refine EcoCut cuts design twice?

[Steel546 0]

So I'm somewhat new to using a vinyl cutter and I bought the Refine EcoCut 25". For awhile, it was doing. I think the computer I'm using is being a bit laggy and the SignCut software isn't working completely. But I had a few questions.

1. When I'm cutting out an image, the cutter cuts it twice. I'll watch it redraw lines it had already cut. Is this normal? Sometimes it won't cut the same spot the next time and will be slightly shifted, which then ruins the whole vinyl. It's frustrating at times, especially when I have to throw out vinyl.

2. When I first got it, it cut perfectly. Everything came out just perfect. Now it doesn't finish the cuts all the way, and doesn't even cut the weeding lines/borders all the way. So now I have little a's with a millimeter of vinyl uncut, which makes it look a bit crappy coming out.

Any suggestions?

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

part 1 you have 2 overlapping images you are cutting, probably from the trace.  it may be a white layer behind the one you are seeing.

2 things on part 2 - is it time to change the blade?  or it could be a small problem with offset.  if your cutting software has an overcut feature you could add a little to that

[Steel546 0]

Part 1 - Well what I do is go into Illustrator, trace lines and create my vector image, then using the SignCut plugin I export it to that. Once it's in there, it's good. Is there a part I'm missing? Here's my exact steps.

Open Illustrator, drag in my bitmap, perform live trace, live paint, export to Signcut, then cut it.

Part 2 - I haven't cut much vinyl at all, so I'm pretty sure it's not the blade. I'll check the offset feature though.

I appreciate the response, I'll look into these.

[mforsman 0]

It might be the live paint thats throwing your cutter off. After you life paint, select everything and click on the "Object" menu, then "Expand". All fills, strokes and objects.

In the picture below you'll see that even after expanding it the black shape where the circles overlap still has an inner line from where the stroke of the circle is. You need to eliminate this.

Open up your pathfinder tool box (Window > pathfinder) and click the "unite" button (pictured below after being united, merge also works most times  )

I know that what I did was a VERY simple example compared to most live-traces, but practice with the easier ones and use more tools on the pathfinder tool panel. I've attached a similar .eps to see if the problem occurs still.

I hope this helps!

circle_livepaint.eps

circle_livepaint.eps