Contour Cutting Tutorial: SignCutProd Pro and the LP24

[NukleoN 34]

To start, this is Paco's (user CRD) tutorial from a method he discovered. I am just adding it to this site in my own words to clarify a few things which confused me and to add a few tricks of my own. I have to give him all the credit for teaching me how to do it. After learning from him, I did like 50 zillion contour cuts, made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot. Eventually, I got perfect contour cuts.

These are the original manuals here if you want to see them (written by Paco). See, he did all the hard work, I am but a scribe who re-wrote the tutorial in a way I understood it better and with a few more tips. If you want to thank anyone, thank Paco!

Start with a properly working cutter! For basic setup check the Noobie guide written by Paco.

Calibrating Your LP24:

Put a regular sheet of paper in your cutter, and set home origin in the middle of it. If the cutter says 'waiting' then you will need to cycle the power so you can set your new origin.

Load the plotter pen into your cutter, and in SignCut, set your offset to 0mm, with 3-point calibration enabled. Put the cutter online if it isn't already.

Under Settings/Settings click 'Calibrate Laserpoint Offset'. A crosshair will be printed on the paper.

Use the arrow keys on your PC numeric keyboard, screen or a USB handheld numeric keypad and move the laserpointer to the center of the crosshair. Hit the enter key or click 'OK'.

You now have set the offset the knife holder has in relation to the laser point. You will only need to do this once, and the values are stored in SignCut. It's a good idea to write those values down somewhere in case you need them again.

Optional Contour-Cutting Sample Files

Paco made these files available. Download and use them to learn the contour-cutting process, or you can make your own in the next section in the tutorial.

Here's a Corel X4 Sample File. Corel X3 Sample File download is here.

Illustrator users, download this sample here.

Note that the contour layer exists on its own layer. It doesn't matter how many layers you use, but it's good to keep your contour layer on top so you can hide and isolate it for sending over to SignCut.

Contour-Cutting Process

1. Design (or import) your graphics in Corel, Illustrator or some vector-based graphics program. Put all of your art on however many layers you need, but the key here is to add a layer at the top with *only* your contour lines, so we can isolate them, turn them off and save them out by themselves later. The contour lines can be any color vector line, and make them however you see fit. I usually just scale up my graphic a little bigger than the original, and make sure it's an outline in the Contour layer. Name the layer 'Contour', because later, you can re-use this file as your master file for all future contour-cut work. I usually set my contour cut layers to 100% Magenta. With contour lines on their own layer, you can hide them anytime while you design. Be sure your workspace matches your paper size.

Note, A4 paper is not the same as Letter (8.5 x 11) so double check. You don't want an A4 workspace with Letter paper or vice versa, so it pays to make sure. Most American paper is Letter, but some is A4. A4 is the European standard and is a little bigger than Letter.

2. Put a vector stroke box around your entire graphic. A 'stroke' is just a line, but it's called that in these programs. Make sure the box is in both your graphic AND your contour layer, exactly matching. The idea here is that you will use three corners of this box as your registration. So, you will need this box to print so you can see it on your inkjet vinyl, and you will need an exactly matching box in your contour layer (same color as the rest of your contour lines). Make sure that the box doesn't get too close to the edges where your cutter's rollers hold on to your paper. Be conservative. I usually leave about 3 inches up on the top to allow my cutter to hold the paper. Otherwise, your paper will fall right out of your cutter when it reads the back corner. More on that in a second. If you want to make use of ALL your paper, then get some carrier sheets for your paper (like Paco mentioned) so you can use the full space without your cutter dropping it.

3. Ok, so now your design has a box around it with your graphics inside (again, this box is just for registration for contour-cutting). Your contour layer should be where you want your cutter to cut, and with the box as well. Print your graphics, with the contour layer off. In Illustrator, double click the contour layer and unclick 'print' just in case you forget to hide your contour layer when you print sometime. Once your print is out, delete every layer but your contour layer (don't save this file like this, of course) and send just your contour layer to SignCut. In Illustrator that command is under the File menu, near 'Print'. Once your print is done, just 'undo' to bring back all your layers. Make sure you save your master file, since you can re-use the box setup for other contour-cuts.

Note: Be sure there's no scaling happening with your print. Borders or no borders is fine, and won't affect contour cutting. To get blacker blacks on some substrates, you will need to choose a 'black ink only' setting if you're using a lot of black. Also, some specialty substrates should just use the 'regular media' setting, not photo-quality. I learned all this by trial and error.

4. Load up your print in your LP24, portrait style, just how you saw it on-screen. Make sure you set the origin so it is LOWER than the bottom right corner of the box, and TO THE RIGHT of it. This is important, otherwise you won't be able to jog all the corners which go past the origin. So, just set your origin to a healthy distance to the right and below your bottom right corner of the printer box outline. Put the cutter back online.

5a. In Signcut, rotate your contour 90 degrees. The arrow should appear in SignCut as pictured below (if you're using the sample file), or similar to this picture. Note the orientation of SignCut compared to your plotter. On your cutter, the arrow print is positioned normally as you see on screen (portrait orientation).

5b. Make sure that '3 point calibration' is enabled in the Settings/Settings menu.

5c.Go to Special Cutting/Advanced Contour Cut and hit the Adjustment bar. Now, use your keyboard numeric keys, onscreen keys or a handheld USB numberic keypad to jog the laserpoint exactly on the lower right corner of the box outline. Take care to be precise here, as it makes for a better contour cut. Also, use the '5' key of your numeric keypad to cycle between jog distance. It will start with a greater distance, but hit 5 again and it jogs a smaller distance. Hit 5 again for the smallest fine movements. Every time you hit 'enter', the cutter will move to the next registration point and the distance will be set to maximum jog again.

Align the corner, and proceed through the menus till you have aligned to 3 points of the outer box.

If your computer keyboard isn't close to your LP24, you will want to get a USB numeric keypad just for this purpose. It's awesome (or get a wireless keyboard). When you have the laser dot aligned perfectly on the lower right hand corner, hit ENTER and it will move to the next corner (lower left). Align perfectly, then hit the numeric Enter key. Now, align that upper right corner and hit ENTER. Signcut will now stop, waiting for you to hit Cut. But, here's a shortcut, just hit ENTER again and it will start the contour cut.

6. Watch your contour cut, and it should be perfect. NOTE, some materials you cut are going to be thicker than you're used to. Remember, contour cutting is super precise. If you think you need to make another pass, just hit ENTER again and it will contour cut your design over the last one. I find this necessary for certain substrates like glow in the dark inkjet vinyl or metallics, OR just set your pressure higher (120) and bring your blade out a bit. Normally, the cutter blade is barely visible (half credit card width) so for special substrates you might need to bring it out more.

That's all there is to it. Check your weeding, and you're good to go. The key here is getting that alignment exactly right. The better your alignment, the better your contour cut.

I'll update this tutorial if there are any corrections or additions to be made.

[dbtoutfit 5]

I don't know what the heck I am doing wrong but after 6 hrs of hacking at this freaking thing its still spitting the paper out. It was a little tricky with SCx2 but this new one has got me scratching my head and saying WTH!

[sigh]

[CRD 9]

Uninstall SCP and try again.

If it worked for me it should work for everyone.

Paco

[AshComputers 197]

Your links need to be fixed NUK... dead as a hammer, take the "http://" out of the hyperlink.