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rxninja

Closing shapes, tails, and other such woes

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I'm using an SC-series cutter and SignCut Pro on a Mac. I've got the standard Roland 45 blades, though I've tried the 60s as well with no changes. I've tried everything from 200mm/s to 800mm/s (settled on 600 since neither extreme shows any change) and I've been going at 100g of force (125 peels up the smaller pieces and 75 doesn't cut all the way through). 

 

So here's the problem: I'm cutting relatively small designs (about 3.5" x 2" at the smallest, with shapes that are sometimes about 1-2mm long/wide). I have two problems that show up, sometimes together and sometimes separately. Sometimes the cutter cuts out the shapes I want, but it adds small tails to them. Sometimes the cutter cuts about 99% of the shape I want but then it doesn't close the shape, which can be very minor or it can be a large proportion of the smaller shapes (for instance, a triangle becomes a > instead). When I say tails, I mean that instead of a O I get a _O (a circle with an extra line coming off it that makes it look more like a Q or a P). 

 

I just recently found the Overcut option in advanced cutting settings and that seems to yield results on larger designs, but where a half millimeter or millimeter overcut is just fine with a large shape, it's devastating to something that's less than 1/4" long. 

 

This isn't a giant problem when I'm using vinyl as an etching mask (it's still a time-consuming pain in the butt), but it makes it utterly impossible to create decals that have very fine details or very small shapes. Weeding completely destroys my image, as the smaller pieces are either cut up or they're still attached to the weeded background. 

 

I don't really know what all of the SignCut settings do, but I've experimented with Settings > Cutter > Offset, Advanced Settings > Overcut, and I'm looking at Lead-In Length to try to figure out what that does. The problem is that nothing yields the results I need, which is no extra cuts and 100% closed shapes. 

 

I've also tried messing with the blade depth, using a new blade, and using the 60 degree blade. None of those really seemed to help, though setting the blade too far out does make the tails extra bad. 

 

Has anyone else had this problem and found a fix for it? 

 

At the very least, can someone point me to an instruction manual for SignCut? I thought Overcut was the setting I needed, but it just trades one problem for another. It works for larger designs, but for my smaller designs it's just not enough. There's something more fundamental screwing me up. 

 

Oh, one other interesting point: this does not happen with the pen plotter. It's something about the fact that there's a rotating blade cutting through a physical material that requires software correction (and it's not static, as this happens with all vinyls I've tried and it happens with or without the anti-static clip thing). 

 

Please help?

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1/4" on an sc - nuff said - these are a drag knife cutter with stepper motors - 1/4" size is not going to be easy to achieve.

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I have tried messing with the offset, actually. It doesn't seem to change much and I feel like I've tried a pretty fair range (.022 to .031). 

 

I'm getting improved results with a .3mm lead-in and .3mm overcut, but it's far from perfect and it's definitely not good enough to sell decals yet. 

 

@dakotagrafx : You don't think that level of accuracy is possible with an SC series? If that's the case, what kind of machine do you think would get that kind of job done? 

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You either need a Graphtec, Roland or lots of patience. I do 1/4" on my Laserpoint 1 and Laserpoint 2 but even with the most careful setup on the cutter you still only get around 70% useable cuts. The problems can be totally random like cutting 2 good , 1 bad 3 good, etc. These machines just are well enough built for that accuracy.

 

Jay

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You either need a Graphtec, Roland or lots of patience. I do 1/4" on my Laserpoint 1 and Laserpoint 2 but even with the most careful setup on the cutter you still only get around 70% useable cuts. The problems can be totally random like cutting 2 good , 1 bad 3 good, etc. These machines just are well enough built for that accuracy.

 

Jay

well said, I am a graphtec person myself - have the roland printer but when I need fine stuff I go to the graphtec.  the stepper motors in these value cutters just don't have the accuracy to do it right consistantly.  imagine that if you was to walk a zig sag pattern and you could only move your feet exactly 2' at a time - each stip in the xiz zag is 1.7' - after 20 steps you are going to be way off

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