bossman696

Lease vs. Purchase

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Most of my adjustments were to the carriage belt tension.  I lightly greased the carriage wheel.  They are plastic and probably self lubricating but what could it hurt?  I looked up a few articles about servo vs stepper motors and used that info to try different things with mine.  Basically it said stepper motor have only so much resolution and any slippage will go uncorrected when using them.  So if your software said go 100 clicks and it bound up and only when 95 clicks, it had no real way of knowing it didn't make to all 100.  So I just took some of the pressure off the drive belt, played with the driver setting and while she is far from perfect, its better than I had.  I still see consistency issues though.  Some cuts are perfect and then some have chatter in them.  I may be looking at the graphtec's again sooner than I expected.  I guess that bad demo taste is fading.

 

Would anyone with a graphtec or clone be interested in cutting a small 4" x 4" file and posting a pic?  I would like to have something I can directly compare against.

 

Thank you for taking the time to explain.  It's information like this I like to lock away in the brain and then pull out if I ever start having similar problems.

 

All I can say is WOW!  I have to agree, the difference is night and day compared to the samples I just cut.  The main things I notice are the extremely sharp corners, and the super straight lines.  Even with my adjustments, my corners are rounded and the slanted letters have waviness.  I am convinced!

 

You have made me a believer!  Thanks for the help, but my pocket book will be upset with you guys for quite some time…..  :lol:

 

I may just order this thing today.  I have two rather large payments coming this week for shirts and signs for the local schools that should just about cover this.  Was hoping for a PS4, but you can't make money with one of those.  :rolleyes:

 

You mentioned corners.    

Something I noticed recently and maybe it applies here.  

I noticed flexi mearsures blade offset in millimeters.  so when I was plugging in blade offsets of .025 and .030 like the box of blades stated, I was actually typing .025 in mm.  Which happens to be 0.000984252 inches.   

   

I'm just throwing it out there in case your software is doing the same. 

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In flexi my offset is set to inches. But with my graphtec I leave offset at zero in flexi and let the cutter do the correction.

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Just to give you all the info. I only cut with Flexistarter 8.6 with my Graphtec on a Windows XP Toshiba laptop. USB.

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I agree with above on the should part - with special firmware the ce drivers will not run the ve  - if you use ve-lxi for software not a problem but if you are trying to use something else if it isn't listed it isn't going to run it.  I have had both several graphtecs and several rolands and the graphtecs in my eyes cut smaller detail easier but for contour the big round dots roland uses for registration on thier cutters is much easier to get the cutter to read . . .  . I hardly contour anything I don't print on the big printer so I have the graphtec for cut decals and use the roland printer for the contour stufff.  If I had to have only 1 I would have the graphtec because a lot of the cut vinyl has details that I find easier on that cutter

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Well I made that jump.  I ordered the Graphtec CE6000-60 and just received confirmation that it has shipped.  USCutter had a much better deal in their ebay store than on the website. 12 rolls of 24" Greenstar Vinyl and free shipping for the price of the cutter.  Guess I'll be posting my camera equipment on ebay this weekend to help balance this expenditure.  I was a photographer until I discovered the hard way I couldn't take pictures of people my wife didn't like, but that's a story for another time...  :wacko:

 

I have 6 months no interest to pay for it.  Shouldn't be too difficult.

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You wont regret it.

Wait till you see how easy it sets up.

My china cutter took months to get it pretty good. Always having to readjust. The graphtec took an hour and a half from truck to cutting better than the other. (and there was beer in the process)

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He comes and goes but I bet he's in love with the new cutter.

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Tell you the truth, I have been so busy printing t-shirts I haven't even had a chance to open it.  Even after ordering on Friday Afternoon, it came Tuesday morning!  I plan on tearing into it very soon!  I am so excited!

post-25766-0-99979000-1383837730_thumb.j

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You let it set in the boxes too long I may have to ride over there and borrow it for awhile. Can't wait to hear whether you're happy or not.

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First cuts on the graphtec. I like how smooth everything is, but I think I need some adjusting on the pressure. The cuts are clean and it's barely even scoring the backing, but the weeding seems a lot more difficult. The lettering pulls up with the scrap vinyl really easily.

post-25766-0-26897200-1383879083_thumb.j

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It's that Greenstar,  then try some Oracal.  big difference.

It is green star. I was wondering if oracal had a sticker vinyl or better adhesion to the backing. I will have to give it a try. I still have a lot to learn about this new machine. Every though I downloaded the drivers for signcutpro. I can't get it to communicate. I did that cut using cutting master. It looks promising, but I just have to learn the ins and outs of it.

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To use Signcut you have to use Command HP-GL.      Cutting Master uses GP-GL Command.     Yes ,use Oracal 651, much better vinyl.  

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To use Signcut you have to use Command HP-GL.      Cutting Master uses GP-GL Command.     Yes ,use Oracal 651, much better vinyl.  

Thank you I will check that when I get back to the office. Much appreciated!

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I still can't get it to work.  I will send SignCut Pro a message and see what the issue is.  I'm using the USB, but maybe I need to switch back to the keyspan.

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you really don't need a keyspan with any graphtec - they have a top notch usb chipset in them

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Yes,  I only use USB with my Flexistarter program, on Command  HP-GL    on windows XP.  But I don't know anything about Mac, or Signcut.    Never a problem.. 

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Same here. USB only and never a problem.

Must be that mac thing. Probably a setting that is wrong or off a bit.

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I can get it to cut just fine using the cutting master plug in, but I guess I'm getting old and don't like change.... Lol

I hate not knowing something I need and I guess I will just have to get to know cutting master and make that my new program. There is so much to learn.

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Have you contacted signcut yet? I imagine they can fix you up pretty quick.

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