SB Elements Not Cutting Large Cut

[TerribleTim68 1]

Hey gang,

I've got an issue that is stumping me. I've used SB Elements since getting my cutter (US Cutter MH1351 ), I've cut a lot of smaller stuff without any problem. I've done multicolor stuff, using tiles to do each color, so I get all that. But this latest one has me stumped. I have a very large "shape" I need to cut. It is going to be the graphics down the side of my racecar. So we're talking about a shape that is roughly 23" tall and about 105" long. It's basically just a bunch of Nike swooshes in varying colors, if that helps visualize what I'm trying to cut. When I send a tile to the cutter (each tile is a different color Nike swoosh), one of two things happens. Either nothing at all happens, or it cuts a straight line down the edge of the roll the length of the cut, like when it cuts the outlining square, and then it just stops. Is this size just too large for it to cut? OR am I doing something wrong?

[slice&dice 2,450]

Hey there, TerribleT !

This one sounds like fun to troubleshoot ---  let's give it a shot.

First of all, you are rolling out 9 feet of material, and that unto itself is likely to charge everything with static, and probably enough to jolt the unit into being stupid and dumping the data.

I put dryer sheets into the core of the roll. That could help.

Also, make darn sure your design doesn't have 'stray nodes' --  that's a sure way to make SignBlazer go nuts.

[mb20music 760]

Sounds to me like a memory issue with your cutter, the MH probably not able to handle it...

[darcshadow 1,626]

The manual for the MH says it can only handle a max of 6' long cuts, might be you're trying to long of a cut, although I never understood why there would be a length limit.

[TerribleTim68 1]

3 hours ago, darcshadow said:

The manual for the MH says it can only handle a max of 6' long cuts, might be you're trying to long of a cut, although I never understood why there would be a length limit.

Interesting theory, I never had a manual so I never actually read it, lol.

I know one of the tiles was not the full length of the overall image. That color was shorter, but I guess I'd need to check the overall length of it.

Maybe I need to look into splitting my image into two halves and printing that way? Just not sure how I'd go about that inside SB Elements.

[slice&dice 2,450]

Let's stop a second here and take stock of what we know so far ---

1. Tiles. What is the dimension of each tile? You need to go into SBE Cut setup and adjust the Vinyl SIze length to something really long ---- I have mine set to 1999.

Make sure you don't have Trim Tiles and any Weeding checkboxes selected.

 

2. 'Printing' needs to be dropped from your vocabulary. We're cutting.

 

3. This 9' length should not present any issues -- I've cut longer with my MH and the trick is eliminating static.

 

4. We still don't know if you checked for stray nodes -- do you know how? Double click on one of the swooshes, and the nodes will appear as points (squares, circles and triangles). I'm assuming you have very few nodes composing these swooshes, so memory is not going to get an overload condition with them!

 

[TerribleTim68 1]

Slice&Dice,

First let me say thank you for taking the time. Let's see if I can answer your questions -

1 - Are we talking about the "layout" length, or is there another setting I'm missing somewhere? I have the layout (the purple box around your drawing) longer than the artwork.

2 - Yup, my apologies. :-/

4 - I'll take a look once I get back home. But the entire drawing was created in Adobe Illustrator (because I still haven't figured out how to create shapes such as swooshes in SBE) and then imported into SBE, then adjusted from there. When I select one of the "parts" there does not appear to be any random nodes, it looks the way you'd expect it to. Altho, I am a little worried because on screen some of the curves seem a bit "pixelated" if you will. But I've seen this on some other artwork I've cut and it came out nice and smooth. So not sure what to make of that.

[TerribleTim68 1]

Okay, so I checked the image. There were no stray nodes anywhere. I actually got the cutter to cut one swoosh. Then I changed the vinyl roll to cut a different color swoosh and the cutter started acting up again. It would begin cutting the image, then about half way through, it would just stop. I have another piece of this that will be a checker board. When I tried cutting that part, the cutter begins cutting it and after cutting two of the squares, it just stops. There's still 7 more squares to go. Why is it just stopping mid cut?

[slice&dice 2,450]

We're getting somewhere ---

In your Cutter - Cut Setup --  there's an option for Vinyl Size and it needs to be LONGER than anything you're sending through. In my 1999 example, I'll never have a cut that big, so I'll never reach the extent of that one 1999-inch tile.

Be aware that a 'tile' (vinyl size) is different than your layout workspace (the pink/magenta boundary on screen).

 

And you never addressed what was your chosen solution to static charge buildup.

[TerribleTim68 1]

So I did change the max length to 1999 like you suggested before running any of the cuts. The one worked fine, after that, mayhem.

I haven't found a solution to any static issue.

[slice&dice 2,450]

Like I said, dryer sheets placed into the core of the roll of vinyl seems to do the trick.

Can you please post the SBD file here?

[darcshadow 1,626]

Regarding static, do you have a stand the vinyl sits on? If so, make an electrical connection between the stand and a ground point on the cutter. If you're not using a stand, you can attach a chain, or metal wire to the cutter and have it hang down and drag on the vinyl. Just be sure to position it so that it doesn't get pulled up into the cutter.

[slice&dice 2,450]

darcshadow is referring to THIS --- http://www.uscutter.com/Anti-Static-Kit-for-Vinyl-Cutters

 

[TerribleTim68 1]

Interesting. My cutter is on a stand and the vinyl rolls sit on that same stand as well. It's the stand shown here --> MH Series Cutter

With the 50" cutter, the stand will hold 4 rolls of 24" vinyl, two rolls on each shaft.

As for the SBD file, I think this should work -

68Graphics.SBD

[darcshadow 1,626]

Are you putting the rollers through the center of the rolls? That's not how the stand is intended to be used. The roll sits between the two rollers. This way the vinyl is making contact with the metal rollers and the static can then dissipate through the rollers, to the stand, and onto ground.

[Primal Decals 621]

Sounds to me like a memory issue , Even tho it says it can cut up to 6 feet, it doesnt mean that if there are a lot of info in the design itself that would put it beyond the memory portion that it can handle..maybe break the design up into smaller cut jobs which might help.

[slice&dice 2,450]

OK, that SBD file is nasty.

I believe your problem can be resolved by cleaning it up and adding nodes where NONE currently exist.

See my screen shot of the grey swoosh -- it doesn't actually HAVE a node at the end point. Something like that will cause your cutter to choke.

 

Additionally, there are several other areas of this design which have overlapping cut lines (the nodes are set wrong, and the line crosses over itself and that will cause problems). In my view, it's strictly your file at fault here.