Wind Gatherer

Newbie Loading Vinyl Onto Machine

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I have a SEIKI SK720T 28" vinyl cutter plotter and I'm using Sure Cuts A Lot sign making, design software. I've set up THE to print out as a word as you can see in photo 5.
As a newbie I lined up the vinyl roll on the left side of the machine, photo 2. However I found when I cut, the little line squares I put on the top left and right corners, these didn't get cut, the cut line was right along the top of the letters as you can see in photo 4. Then I thought I could turn the vinyl round so its edge lined up with the right side of the machine. I found that the blade holder wouldn't let me do this.As a newbie I thought I could alter the origin. I thought this allowed me to start the cut at a certain position. This time the vinyl got chewed up, please help me understand how to set up properly for cutting?
I want to reuse the chewed up vinyl but cutting THE on the other side of the sheet.
Thanks.

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The cutter cuts from right to left.  Vinyl should be to the right side of the vinyl cutter.  You must push the origin button on the cutter after you set your blade to the right side of the vinyl..  Do not use WYSWYG, like you have it on the CUT SETTING page.   The SEIKI is not an MH cutter.  Isn't Seiki on Sure Cuts A LOT?   Also, never be pulling from the vinyl roll while cutting. Always have enough vinyl slack to do the entire order. And lose the word PRINT.  You are cutting,  not printing. 

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I see several things on top of the wrong cutter choice although a lot of cutters use similar drivers so it may run fine on that one but generally if you can find the correct one .....

The WYSIWYG that MZ Skeeter mentioned will basically leave areas that would have a second color and treat your job as if the whole workspace or cutting mat is important. The only time it IS used is exactly that, when you might want to do a multi-layered job and leave enough space on your carrier for the other elements so you can pre-layer the work before install. Using the other setting will reduce your vinyl consumption.

The pinch rollers are not placed properly. You need a roller on each edge of your vinyl even if you are only cutting a small piece along one side. The middle one can go about anywhere as long as you avoid the center drive roller bearing area but I would place it/them (not clear if you have 4 or 3 rollers total) somewhere that avoids a small details if possible. DON'T try to re-use that wadded up stuff or you might just cause catastrophic failure. On the budget machines it is possible to completely rip the blade holder arm off if things wad up bad enough. 

Your overcut is set at 1.00mm which is quite a lot. Normaly if you need any at all it would be about equal to the blade offset. This is simply to add a little bit the end of the line if the start and end points don't connect and typically the most that would be assuming you are tracking decent would be the length of the castor on your blade tip (ie the blade offset you currently have set at 0.30mm)

It is also best to place your blade zero well within the edge of the vinyl to avoid issues if the vinyl off tracks. Usually at least a half inch and I would be sure your vinyl is wide enough that you have at least that much on the other side when the cutter works it way over there too. I always place my blade INSIDE the pinch rollers but that is not a must do.

It is entirely possible that you broke a blade tip in this learning experience so if it all of a sudden doesn't cut at the same pressure it just did.... 

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OK thanks for the replies. I'm going to go through the forum section, Information For New Equipment Owners , though in your replies there are a couple of points I'll come back to you on.

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