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godlesszq

SC(first gen)25 giving me issues with tracking marks. . .

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I have a first gen SC25 that's giving me issue with aligning the laser to the tracking marks on the print. I've run it through the contour calibration and feel like I have the offset dead on correct, but whenever I'm going through the step-by-step for an actual cut, it freaks out when tuning the tracking marks. To ellaborate: I manually align the laser to the first mark. I press next and it moves to the second mark. Then I have to use the arrow keys to adjust the laser to where the mark is. . . but this is where it begins to freak out, and it's not really that consistent in it's behavior but the blade-retainer won't move according to the keys I pressed. For instance, I'll press right and it'll jerk but stay in place, Or I'll press down and it'll move one or two mm down and suddenly change direction and move up. and the weirdest, I'll press right or left and it'll move all the way back to the previous mark and immediately back to the current mark, but to the exact spot it was in . . . And the weirdest part is that, as far as I can tell. . . it's like the adjustments are sticking, but it's preview position isn't because, despite these issues, I've guessed a few times and seem to get the cuts almost dead on.  So I'm finding myself constantly crossing my fingers that it won't freak out, but it seems to be a 60-65% chance that it will and I have to start over. . .again . . and again . . and again. . . 

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Just for clarification, Tracking marks, are marks made by the pinch rollers, on the vinyl, as the vinyl moves under them against the bottom grit rollers.  Sounds like you are talking about "Registration marks" that you printed with your design so you can contour cut.  Totally different. Possibly the control panel is sticking. If your gutsy enough, take it apart and see if you can fix it. Or replace it. UScutter does have the control panel for sale.   https://www.uscutter.com/Control-Panel-Decal-for-SC-Series-Vinyl-Cutters?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PLA&gclid=Cj0KCQiA88X_BRDUARIsACVMYD8Up0jO54hm1boiKpm4XLSOy3tN1aDiGGpPSmkD5zhi6O-0c9rcCwMaAuZJEALw_wcB

 

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20 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

Just for clarification, Tracking marks, are marks made by the pinch rollers as the vinyl moves under them against the bottom grit rollers.  Sounds like you are talking about "Registration marks" that you printed with your design so you can contour cut.  Totally different. Possibly the control panel is sticking. If your gutsy enough, take it apart and see if you can fix it. Or replace it. UScutter does have the control panel for sale.   https://www.uscutter.com/Control-Panel-Decal-for-SC-Series-Vinyl-Cutters?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PLA&gclid=Cj0KCQiA88X_BRDUARIsACVMYD8Up0jO54hm1boiKpm4XLSOy3tN1aDiGGpPSmkD5zhi6O-0c9rcCwMaAuZJEALw_wcB

 

Yes, you're correct, the registration marks. If I'm not mistaken, the physical panel on the cutter is locked during this part. I'm referring to using the arrows on the software or the keyboard itself. And this is the only time I ever get this issue. It behaves completely fine when I'm manually adjusting things with the cutter's panel.

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so the arrows work fine in all directions just putting the vinyl in, and feeding vinyl and moving the carriage head left to right and back?  No mention of which software your using on which operating system.   OK if your using USB, a much better connection would be serial connection or Tripp-lite Keyspan Adapter /with null modem cable.  That is the brand name.   Value cutters have a cheap Chinese chipset, not true USB, like higher end cutters.

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29 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

so the arrows work fine in all directions just putting the vinyl in, and feeding vinyl and moving the carriage head left to right and back?  No mention of which software your using on which operating system.   OK if your using USB, a much better connection would be serial connection or Tripp-lite Keyspan Adapter /with null modem cable.  That is the brand name.   Value cutters have a cheap Chinese chipset, not true USB, like higher end cutters.

Sorry. I normally try to be thorough in describing the setup in question, but I get lax on that when frustrated :P
I think you might have helped me find the culprit though.
I'm using Vinyl MasterCut 4.2 on Win10 via USB. and given what you're telling me about the Chinese chipset, and that it's shown this same behavior on a 2nd computer (same OS and software), where commanding it from the computer seems to get wonky, it stands to reason that the USB is acting more like 2 tins and a string. I'm going to look into that serial to USB adapter and hopefully that's the solution. 

Thank you so much for your help so far! :)

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7 minutes ago, godlesszq said:

Sorry. I normally try to be thorough in describing the setup in question, but I get lax on that when frustrated :P
I think you might have helped me find the culprit though.
I'm using Vinyl MasterCut 4.2 on Win10 via USB. and given what you're telling me about the Chinese chipset, and that it's shown this same behavior on a 2nd computer (same OS and software), where commanding it from the computer seems to get wonky, it stands to reason that the USB is acting more like 2 tins and a string. I'm going to look into that serial to USB adapter and hopefully that's the solution. 

Thank you so much for your help so far! :)

Your welcome,  The Tripp-lite Keyspan Adapter does work with a vinyl cutter.  Other cheap USB to serial connectors are pretty much like the same chipset that you have in the vinyl cutter, so they don't work. Your welcome. 

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On 1/3/2021 at 7:07 PM, MZ SKEETER said:

Your welcome,  The Tripp-lite Keyspan Adapter does work with a vinyl cutter.  Other cheap USB to serial connectors are pretty much like the same chipset that you have in the vinyl cutter, so they don't work. Your welcome. 

well . . . I got the Tripp-lite and can't seem to get the cutter to talk to the computer :/
I made sure to download the drivers for Win10 from their site, and even made sure to get the latest for the cutter to just in case. and as far as I can tell, it can find the dongle itself just fine, but not the cutter. I made sure to double check the COM# set in the settings is the one popping up in my device manager (which even shows the Tripp-lite by name) . So to test things, I connected the USB and TL and sent a test cut command to each port, one after the other. USB sends command fine, but nothing from the TL. So I opened up the side panel and took a look at the physical connection. . .and everything looks to be fine there too, so doesn't look like it needs a replacement :/

I've attached a screenshot of my settings. I'm not sure what Baud Rate is, but I tried out sending a command with that set to each different setting, but still nothing. On Port type, the other options are USB and Windows port. I can't get USB to show me any connections and not sure what Windows port is either.

2021-01-05 16_08_06-Photo - Google Photos.png

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Baud rate is 9600 for the SC.  Just to confirm, you connected the USB end of the Tripp-lite to your computer,  USB port. then your cutter null modem cable to the screw in connection end of the Tripp-lite, then other screw in connection to your cutter.   After you installed your Tripplite driver you rebooted your computer. 

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35 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

Baud rate is 9600 for the SC.  Just to confirm, you connected the USB end of the Tripp-lite to your computer,  USB port. then your cutter null modem cable to the screw in connection end of the Tripp-lite, then other screw in connection to your cutter.   After you installed your Tripplite driver you rebooted your computer. 

Ok, I did some googling and it looks like the cable I got is NOT a null-modem cable. So I ordered one that states it is and back to waiting again :P

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On 1/5/2021 at 4:29 PM, MZ SKEETER said:

Baud rate is 9600 for the SC.  Just to confirm, you connected the USB end of the Tripp-lite to your computer,  USB port. then your cutter null modem cable to the screw in connection end of the Tripp-lite, then other screw in connection to your cutter.   After you installed your Tripplite driver you rebooted your computer. 

welp . . .:/
got the proper null-modem cable and it's definitely talking to the cutter now. . .but the problem persists :[

Took a video of what I'm talking about and tried to show the connection setup
https://photos.app.goo.gl/4As2eHQMsj4gfX4QA

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Spoke to a USCutter rep over the phone and didn't get much help there, so I've ordered a new mobo and IO :/ 
Let's see if this helps...

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What is that dangling from the cutter that your connected to?   The green small board?  That sure isn't right. 

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I opened it up to check and see if I can find any visual cues that the IO board might be bad. broken pins, burnt connections, anything like that. I just haven't bothered putting it back in the shell.
yea, everything works completely fine like this, there's no weight stressing the ribbon or anything.

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Did you ever change that baud rate to 9600? On both Keyspan and Software.  What you have above is incorrect.   Have you tried a different computer?

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  Have you tried a different software like Signcut 2?  It is a free 3 week trial. There is nothing more that I can add. 

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  Just try Signcut2  Hopefully different.  Did you ever try different com ports numbers?  Just make sure they match. 

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Well, the SC cutter was never supported for contour cutting by UScutter.  They had it posted on their ads when they were selling them.   Even the Flexistarter 8.6 that I have,(which doesn't require a laser, uses the blade in the middle of the registration marks)  still has to use arrows in the cutting software.  It could very well be a driver problem. I do know for some cutters it took different drivers to make the contour cutting feature work. Example, Many people had Creation Pcuts, but couldn't make the software work, with the Pcut driver. 630  for contour cutting. But when they used the 630G driver it worked. Another couldn't get a Copam to work with the Copam driver, they found another driver that worked just fine for contour cutting, in Flexistarter software. You may find a different driver, if you went to the full version trial of Vinyl Master on their Demos, at Vinyl Master .com. If you want to contour cutting you may have to invest in a better cutter for that. And keep the SC as a back up for regular cutting.   Nothing more that I can add. 

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