grafic2

Newbie, Can't cut smoothly, tried everything, PLEASE HELP!

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Hi, I'm Kathy from Chicago and I just got my LaserPoint 24" a few days ago. I'm having a very hard time getting it to cut smoothly. No matter how many times I've tried, I can't get a smooth cut on the whole design.  Some parts will look smooth, others preforated and some with the corner sticking out.  I have tried changing the blade, changing the pressure, the speed, and the depth of the blade. It has been two days now of tweeking and no good cuts.  Please help, I'm beginning to think somethings wrong with the blade holder.  Any suggestions, all are welcome and needed.

Thanks,

Kathy

grafic2@sbcglobal.net

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Blade is sticking out too far, and the pressure is too low. There is a thread about resolving this issue in the Instructional Contribution section of the forums.

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Would you mind posting what you are you cutting? (Click on "Additional Options" at the bottom of the reply area to attach files).

The blade should only be sticking out about half the thickness of a credit card - basically only out far enough to cut the vinyl, not the backing.

If you're cutting font, are you sure the font that you are using is of a good quality? There a many free fonts out there that people download, but it doesn't cut nicely because the font creator didn't do it as cleanly as possible.

What size are you trying to cut? If it's something rather large that requires a lot of vinyl to move back and forth, make sure that the vinyl is completely flat when you drop the pinch rollers - if not, it could cause the vinyl to start "tenting"

Check your blade offset. The assumption here is that you're on a PC and using SignBlazer Elements. You can find the blade offset in the cut screen under the "setup" button. The recommended offset is .25, but play with it. Others have found better success at .20 or .30.

Let us know if any of these things help you (or not).

Good luck, and welcomesign.gif to the forum!

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Thanks for the replies, but so far NO such luck yet in getting a good cut.  I've read the thread about resolving this issue in the Instructional Contribution section of the forums and did what it said.  And the other suggestions by you. Here's a picture of what I'm trying to cut. I'm almost ready to give up, is it always this hard to get it right the first time setting it up?  Does each different job you cut need different settings? I can't believe it's this hard to find the right settings.  Could something else be wrong?

What should I do next?

Thanks,

Kathy

grafic2@sbcglobal.net

post-3054-12986524353767_thumb.jpg

post-3054-12986524374915_thumb.jpg

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could you attach your original vector file. that will show us where the nodes are placed and how many there are.

Is there a particular area or letter when the cutter starts to cut strangely? If it is consistently in the same place, than it could be that your vector file needs to be cleaned up. What size are you trying to cut?

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Here's a copy of the vector file, the size I'm trying to cut is 4 1/2" wide x 5 1/2" tall. I'm on a PC and using SignBlazer Elements and Corel Draw X4 to design with.  I'm a graphic designer by trade and finding this very frustrating that I can't figure this out. All of the times I try with different settings give the same bad results. Thanks for helping me out.

Football.eps

Football.eps

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I'm gonna run upstairs to my other office (where the cutter is) and test cut it right now. Will let you know how it turns out. Hang in there, we'll get it working for you.

UPDATE...

The design is fine and the vector file is fine. I got it to cut. Outline of player is a bit squiggly, but I didn't get any perforations in the cut. The smaller helmet details were a bit tiny to weed. Letters came out ramrod straight.

Have you tried cutting anything else? If so, do you get the same perforation? You can always do a test with the pen and paper, rather then burning through your vinyl. You could try to test with just cutting simple letters (i.e. USA, and see if it's only perforating in on curves, straight lines or in a particular direction.

could be the blade isn't spinning freely in the holder. You can pop out the holder, use the plunger to poke the blade out a little bit and see if it will spin within the holder nicely. If you feel there a lot of resistance, then that could be the culprit.

Make sure there's enough slack in the vinyl for the pinch rollers. Do your best to get the vinyl to be as flat as possible going through the cut window. Check to see if it appears that one pinch roller is feeding faster than the other.

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Thanks for you quick reply and test cut. I tried cutting USA out in 2" letters, got perforation on the bottom of the "U" and "A" and one side of the weed box.  The test with the paper & pen ran smoothly on the USA and the football player.  Both pinch rollers seem to be feeding correctly with the vinyl and paper remaining flat. I do think a feel resistance when I try to spin the blade, it's hard to spin. Could it be that I need a new blade holder? Is it possible I got a defective one? Or a bad batch of blades?

Let me know what you think I should do next.

I really appreciate all your time & help.

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It sounds like the blade might be binding in the holder. You can try swapping it out with the other blades that were shipped with your cutter. There are some blades that are a bit fatter than others - this might be the case. You can contact Ken (Imes) and see if you can either swap blades or swap blade holder.

If the pen plotted well, then it's not an "up/down" perforation issue. The blade sound like it's dragging, but isn't spinning like it should. In the areas that are cut well, how noticeable of a depression does it make on the vinyl backing?

My recommendation at this time would be to contact Ken and refer him to this thread so he can see what you've already tried. Hopefully he can come up with a better solution.

Good luck. Sorry we couldn't get it running smoothly for you.  ;)

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Could you post a picture of how far out the blade is sticking fromt he blade holder? Might need to take the blade holder out of the carriage.

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Here's a picture, the closest I could get. I don't know if you can see the blade it sticks out just a tad.

Kathy

post-3054-12986524541498_thumb.jpg

post-3054-12986524554036_thumb.jpg

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Responded to your support tickets and we are going to try swapping the blade holder for you.

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Today is Sept, 22, 2008, and still have not received my part!  What a bummer, it's been 3 weeks and still can't use my new cutter. Is it coming by bird? Received a UPS tracking number on 9/17/08 from USCutter that says it's not a valid tracking number when I follow the link. I'm beginning to think this was not a good idea to purchase from USCutter. Lost a alot of jobs this weekend with football homecoming for our school, everybody is tired of waiting to see the samples!

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