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Yes found problem after decicded to change the head was encoder gave it a good clean all back and running again

Looking at this photo, it appears that blade tip is extended out wayyyyyyy too far. (I can see it in the picture, which is not good!)

You would be amazed at how many businesses that I interact with, who do not have their own artwork for one reason or another. I often dread having to recreate someone else's logo because it seems like reinventing the wheel, but it's the same wheel without any improvements

The other option would be to analyze the design and figure out a way to break it into smaller pieces. Add in some registration marks to get it all lined back up and you're good to go.

Jimbo, you got a solution that was offered 15 years ago, which is a fine testament to the effectiveness of these Forums and its Search functionality. By the way, 'mobby' was one of the most-well-versed people regarding SignBlazer, as he was personally familiar with the developer (Jerry Bonham). All of that is water under the bridge, of course, but it's great to see people are still able to obtain "Help" on a program that's long since been abandoned in the marketplace.

DXF files are not really cutter friendly. They look like a constant line, but they are actually several line segments and are typically not joined. VM can't do a contour, because it doesn't see a shape to contour cut around. You will need to join all the segments in order to create a shape. I might be as simple as joining the 3 areas circled below or you might need to join every single little line segment. Some software has the ability to automatically join line segments that are close enough, although this can give some funky results some times. I believe Inkscape has this ability. If you can get the file as an eps, ai, or svg rather than a dxf that would be the easiest way to go.

Update! Since we're in Hawai'i, Graphtec recommended that we check with a local authorized repair shop rather than send the whole thing to continental US. We called up the recommended shop and after hearing of our issue asked, "when did you last replace the plunger?" They noted that those can stop working, preventing the blade from spinning/rotating. We ordered a new plunger from them and we're back in business! We finished out the 15mil synthetic job and are getting through the 10mil job as I write this. The old plunger has been marked and is still good enough for most of our paper jobs. I did let the boss know about the other blades you folks recommended. Thank you

My cutter appears to be one of the numerous re-branded versions of the ct630. It's currently running v2.01 firmware and generally seems to work ok but i am a n00b at using vinyl cutters. I have my own eprom burner - so while it's not worth it to me to pay for a programmed chip with unknown improvements, I'm curious enough that if i can get an image of the firmware i think it would be neat to see what the difference may be.

Professionals use paper tape. It can be applied wet or dry. I use medium tack paper tape. I prefer perfectear paper tape. That is what I use for every thing. Clear tape you can use for layers. And cannot use with wet application. You cannot use with curves. For curves use a cast vinyl like 751, 951. Cast vinyl is very nice to cut and pliable. The stretch of it stays in place and has a better adhesive. https://uscutter.com/shop/?search_query=perfectear

That's unfortunate. I wonder how the University will respond if they cannot get the cutter to work properly - stick to the steadfast rules and virtually brick good equipment, or try and let someone actually help.

What type of connection port it is? USB or Serial. My machine used to do the same thing until I switched it to the serial RS232 9 pin port. If you happen to have that port on your machine, give it a shot. Morever, if you think it is right, you can share the file so someone can look for hidden layers and objects. Also, when the cutter is in operation, get someone to stay near the cutter and listen to some abnormal noise it might make before messing up.

If I need to, I will recreate. When I do, I will rarely give the customer the electronic file of the work I've done, even though it would probably be the cleanest file they would ever get of their logo. If they do ask for the file, I may or may not charge them a "setup" or "digitization" fee to at least cover my time and effort. I get it though, I can sometimes clean up a logo while I'm still on the phone with customer during their initial phone call, then they are amazed - of course I send it to them water marked in a secured .pdf format. Hahaha.

I tweaked it to try and see if it would help. Still didn't get there in FMF but Agency FB Bold is close and with some work could be made to work. If you figure it out to be an actual font post the name cause it's a cool look.

Did you see this cutter preform before buying? Ask the previous owner about the error. Not many people here who even own a Roland that answers questions. Probably more help at the Roland Forum . Roland has their own forum.

No discrepancy. The $982 is for CUT V1-V4, to XPT. V5. Choose XPT V1-V4 to XPT 5. (far right). You are paying for almost all of XPT 5, upgrading from bare bones CUT for $982. Each version has a different price for upgrade. Click on the versions, they are each different. Page default is on CUT.

Believe you'rere right, Mike.... seems the 'LTR' Version of VinylMaster does not include the Tile Bleed (Overlap) Tools.

This little blurb is specifically to help out those who are struggling with AI specific to vinyl cutting type applications. It is by no means exhaustive or all inclusive but hopefully covers some basics for the frustrated newbie or old hat who is more used to printed graphics. I am anti-monthly payment so I still use version CS5. Some of these tips may be different within your own version although CS6 is almost identical. I use a mac and the quick key shortcuts are slightly different between mac and pc so I will refrain from listing them out. There are a LOT of handy quick keys that are worth remembering if you find yourself using a certain function often. AI is designed for a lot of keyboard to mouse interaction. Preferences Settings Here are a few simple changes that you can make that will probably help. In Illustrator Preferences you have several panels that rotate through. In the General panel change the Keyboard increments to 0.2px. and check the box beside Scale Strokes and Effects. UnCheck the Append [converted] Upon Opening Legacy Files. The 0.2 px will give you finer control, scaling strokes and effects will maintain your outline appearance etc and when you send cut files they are often older versions and you don't necessarily want them updated to a newer version every time you open them up because it will then save them as newer versions and cause you trouble. In the Selection panel be sure the Object Selection by Path Only is checked. This will make it so you don't accidentally select objects you didn't intend to. You simply click at the edge of the part your wanting to select. You may want to adjust your anchor points and handle preferences while your there and I have the Show handles when multiple anchors are selected as well. In the Units panel set General, Strokes and Type all to Points. Finally in the Appearance of Black panel I run On Screen to display all blacks accurately and Print/Export to output all blacks as Rich Black. This isn't so much for vinyl but is a good setting Another HUGE side note. AI is the only program I have found that can turn off the Bounding Box. Once you have your selection set to select by path. turn off the bounding box View>Hide Bounding Box and you won't have that annoying box around everything. Your selected object will be visible by the highlighted path. You can always click it back on if you want to use it to upsize or rotate something but I just use the Object>Scale or Object>Rotate to do those functions and rarely have the box showing. I don't know if anyone else dislikes the bounding box but it irritates me to no end and I appreciate being able to turn it off. Live Effects AI has a lot of what are termed Live Effects. These include Stroke and all the warp options etc... These are handy and in some cases necessary for design but you have to at some point expand them in order for the final art to match the cut paths. A simple trip to View>Outlines will show you want the cutter will see. As for strokes, I use no stroke when designing cut files with the exception of applications where I want to do multi-layered work and have the bottom layer overlapped by the outlines such as HTV outlines around lettering. When using strokes and expanding them it will leave the original object centered in the stroke area. The rest of the time I use Object>Path>Offset Path to create these. Text is basically the same thing but called Live Text until it is converted to outlines (which also needs to be done to cut it. Depending on the method used you may have to expand text and then expand the appearance if it is warped etc... Some workflows will do this in one step. Objects When working with multiple objects and performing functions such "welding" (to be discussed next) you will find that most operations perform better when the Group is changed into a Compound Path. A compound path is commonly known as something with a hole in it like a letter A but can also be a group of objects. Illustrator looks at Groups differently than single Objects. Changing a string of text for instance into a Compound Path by Object>Compound Path>Make will let AI consider the whole string of letters as ONE object which lets special functions perform properly. You may stumble across Compound Shapes as well which are similar to a live effect and need to be expanded. "Welding" Although not an Adobe term, welding is an easy to grasp description that is widely used in graphic discussions. AI has several forms of this function thus finds the term lacking. For basic welding/joining the usual choice for beginners is the Merge function from the Pathfinder menu. Unfortunately this tool will create issues for vinyl cutters. A better choice is the Unite tool. (I think some of the older versions may have a different name for this) Unite will weld various objects together usually without filling in any existing "holes" within compound paths. Merge appears the same and in some cases is the only option if Unite decides to mess something up. However, Merge will also leave unfilled objects inside all the "holes" of an object. Failure to notice these has caused a lot of cutters grief as the cutter will cut that object out as well as the main cut meaning a double cut often messing up the project. The unfilled object problem can also surface when using certain presets in the live trace feature. I set my presets to ignore white but older versions do not have this option. Should you have unfilled objects within a compound path there is a simple remedy. Select one of the unfilled objects, I prefer to find them in the little preview pics over in the Layers panel. Use the little button beside it to select it and then go to elect same button and elect all the objects with the same fill. This will select all within the document and you can just delete them. You will notice that nothing in the appearance changed thus affirming the need to remove them prior to cutting. (As an aside, many cutting programs have a Cut-by-Color options that can also separate these out if you forget to do so.) Live Trace Most newbies see the Live Trace feature when placing an object into the art board and expect it to work miracles. Well, it won't. IF you get a really clean black and white image you can sometimes get a passable result but those are rare. There are some who have fantastic PS skills and can clean up an image and turn it into a traceable design but it takes practice and skill. I usually just trace it out using the Pen tool. Slower but yields great results once you get familiar with the keyboard keys used in combination to the mouse. Another side note. The Pencil tool is probably the least known jewel in the toolbox. If you have something that isn't looking good. Select the object in question and then use the pencil tool to draw over the part of the object that is looking bad and it will append the line to match your pencil path and also apply the auto line smoothing to that area and can help clean up a bad spot in a live trace. I don't pretend to be an authority on the program but these techniques have helped me over the years and hopefully they will help you. I was originally going to post this in the Instructional Contribution area but decided it was better suited to the AI section. There are lots of other tips and tricks but these is the basics.

Well...the forum sheriffs have removed the bandit text & link! Thanks! Sue2

Just Blatant Advertising....................

Wow...first post and reviving a dead thread!

All the wraps I have ever seen they only did seams at smart locations like where the side panels meet the roof etc... Never seen them have an overlap on door panels. Maybe he has an undersized printer? For what those costs I think I'd make sure it made me happy. Tell him that if he wants to leave it the way it is he needs to add some more vinyl that says "This crappy wrap job was done by....:" so he can get proper advertising for his efforts. Ha ha!

Bagged, poo...

Ya, Youtube and I need to get a room.. lmao I guess frustration means im on the right learning curve path.. lol

Sa, you are correct in the HExis being cast. Here is a link to what I bought - http://www.ebay.com/itm/110836734567?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 . This is my 1st time ever doing something to this extreme. I am frustrated to say the least. I suppose I might be exaggerating the wrinkles a little bit, but there are a few that are definitely noticeable at 5'. At 10'+ the vinyl looks great (i think?!)! I'll put a few pics up tomorrow. I am also having sticking issues from going down, peeling up, down, up, etc.. I know that I just need to go slow and lay it down easy. My door I did, was going great, until I got the main part below the window.. then it went to hell.. lol

First time wrap should always be done WET WET WET WET.... vehicle and material...... (Assuming you aren't cutting and just wrapping with Carbon or something.....)