haumana

which directions are the ovals? longer front to back, or side to side.

Aloha e Bryan. Welcome to the forum. It's super quick, easy, and free! I would suggest you register as a forum member, that way your post show up immediately, and it won't be delayed waiting for one of the volunteer moderators to approve your post. Now on to your original question, this video might help you or at least point you in the right direction.

Unless you're trying to pen plot the design, it's not necessary for the design to be filled with color.

What OS are you running? Is your laptop staying put, near the cutter, or are you plugging and unplugging the cutter on a regular basis? You might want to check which port the cutter was assigned to, and make sure that VM is selecting the correct port.

^THIS^ Definitely that. Because an incorrect blade depth will cause frustration and possible unnecessary wear and tear. Oh, and maybe an extra cutting strip or two.

Ummm, what exactly is your question?

So for you accoutrements, here is what I would suggest - a new machine should have it's own set of everything if the original machine will still be on location, and in use. squeegees rotary cutter or some kind of x-acto or retractable blade decent pair of scissors some kind of aluminum safety ruler spare blade holder spare blades, or a very durable blade, such as the Clean Cut blades carrier mats USB cable Extra long power cable, if necessary That should be a good start.

That's a 1st gen LaserPoint, I used the one of the Creation Pcut software 'driver' when I ran it on my older Win7 box, don't recall the specific one, but Kainth is probably right - I probably used the CT630 driver. I haven't dusted it off in a while.

Have you submitted a trouble ticket to VM?

The one advantage of getting a Graphtec, is the software that Graphtec will bundle with it. It's dual platform, and has an Illustrator plug-in that's supposed to let you cut directly from AI. Admittedly, I just import my vector files into SignBlazer if I'm in Windows, or the Graphic Studio if I'm in Mac, and just use those two for cutting, rather than designing. I have a friend who has a Titan 2, and they love it. I have an original LaserPoint, still going strong, as well as a Graphtec CE6000 (just wish that I got that a lot sooner ), whatever you decide, I don't think you can go wrong with upgrading to a different cutter with a larger cutting width. Good luck, and let us know what you decide!

I am of the mindset - if it ain't broke don't fix it ... or the equivalent for upgrading operating systems and/or software. There's a reason why Skeeter still uses an old XP machine If I get my machine to work with a certain software, and it functions with enough features to support what I'm doing, then I leave it be. Though, with the new Windows machine wanting to force upgrades upon machines, that's a tough workaround, because sometimes an unwanted upgrade will break some functionality in certain programs, or no longer wants to support the peripheral devices. It kind of makes me crazy, but thankfully Microsoft will ensure that my IT consulting business will thrive for the foreseeable future.

Hey Jeep - I have a CO2 Laser Machine. If you'd want a bottle/flask/rambler or cup/tumbler done let me know. I can do anything that's been powder coated (like the colored Yeti's, HydroFlasks, etc.), glass, or anodized aluminum. The down side to laser is that artwork works best in black & white format (as the laser beam is either on or off - because it doesn't do colors).

Sorry to hear that you lost a lot of your work. VM has a very basic ability to configure automatic backups, but maybe this will help. At any rate, if you keep your artwork and working graphic files on a single computer, I would suggest either subscribing to an online backup service such as BackBlaze or Carbonite, and/or get yourself an external drive to manually backup your files periodically. When I get desperate, I will have Explorer search the entire computer for anything with a particular file extentsion (ie. *.docx, *.xlsx, etc.). It might take a while, but it might point you in the right direction. Good luck. Where to open a possible backup file in VM: Default location for my VM backup files: File extension for the VM Backups:

This would be such an awesome tool, however, I think you might have to troll Google for Wordpress forums to get a better answer

thank you for updating us. it's always appreciated, and no doubt someone will find this thread useful.

So this is something I just ran into. I have a customer requesting basic text. When I enter the test in Graphic Studio (because I'm working on my Mac today), and then I did the same in Corel Draw. I'm getting two completely different dimensions, however, when I'm looking at the text in both programs, the proportions look identical. The kerning and text width seem to be spot on in both programs. There's a huge difference in font point sizes, even though the text are exactly the same measured height. Has anyone else ran into this? my mind in blown

I believe in the same philosophy, its just too bad that some of my clients don't agree with me. Not sure why it's so hard for them to believe that I don't do design, I cut vinyl. That's how I would work on websites with clients. Draw me something on a paper or napkin, tell me what colors you want, and I can totally kill the technical side and get it worked up for you, but do not ask me to design it for you, because you will not like what I come up with. Hahaha.

I just tell people that Serif fonts have "feet", and Sans-Serif doesn't. They pretty much grasp the concept ... then usually want something that custom that kind of falls into it's own category from dafont.com

I don't think I've ever run into stroke widths being an issue when it comes to fonts. But I will fire up a few different programs on PC and Mac and test out the varied font situation. I was also under the impression that font pts. were somewhat fixed - with an approximation of 72pts = (roughly) 1 inch.

Yup. So, for example, a word in Corel - 4" in height (and 4.873" wide) is 338.491pts. The same word in Graphtec Studio is 2.892" wide and 184.1pts. At the same height, I'm getting very different widths, which the results only become much more pronounced the more words/letters that are in it. No stretching, or adjusting to the width or kerning. I find the pts difference interesting, but fairly inconsequential, as when I do text, it need to be measured in height either in centimeters or inches. What truly baffles me is the difference in width, because it is vastly different.

That would be me in a nutshell.

Remove the protective plastic on the cutting strip. See if the cutting strip has any deep cuts. If there are some deeper cuts in it, you might want to flip it over, or replace it. I always have a new replacement cutting strip on hand just in case. Lifting on cut vinyl can be caused by several things, or a combination of them - too much blade depth, too much pressure, cutting too fast, broken blade tip, etc. If you're going to cut smaller things and/or more intricate designs, slow the cut speed down and you might want to consider using a 60* blade. I personally prefer the 60* from Clean Cut Blades, they last me forever. I believe has a trial version you can test drive before buy, so you might want give that a go. Keep us posted.

So in this screen shot, were it says "Port", you have <Auto Detect> selected, I would go into Device Manager and find out which port Windows has assigned to the cutter to, and select that port in the software. That's a good place to start. The next question is, is your cutter connected directly to your computer with a single cable (ie. not using an extension or a hub)? The cutters tend to function best if tied directly to the computer, preferably one that isn't excessively long. Go from there and keep us posted. Good luck.

I am envious that you have a dedicated working space. I have to put things where they kind of fit, and work around that The cutters are in front of my desk, with just enough room for me to load them up. On a good day I have a small table with a self healing mat to tape up. If the project is physically too big to fit on the small table, then I have to clear off the dining room table. I do my best not to take on projects that have longer runs. LOL