darcshadow

Gotta love the easy fixes.

You should be able to download graphtecs software for free. I use it for cutting and Inkscape for design.

How are are you going from Inkscape to SignBlazer? I did that in the past and don't remember this sort of problem. The process I used was to export/save the file off as an EPS in Inkscape then import the EPS into SignBlazer. My 2nd question, do you have your knife depth set correctly? The number of nodes shouldn't have any real effect on how it cuts, it just might slow the cutter down a little. If the vinyl is lifting there is a chance you have your blade set too far out.

Interesting, it almost looks as if the cutter is sitting on the stand backwards. If I remember right the old MH's the cutting head had the blade on the other side, so the problem you're running into would not have happened. Could be a case of they redesigned cutter but not the stand.

Could you post a photo of your stand/roller issues. Looking at the photos of the stand online I'm not clear on your problem and am curious to see it. The pinch roller, double check that it's full seated in the slides. But also, you should only really need 2 rollers.

there is a test cut button on your keypad. Does that do anything? Just turn the cutter on, load some vinyl, and press the test cut. Anything happen?

Do you have an older computer you could put an older version of windows on? The manual online says it should detect and download the drivers when you plug it in however it also says if using windows 7 or newer you need to be in admin mode. That tells me the drivers are rather old and possibly don't even exist for windows 11. On the plus side, you do have the serial option. You don't need drivers if using the serial option, you just need a functioning serial port. When you use the serial adapter you'll need to check in your device manager to see what comm port was assigned to it. Some software doesn't like the higher port numbers, so you'd be best off changing the assigned port to 1 or 2 and then setting the cutting software to match.

Photoshop won't do you any good for creating stencils. You need a vector program. Inkscape is a great and free program that will do what you need. It will take some playing with it to get the hang of it though. Working with vector graphics can be a bit tricky when you first start. I am unfamiliar with Signmaster, but I know inkscape can import and export all the major vector file formats. I'm assuming at a minimum signmaster can import EPS files. So if you don't like the design aspect of signmaster, so long as it functions as a cutting software you're good to go. The Vevor, looks like, and I believe it is essentially the same as a MH cutter which is pretty much the bottom of the barrel for cutters. That being said you can do pretty decent work with one once you get all the quirks worked and out everything dialed in. However, for larger decals like you would need for a pinball machine you would be doing yourself a favor spending a bit more and getting a more higher end cutter. The Titan sold on USCutters is a pretty reasonably priced and decent quality machine. And my hat off to you for restoring pinball machines. I have 3 now that I've done some simple repairs to and cleaned. Working on them is almost as much fun as playing them.

MH's are pretty much the bottom of the barrel of cutters. They are great to introduce you to the world of cutting and if you really take your time to dial in everything they can cut well but drifting/tracking is always a problem and there's nothing you can really do about it. The fact that you were able to get it all as close as you did is pretty impressive actually. To get the level of precision you're after you need to look for a cutter that uses a solenoid driver rather than stepper motors. The difference in performance between the two type of actuators is amazing.

Thanks for posting the follow up. "Dirty" power can do some weird stuff but that would not have been on my list of things to look into. ha

The "line" you see is not a line, it's a white star on top of a black star. Either go through and delete the inner or outer star, merge the two, or do cut by color and only cut the white or the black.

You could use the outline tool and then merge the outline and the original line.

Just some advice, you should never rely on a spooler program to remember anything for you. Spooler programs are intended to be a temporary memory location to aid in transferring data Printing/plotting program between and the printer/cutter. The fact that VM spooler shows a history is a bit of an oddity in the spooler world and what ever data it's storing will likely be purged automatically at some point in time.

You could probably use Inkscape/InkCut and the serial connection. I never understood why they say the MH don't work with MACs. You are talking to it through a serial connection, so long as you send the correct serial commands the cutter won't care what is talking to it.

You'd be better off finding the font and recreating the logo.