darcshadow

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Everything posted by darcshadow

  1. A 60 degree blade will help with fine detail. How detailed is the design. You could simply be near the limits of what's possible with the machine or vinyl. Good and fresh vinyl makes a big difference. The advertised shelf life of vinyl is shorter than you'd think. Although it's still usable long after the shelf life time. Just not guaranteed to same performance.
  2. I don't think you're going to find a vinyl cutting machine that can do upholstery leather. at least not easily. A high end cutter, with multiple passes, and blade adjustments might cut it, but I'm not sure how well or if it'd be worth the hassle. Sandblasting mask can be cut with most cutters, and standard vinyl can be used as a mask for most hobbyist projects. Forget DXF, it is technically a vector file, but in reality it is just a bunch of short line segments and does not play well with vinyl cutters. You'll want to use EPS, .AI, or SVG. EPS is more or less the industry standard, although SVG is slowly working it's way in.
  3. If the Cutting Plotter Controller works then the plotters is connected and functioning correctly and the problem is the software you're trying to use. You mentioned the Graphtec software but did you actually install it? The graphatech web page says use Graphtec Studio 2, Ver. 1.0.197 for the CE series. Supported os included windows 10 and 11.
  4. What exactly are you trying to do that you need it to show up in the printer & scanner window?
  5. Sounds like the software doesn't have write permissions to where ever the settings are stored. In windows you have the option to run a program as an admin. Do you have that ability on a Mac? If you can do it once as an admin, the saved changes "should" stay there for normal users.
  6. darcshadow

    Help with reflective vinyl

    And even the cheapest reflective is 3 or 4 times more expensive than normal vinyl. I have used Oralite Engineering grade, and some 3M stuff all though I don't remember the specific type. They were not bad to work with, but not the easiest either. They have a metallic layer so they dull a blade very quickly and require a bit more force to cut through. They vinyl also tends to tear easier while weeding so you have to go a bit slower and take your time. Also, reflective should NOT be put on using a wet method. What ever you charged per car for the first town, double or even triple it if using reflective.
  7. You only need a driver if you're using the USB connection. That is nothing more than a cheap USB-2-serial chip in the cutter and often times doesn't work well. You're best best is to get a Tripp-Lite Keyspan USB-2-Serial adapter and a null modem cable. Connect the adapter to the USB on the computer and the null modem cable to the adapter and cutter. The MH uses the HP-GL protocol, if you set your cutting software to use that you should be able to get it to work. If you can't get something newer to work, the old SignBlazer Elements should work. You can also use Inkscape to cut with, it's not ideal, but it does work.
  8. darcshadow

    Blade wont lift

    Sounds like your Z-chip is dead. The z-chip is a simple op-amp that provides power to the solenoid to raise/lower the blade. Search the forums for blown z-chip. There are discussions on how to replace the chip as well as using a 9V battery to verify the solenoid is good.
  9. darcshadow

    Problem with Test Cut

    Is the blade holder moving up and down?
  10. To me, the odd thing here is that fact that the second iMac works correctly with both cutters. That would indicate the problem is not the cutter or any of the cutter settings but something on the iMac 1, or possibly the cables being used if they are not the same cables as used with iMac 2. It's also weird that it works at first then stops. Jeremy, are the two iMacs identical in terms of hardware? If so, can you reformat the non working one and clone the working one onto it?
  11. What do you mean which one? Get the Keyspan adapter and a null modem cable as you found already.
  12. darcshadow

    Need help recreating a logo from a image

    There are a couple of free web searches, that are pretty good. https://www.whatfontis.com/ https://www.myfonts.com/pages/whatthefont There is also some phone apps that work decent.
  13. There's a setting in preference some place to change the design units. Go to the help menu and search there, it's really useful. As for the sheet cut, I don't know, but I would look in the spooler settings.
  14. The text that it cuts, is it always the same? Have you let it finish the cut and then read the text, what does it say? Is the cutter connected to the computer when this happens? If so, try disconnecting it from the computer and see if it still does it.
  15. WAY, WAY to much! You should just barely be able to see the blade. Follow Skeeter's instructions above for setting blade depth.
  16. darcshadow

    Cameo/Brother - cutting on existing cards

    I don't think you'd ever be able to get things to align perfectly. I think you'd be better off doing it by hand with a good sharp knife.
  17. Few computers anymore have serial ports. The recommended adapter is the Tripp-Lite Keyspan adapter. Cheaper versions don't always work, the Tripp-Lite is known to work.
  18. I would suggest moving the vinyl to the left and find a position where you can get a pinch roller at both edges. Also, when cutting only 24" roles, you don't really need 4 pinch rollers, 2 should be good enough really.
  19. The problem is interesting, no slack could account for the design cutting over itself, but it's an awfully clean cut. Typically pulling from the roll causes ugly cuts, not completely misaligned cuts. It also wouldn't account for only the commas being misaligned, and even those are aligned with each other. I hope they report back once the problem is corrected.
  20. well actually has said the file shows "on downloads" so that raises the question, what does that mean? It's also possible to have multiple "download" locations so the first step is to determine what location the file is actually being downloaded to, and then what location Vinyl Master is looking at. Unfortunately, the way windows works now, and the way everything is going, the casual computer user, has no understanding of folder structures and file locations.
  21. Sounds you are downloading to one location, and looking in a different location. Where exactly are you downloading to, and where exactly are you trying to open from?
  22. darcshadow

    Font Geeks -- Rejoice, behold the new Pepsi logo

    I like that it's more like the old logo. But I'm a traditionalist, I like the old school logos that have stuck around, like Coke's.
  23. darcshadow

    Need help connecting spring on cutter head

    From another forum I saw that this cutter was actually made by graphtech and is basically the same as a CE3000-60, so you might be able to get a spring from them.
  24. My guess would be that rotate thing is why it's saying it's spanning multiple pages. I have not used Cut Master but I have to think there is a way to disable that, or rotate it back. You could always try rotating the design prior to sending it to cut so that when CM5 does the auto rotate it's now facing in the right direction.
  25. If the design is exactly 24" wide, and you are using 24" wide vinyl, your design is probably bigger than the cutter will allow. When you load the vinyl does the cutter detect the edges of the vinyl? If so, it should also report to the software, or maybe on the cutter screen what the width is. My guess the width being detected by the cutter is closer to 23.5. Are you allowed to install any software on the computer? There are other Window emulators that could be used to run different cutting software. There is also no reason the computer connected to the cutter needs to be on the university network so there's nothing stopping you from buying a cheap laptop and using it to control the cutter. Or just tell the department that the hardware is not compatible with apple and you are required to run windows to operate the cutter.