ecal & Eclips

[pennsylvaniakate]

I have found with vinyl, just because it isn't cutting through the backing doesn't always mean the pressure isn't too high... I would grab a scrap piece and start out with the lowest settings and work your way up until you are sure you are cutting on the lowest pressure possible to make it through the vinyl and still be able to weed. I write down the settings and keep with that brand of vinyl. Different brands/kinds of vinyl tend to have different settings. Also, have you used this type of vinyl successfully before? I had some that my mom gave me, and it cut awful, no matter what I did. I ended up tossing it.

[cktoo]

I have never done any of this before I just got the machine for Christmas and have just started to try to cut some things... apparently i have gone for the gold right out of the gate!! I like your idea though once i figure this project out - I just have one kind of vinyl that I purchased at Oh my crafts - until this post i didn't know there were different types of vinyl - as you can see I have LOTS to learn.

Thank you for taking the time and your advice!

Christina

[cktoo]

Just cut your file....but only on card stock as I'm running out of time and wanted to test cuts this way first.

These are settings I used after playing around and it turned out well. The toughest cuts are the words "Established 2002". You might want to choose another font as it is quite small and the letters are close together and I think that is part of the issue there, but I did get it to cut nicely. Make sure your paper is down good and firm on the mat.

Settings:

Go to eCal - Preferences -- then the eClips tab.
Change pressure to 2
Click on the Advanced Settings tab - set the communication speed to slow and I changed the curve resolution to low

Set your blade housing to 2 (for blade depth) - that is what worked best for me.

When you tell it to cut:
set the cutting speed to 2 and the pressure to 2


See if this works any better. Sometimes it's trial and error.

Let me know how you make out.

This WORKED!!! I had to change the cutting speed to 1 as well as the pressure.... I have made 2 projects with lettering and the vinyl... Thank you again for your expertise! One last question where is a good resource for vinyl - could this also be part of the issue?

thanks again!

[sstehman]

If you do a search of the forum on vinyl you will get some suggestions. There were several posts on this. Some have liked signwarehouse.com. I talked to them one time and their customer service was very informative on helping me depending on what I wanted to cut.

[cktoo]

Thanks Sandy!

[angel]

yes i have had that happen when the font is to thin.

[steven252000]

I stopped and got to know one of the local people who work at a sign shop. I bought some vinyl directly from him and he hooked me up with what he considered scraps. A sign shops scraps are a crafters jackpot. If you have a sign shop in your area it might be worth a shot. Maybe they will sell give you or sell to you cheap scraps.

[ScrappyKat]

Where can we go to get information on how to use every aspect of this software, including the preferences? Based on what I have done, I'm surprised that letters can be 1/2 inch cut with vinyl. It makes me think I could be doing better.

[angel]

on craftedge.com go to tutorials he has videos of every aspect of the program, it is the same as sure cuts alot 2 and 3, so you can even look on youtube, scrappydew.com has video tutorials as well but not as in depth as craftedge.

[ScrappyKat]

@sstehman posted info re ECAL preference settings. I was wondering where one could find this info. Sometimes I think my machine could use a little fine tuning.