Sign Cut making lots of diagonal cuts

[coppercricket]

I am learning my way around with my new cougar. I have a mac and I think there is some kind of communication issue from Sign Cut to the cougar. I am practicing by sending a word from Inkscape to Sign Cut. Sign Cut's preview cut looks good but the actual cut is messed up. It is making many diagonal cuts across every letter of the word and doesn't even cut the outline of the letters right. It also doesn't cut a simple square or star right. It adds diagonal cuts to them too. I searched the forums for an answer. Is this what happens if I use the usb cable instead of the serial cable? I think that is what I will try next but before I go and get an adapter I thought I would check here.

[Phyllis]

You don't have the trial version do you? I don't know if they even have a trial version but just wondering. Hope someone on here will be able to help you, I have Signcut but don't use it due to a PNC cutting problem on the Mac version but it's a little different than what you're describing.

[Suzan]

Are you just typing the word and then going to sign cut or have you done your path object to path and then is it intersection, or what ever it is you have to do to make it a vector. I am sorry I don't know the terms of inkscape hardly at all, I use illustrator.

[kate3]

You don't have to do path anything if it is happening on a star or square as well. I don't think you can use your serial cable without a Keyspan adaptor but a new machine should work with the USB cable. Only the older ones needed a keyspan for a Mac.
I am not much help just now because I can't get them to work on my Mac or my Windows. I have been using MTC to get through Christmas. I never had much success with my Mac so I bought a cheap Windows laptop just to cut.
Someone who's brain isn't fried will help you soon.

[Thyme]

Coppercricut, have you checked the driver is correctly installed? Try re-installing it.
Can you post a screenshot of the settings in Signcut under the cutter button please?
Can you post a photo of the cut result please?
You are certain that your blade is not catching the media as you move from cut to cut?

[coppercricket]

I don't know if i've attached these files correctly or not, but here is what everything looks like. I know I don't have my blade settings necessarily right on yet, but as you can see, things aren't communicating properly. I haven't reinstalled the driver yet, I will try that as soon as I'm able tomorrow after work.

Cougar cut file.jpg

Sign Cut image.tiff

Inkscape image.tiff

[coppercricket]

Eureka! I went back through some of the Sign Cut material in the SOFTWARE section and noticed the Cutting Settings section where it showed an example of a square that was cutting just like mine. I changed my blade offset from 3.00 to 0.00 and sent my sample file to cut again and it came out perfect! On to more practicing....

[Thyme]

Glad you are sorted, but you do want to use a little blade offset.
Seeing that you are using inches try 0.0118

[Elizabeth]

Glad you figured it out! Now you can start having fun, and more fun and even more fun.....!

[renea72]

I just downloaded a a weeks free trial of Sign Cut Productive Pro my husband said it cut everything correct the first time after that it put diagonal cuts through my file is it because its a free trial or could I have changed something to cause this ??


Thanks Renee

[Thyme]

A few things to check -
That the usb cable is firmly in place in both cutter and computer
That the driver settings in your device manager are correct, especially the flow control
That the driver settings in Signcut are correct, especially handshake and the option to use windows serial settings (must not be ticked)
If those are correct try re-installing Signcut over the top of itself

[renea72]

Thyme,

Thank you I will check those setting tomorrow .

Lots of helpful people on here !

Thanks Renee