Jerky/inconsistent cutting

[charlespatrickacct]

Hi, I work in a studio where we use the silver bullet ~8 hrs/day, 40 hrs/week, so I'm pretty well versed in troubleshooting it. Lately, the machine has started stuttering while cutting during jobs--not every cut will do this, but on a sheet full of shapes it will struggle through at least half of them now (pausing between each node, lagging severely, like it might do for an overcomplicated shape) and it makes jobs take much longer than they should. These shapes do not have many nodes, and sometimes an identical repeat on the same page will cut smoothly and with no issues.

We are cutting shapes that have been cutting without issue for years. I perform regular machine maintenance so there's no issue with the blades or mats, and we've made no changes to the SCAL5 files we've using regularly. I am using a Mac that does not have app nap enabled. I've scoured the forums looking for an answer already so I'm trying to cover the bases here.

It does appear to get worse the higher I set the machine speed, but does not go away entirely if I lower the speed. I've tried speeds ranging between 185-550. The blade force has no impact on whether this happens, since we cut a variety of paper materials with different blades, forces, and multicut and this issue continues regardless of that.

[Gigi]

Let's start with the easiest solution. Have you done a machine reset? As simple as that is, it often cures a multitude of issues that have no apparent (at first look) cause.