Using a Cricut Mat & MTC with Cougar

[Kristen in TX]

O.k., I'm really struggling with mat/paper placement with my Cougar & MTC.

I need to use the Cricut mat because I need to use the 24" mat for the size of my cut. Since it's expensive vinyl I'm cutting & I'm short on time, I don't want to mess up. I'm using a 12x24" piece of vinyl. I don't have any wiggle room on my margins.

If I'm standing in front of my Cougar. Do I put my mat up against the right side of the machine, where do I need to put my origin? Do I need to put my mat up against the side of my machine? Will the carrier bang the side of the machine since my cuts go side to side in MTC?

I hope someone understands what I'm asking.

[Thyme]

Hi Kristen,
we need more info
what size of Cougar do you have?
what virtual mat size are you using
What orientation of virtual mat.

I will assume you have a 13"
The way I would do it is to put my virtual mat in portrait, and I use a 12 x 12 virtual mat.
Then I would put my template so that the bottom right corner of the template is in the bottom right corner of the virtual mat. The rest would be above the mat and off the screen.
Then load your mat so that you have about 0.5 inch gap between the mat and the right hand edge of the Cougar.
set your laser two inches in from the right hand edge of the paper and level with the front of the paper (or in your case vinyl)

[Kristen in TX]

Thank you so much. Your instructions helped immensely. I bought some shelf liner & practiced with that, glad I did! On my Cougar 2" is too far in, it was more like 1.5". Once I figured that out it went well.

I have one other question though. On the Cricut there was a center feature. You could line the carriage up & then there was a way to tell the Cricut it was in the center of the page. Is there any way to do that with the Cougar?

Thanks again for your help!

[Thyme]

I'm afraid there isn't a center feature with the Cougar

[Tyler]

There isn't a way to do the center feature right now. However, it isn't a limitation of the machine. That feature would come through the software, so if a software engineer were to code it, it definitely could be done!

It is the same with the cricut, since the feature is programmed on the internal software (firmware) of the machine. It may be a nice thing to have though in the future!