Silver Bullet Cutters Forum

Help! I'm using the SB for the first time and am trying to do a testrun on print and cut. I'm following the onscreen instructions, but can't line up the laser with the registration marks with my keyboard's arrow keys. The carriage doesn't move, or even sound like its trying to. They work when doing the step to calibrate the laser/blade, but nothing happens after that. What am I doing wrong?

Using SCAL with Windows 8 on an Acer laptop.

Which version of SCAL are you using? That has been a problem for many in older versions. Try as soon as you start aligning the laser to the registration marks, just hit the arrow key. The earlier versions time out if you don't hit the arrow quickly and then that will buy you some time to get it accurate. You can do a search on here and see what others have done. I do believe it was fixed in the most recent version of SCAL so you might want to check and be sure you have the latest version.

See if that helps.

Thanks Gigi. Yes, it doesn't leave much time to hit the keys. Managed to get the registration done, but now another issue: Despite completing the laser registration as instructed, the final cuts were way off target, offset to the right. I had calibrated the blade. I can only think that the calibration didn't take. But even then, the offset distance seems much more than the distance between the laser and the blade.

BTW: I'm using SCAL3.

Which version are you using. Download the current one (www.craftedge.com) and see if that makes a difference. I would recalibrate if you are using an older version as you shouldn't be "that far" off.

There are instructions in the Learning Center for fine tuning the calibration so you get it spot on, but again, you should be pretty close if the calibration is done well (not passing judgement) and then the laser is well lined up when registering the marks. I keep a little clip light on the end of my cutter to be sure I am dead center when I register the marks. Once I register the first mark, the next two come very close and need little adjustment. The current version on the site is 3.057. Check your version number. I am testing a newer version right now.... but I am pretty sure (someone confirm this for me) that the version on the site corrected the timing out with the registration.

Keep us posted...

Yes the latest version corrected the timing out

Thanks Dawn for verifying that - I thought so!

Just a very belated thank you for responding to my query. I had to leave the SB sitting idle for the last year and a half to concentrate on other things, and never got back onto this forum.

Hopefully I'll finally get a chance to master this machine and get creative, so there should be a few more visits to this forum in the future.

You are always welcome here!