The dreaded 'pause'....

The dreaded 'pause'....

Postby elan » November 9th, 2014, 2:01 pm

Hi there,
I'm a nwebie trying to do something fairly complicated, (of course). I have a 24" Silver Bullet and am using SCAL3. I'm trying to cut wallpaper, so, very long strips on a homemade 6' long mat. And every now and then I get the dreaded 'pause'. I am very careful to size my patterns at 23.75" so that they will fit within the cutting area, and fidget with the mat A LOT to try and line it up with the '0' guide on the right of the machine so that it will feed straight, but with that long a mat I understand that it may shift ever so slightly over the length of the run. I have accepted that when the machine pauses it is because it is trying to reach some part of the design that is unreachable. I guess my question is, what is happening between the software and the machine and is there any way out of this limbo short of turning the machine off and losing everything?It's really a bummer when this happens 5' into a 6' cut!
It seems like the cutting file continues to stream to the machine, and then the software is convinced that the cut is complete and it's work is done. Is there any way to pause the cutting file so that, I don't know, I could attempt to shift the mat over a hair and continue cutting from there?
Any tips, tricks or wild guesses would be welcome!
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Re: The dreaded 'pause'....

Postby Gigi » November 9th, 2014, 2:40 pm

The fact that your design is as wide as it is is part of the problem. You are only giving yourself 1/4" leeway of play if the machine shifts at all from the far right. You CAN pause the machine if you see it shifting, and move it over, but that may throw your whole alignment off as you are shifting the design. Are you cutting paper or vinyl? If you are cutting vinyl, you don't have to use the mat which might help you a little. You can also tile your design so you arent cutting so much length at one time - I am not saying any of these are ideal solutions and I don't cut things that long, so just throwing out ideas. I know we have a lot of users who do cut longer pieces and am sure they will weigh in. But again, with a design that wide you only have from the far right to 24" to the left and that leaves very little room for error...

Hoping someone has better answers than mine!
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Re: The dreaded 'pause'....

Postby Angel135612 » November 9th, 2014, 3:57 pm

If I remember correctly, and I don't know if this has changed with updates in the software, but even if your design is within the cutting area, if there is a node, that is outside the cutting area, it will send the machine into pause mode. So if you have a curve, and one of the node handles is outside the area, that may cause the machine to pause. I haven't cut anything that wide, even though I have a 24" machine. Most of my stuff is usually smaller, and I use the center area of my machine so I don't have the problem of pausing because of being out of the cutting area.
Diane in Colorado Springs
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Re: The dreaded 'pause'....

Postby elan » November 19th, 2014, 5:13 pm

Thanks for your replies. I'm cutting paper, so I do have to use the mat. I'll try reducing the width (height?) of my design to 22", which is the size of most standard wallpapers anyway, and give myself more wiggle room. I could cut the paper in 24" x 24" tiles, but it's a bit more work for the installer! However, I'm still curious about what is happening in the pause mode? Is there any way to 'unpause' or resume cutting from where you left off? Thanks again....
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Re: The dreaded 'pause'....

Postby Gigi » November 19th, 2014, 5:30 pm

If you are pausing the machine you can pause and "unpause" it as mentioned before. If the machine is going into pause mode, then you can only restart it.

I still think it is going into pause because you are trying to cut something out of the 24" width limit of the machine, measured from the inside right over. As Diane mentioned, if you have a stray node in the design, that can easily throw your design off, so be sure of the size (hit control A and check). If your design is within the limits of the 24" cutting area, the machine should cut it just fine. And if you are using a mat there should be no skewing at all. Be sure you have the outside pinch wheels down and run the mat back and forth a few times to be sure it is moving in a straight line the entire length of the mat.....
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