Silver Bullet Cutters Forum

Today was the day I decided to try to learn to do print and cut. I'm pretty sure I could have cut these by hand about 50 times by now so I am finally asking for help. Do I need to change the setting to origin point?
What should the offset be for a 45 degree blade? When I load the mat into the cutter and hit ONLINE it pulls it all the way through and out the back. I finally got it to work but they are off by about 1/4 inch on the top. All of the videos that I was able to find show it doing the actual cut but not anything leading up to the cutting.
Thanks,
Jan

HI Jan -

First question - no the machine defaults to WYSIWYG as I recall. So first of all - is your calibration right on? If you think it is, draw a square and print and cut that. I think that is the easiest way to see if you are off and where. x is your vertical (top to bottom) and y is your horizontal (left to right). I have to look it up every time - my brain just doesn't want to remember that! So if it is cutting too far to the right for instance, you want to decrease your Y number the amount it is off - or as close as you can get and try again. It takes some trial and error, but once you have the square accurate, you should be good to go with the rest. You should not have to change the overcut. I think you need to check the accuracy of your calibration first as it sounds like that is off a little.

You can adjust the numbers - oops - I should ask you which software you are using first because I just know how to adjust SCAL -

Thanks Gigi it is SCAL, and I will try calibration in a little while or maybe tomorrow. Could you got through the first steps, up to using the laser for registration? I can't figure out why the mat is shooting out. Once I insert the mat should I put it in a certain position and should I set the origin button or not?
Jan

Ok Jan.

Be sure you put your image in so the registration marks have the 1 and 2 at the top (left and right respectively) and the 3 is in the bottom right. You want to set your origin ( yes you have to set the origin or it will go to the last place it was set and throw you off) slightly outside of the bottom right (#3) point - so a little to the right and down so you have room to adjust your laser as you go through setting it to 1, 2 and 3. Let me say that better - with your laser light on, the light itself needs to be outside the mark of #3 so you have room to adjust. If there isn't room you might not be able to adjust to the right or up if you need to. I find that once I sent that first one, the other 2 are very close to accurate as I move on - they just need a very slight adjustment.

Does that help? The directions here may help - http://blackcatus.com/learn/?page_id=1781 I think if you reread that and watch the video it will make sense.......lmk

OK now none of the log ins I have written down are working so I can't get into the video.

I just PM'd you with the info you need. Hope that helps.

Hi Gigi,

I am having problems too with the cutter "spitting" my mat out. I calibrated my machine, then when I go to line up the registration marks, it just comes flying back out at me. Only mine sends it out the front, not the back.

I tried accessing the video on the Black Cat, but was not able to get in to watch it.

One more issue I am having is that I am attempting to move the blade with my keyboard or mouse, I can see it turning "blue" on my computer screen as though it is reading both the mouse click and the keyboard strikes, but my blade head is not moving on the cutter itself. Would you by chance know why this is happening? Thank you!

CJFY Studio wrote:Hi Gigi,

I am having problems too with the cutter "spitting" my mat out. I calibrated my machine, then when I go to line up the registration marks, it just comes flying back out at me. Only mine sends it out the front, not the back.

I tried accessing the video on the Black Cat, but was not able to get in to watch it.

Where are you setting your origin? And you have a Silver Bullet, right? You should be accessing the video on the SB Learning Center.

http://learn.silverbulletcutters.com/sc ... t-and-cut/

And you should be moving the blade with your keyboard using the keystrokes recommended for the best control..... does the blade move to the first one in the upper left? (#1)

Thank you Gigi,
For some strange reason, possibly because I turned the machine off for a bit and then turned it back on, it quit spitting the mat back out at me and allowed me to both move the blade head and cut. I have a different problem now, however…
I created my image in Adobe Illustrator. When I did so, I made one layer with the images to be printed on and one layer with the lines that were to be cut. I do not print from my computer, but send it to a professional copier to be printed, so I hand drew my registration marks. When I line those registration marks up and cut, the cutting is off in some places but not in other places. It is really weird. I would recalibrate, or adjust the X and Y axis like the video says, but some are right on and some are not. Do you have any idea what I could be doing wrong or what needs fixed?

I tried uploading a video of what is going wrong, but the page gets stuck and won't seem to load it. Do you have an email address I can send it to? Thank you!

See if you can PM it to me.

Are you creating the registration marks as directed in the learning center for Illustrator?

Have you tried just doing a print and cut with a square first? I would do that within SCAL - that should give you a clear idea of whether or not your calibration is off first. Let's eliminate one thing at a time.

Are you using a MAC or a PC? Sometimes that makes a difference.....

Good morning Gigi,
I'm not sure how to PM you.
No, I have not tried a basic square. I will do that.
Also, I created the file on a MAC and Dropbox it to my laptop, which is a PC. That just might be the problem! I was not able to find on the site a MAC driver for the Bullet nor for SCAL, thus why I sent it to my laptop. I would prefer to use my MAC if I can. I was anxious though in getting this cut so it might be right under my nose and I just missed it.

Click the PM button under my name (on any of my posts) on the far right side and that will enable you to PM. I know you can attach files there so you should be able to upload a video if it's not too large. If you have a problem, lmk.

There is a specific download for SCAL for MAC - is that what you mean? Here is the link. http://craftedge.com/download/download.html Be sure you download SCAL and not eCal.

Hmmm - dont know of anyone designing in one platform and cutting in another. Let me check on that one in the meantime.

Gigi wrote:. . . Hmmm - dont know of anyone designing in one platform and cutting in another. Let me check on that one in the meantime.

Just to note - while I don't do it with SCAL as I don't have the Mac version of SCAL - I do do it with MTC on occasion. I have designed/ created files on my Mac with MTC and then transfer that same file via dropbox to MTC on my PC for cutting (since I didn't have a cutter that worked with MTC on my Mac). It works just fine and I would think that the same would/should be true for SCAL. Going from one platform to the other shouldn't make any difference since SCAL is SCAL and should be the same on both platforms just like MTC (at least I would think so.)

Good to know as I have absolutely no clue being a PC girl - thanks Melanie!

Hi Gigi,
I am sorry to be a bother. I keep trying to activate my SCAL software and it keeps telling me that the serial number I am typing in is invalid. I obviously at one time keyed it in correctly when I installed in on my PC but the numbers I am attempting to use now on the MAC are not working. I have tried keying in a 25 digit number and the actual serial number off the back of the machine. Am I not using the right numbers?

Also, I was not able to upload the video to your PM. It is only 2 minutes long but the file must be too big to send.

Thank you.

Never mind Gigi!

I was able to contact Customer Support at SCAL and I guess they had to reset my serial number. I was able to get it activated.

Thank you!

Good - and yes you were using the wrong number as you dont need to use the serial number on your machine. Just your name and the SCAL serial number. Glad they reset it for you.

Will PM you with more info.

Hi Gigi,
Today's adventure including the following results:
-I tried emailing you the movie. Sadly, however, it is too big for that too. It literally is only a few seconds longer than 2 minutes. I sent you a Dropbox invitation. Please don't feel obligated, but if you want to share the folder that I placed it in Dropbox, you will be able to see it there. If you aren't familiar with Dropbox, it works just like the cloud in that you can trade large files.
-Thanks to Customer Support, they reset my serial number and I was able to get the SCAL software to load onto my MAC.
-I printed and cut a star. It was dead on. I didn't have to adjust the settings at all. It was awesome.
-I reloaded another copy of the design that wasn't working right and, once again, it cut the same way as it did before - off on all side by at least 1/4 inch but almost right in the middle. I hope you can see the video so that you can see what I mean.
Thank you so much for all of your help!!