Vinyl Cutting Plotter 4 Feet

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Gaetan Boren

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Aug 5, 2024, 6:05:52 AM8/5/24

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Practicalcollecting basket for mounting on the stand of a Secabo C60 IV, S60, T60 cutting plotter. The collection basket prevents the plotted film from coming into contact with the floor. This prevents soiling.

When cutting more than approx 2 feet, the cutter doesn't cut properly. For example, when doing a series of rectangles 4 feet x 3 inches that are side by side, a couple of them will be fine, but for a couple the cuts will be overlapping. I just cut some words surrounded by a rectangle...in the bottom corner, the cuts for the rectangle don't quite line up. What do I need to adjust to make it cut properly? Thanks!

We advise people over and over, not to buy this cutter, A step up to a SC2 would have been much better than this bottom of the barrel cutter. This cutter has known tracking problems as well as static, memory and communication problems, , But with a lot of tinkering and fine tuning it, and practice, you might get it to run better. First off, make sure you have the blade depth set correctly. No using a credit card or post it notes to set blade depth. Those are incorrect. Too much blade exposed out of the blade holder causes drag and may move the vinyl. Great instructions for setting blade depth below. They do work. Now run the cutter slow until you learn it. Put the pinch rollers equal distance from the edge of the vinyl. About 1.5 inches in. Make sure you start the vinyl straight, Always have enough vinyl pulled from the roll and slack for your order. Never be pulling from the roll while cutting. The grit rollers marks go away after you install the vinyl. Now start there and see it you can get it better. Next, if these don't work out for you, sell that POS and buy a better cutter. It is true, you get what you pay for in vinyl cutters. My 2c.

If you are simply doing rectangles, one option could be to draw the rectangles and individual lines rather than a box. Doing this will force the cutter to start at one end of the line and go straight to the other end. This way you won't have to worry about the cuts lining up in the middle someplace. However, the lines may not all be exactly parallel but it should be close enough that you won't notice. I would also draw it so that the corners overlap a bit, like a hash mark.#

Proper tracking must be pinpointed (no drift) by first running the entire length of vinyl you'll need through the machine using the manual (offline) positioning of the Y-axis movement. If that vinyl doesn't remain EXACTLY on the same measuring line from the beginning to the end, then you'll have these types of mis-aligned rectangles.

Speaking from my own personal experience in opening a retail sign store in 2012, using the MH as a centerpiece of the operation, I found it to be fully capable of doing what customers needed, and an overall good value. There was not "a lot of tinkering and fine tuning" involved with getting it to work just fine, and that bad boy was churning out work every day, all day, for months and months, right out of the box (with SignBlazer as supplied by USCutter at the time).

I also remember very well, you said "If you look at the cuts from a MH cutter from 30 ft away, they will look like a Graphtec cuts." LOL. Jaybyrd was very active on the forum then. I remember he said "So you tell your customers to stand back 30 ft and their decals will look better?. " I never forgot that you said that!! LOL..

"Even the owners say it" -- USCutter sells thousands of these units. They do their job, and owners have them running and making money all over the world. Anyone who expects a lower-priced Door Buster unit to EQUAL more expensive machines is simply not being realistic. If you want to keep bashing the product as "POS" then go for it.

What I meant about the 30-foot comment was that large banners or 4'x16' signs viewed at 30-feet away (as many are) do not require the intricate, small-detail cutting of a Graphtec or other high-end servo cutter. C'mon, Skeetz, what about the CONTEXT of my remarks?

Be fair.

I'll put a challenge to you --- let's make signs, each of us. You do it with the Graphtec (the 'Platinum Standard' of cutters) and I'll cut the same thing with a 'Bottom of the Barrel' Chinese knockoff. We will post the results, side by side, and see if anyone can identify which is which. (They won't be able to).

to keep this fair I should add - use any vinyl of your chose except NO HTV - - - - regular decal vinyl only

I had a couple of MH plotters and you can do some fine work but tinkering every time you try something intricate will teach you lots about plotters and make you appreciate the graphtec when you move up to one - like most I started with a P-cut, had 2 MH, moved up to a copam (had a couple of those) and several roland and graphtec models - the lower ones taught me a lot about setting up a plotter and the higher end ones lowered my stress level considerably

We'll cut those 2 lines of PLAIN TEXT ONLY in a size to be viewed from 30-feet away (or more). That is 99% of my work, and how I earn a living making signage. Been doing this since 2012, on-and-off, and yeah, I gave the MH to a buddy, he loves it, mostly making 18"x24" bandit signs for his landscaping business. He never has had a problem, the machine runs flawlessly.

I don't have an argument with anyone pointing out the true limitations of the MH series, which are well-documented. My objection is the characterization that USCutter is selling a piece of Sh!t or somehow ripping-off buyers who buy the MH.

Slice, this is a USERS forum and therefore a place where true users can voice opinion and real world experience. Your opinion is as valid (and diverse) as anyone else. If we weren't honest with people we would be doing them a disservice in the long run. Being that we are all just users and not paid employee's we are giving our opinion and most of us recommend spending more money on a better cutter if the potential buyer can afford it (or if they actually do a little research before jumping in). This is basically an up-sell so in a way we are actually helping the company who hosts this site by inadvertently talking people into spending more.

30ft away like your picture of the truck shows is NOT a fair representation of what someone who is planning to go into business can expect. Any buyer who pays good money for a truck logo or a sizable sign will be looking at it up close and personal. YES you CAN get by with a budget cutter but with each step up in value you definitely get a better end product. YOU should know this as you have stepped up from the MH to the SC2 (I think that's what you have now). From what I have read you have never owned a top dollar cutter so you're basically talking out of a different orifice of your body on some of these points. For a basic crafter beginner the lower budget machines are sufficient but spending more really does get you more in this instance. I think for this customer has already jumped in so the point is probably moot.

To the OP JSAX. When my budget cutter struggled with longer runs I was able to "get by" with a feature that my cutting software of choice (SignCut Pro) has that is called "step-by-step cutting". Not sure what you are using but SignCut Pro has the option to turn on this feature that only cuts a certain amount of a design before moving on down the design. This amount of length is determined by the user so say you have 4ft long stripes like you described. You can set the cutter to cut it in12 or 13" steps. I say 13" on a 48" design because if you miss the length by a small amount at the end it could cause some issues so it's better to give it a little free spaced make the cutting as simple for the machine as possible. This feature works great on simple designs like you are struggling with but does not work well on intricate ones like large strings of small text. The budget cutters are not accurate enough to cut part of a small F or R and be able to come back to it and continue on. The software even has a preview feature that will show you a little video of how the blade will progress though the cut so you can see where you set your sections and decide if you need to make some edits. I suggest you go to the SignCut website and try out the free trial and see if this is something that will help you out. The program is free for a few days or a week but then costs money. When I bought my first cutter they included a years subscription. I ended up buying the lifetime dongle and still use it with my high end $3500 cutter. (I no longer need the step-by-step feature though due to the new cutters excellent tracking)

Good luck JSAX and don't be discouraged with your MH. If you stay within the limitations they do fine. Really big or really small detailed graphics you will struggle but text over 1/2" and length below 30" or so can be done fine if the machine is properly set up.

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