While my 3d printer is busy printing a new set of tool holders for the MPCNC, I thought it would be a good time to finally get around to trying out the vinyl cutter.
As always… I made a video of the endeavor.
It’s nothing really fancy, but it worked pretty good. I don’t have any vinyl yet, so I just tried cutting some printer paper.
Vinyl Cutter is in my box of stuff to do. Thanks for sharing.
I cut the logo for the other side of the cut today. I took the time to work through my vinyl cutting work flow.
I’m not sure how others do this, but here’s what I ended up doing.
First step was that I set the depth of the vinyl cutter. The cutter can be adjusted in/out of the holder. I jogged the cutter so that it was just off the side of the vinyl. Then I lowered it down so that the bottom of the cutter holder was just touching the top of the vinyl. I then adjusted the cutter inside the holder so that it only stuck out far enough to clear the vinyl top and just cut into the backing without going all the way through.
Once I had that set up, I went into ESTLCam and setup my engraving. I set the depth of cut on the engraving to 0". I saved the gcode to the SD card and went back to the machine.
I lowered the z axis so that the bottom of the cutter holder was flat on the vinyl and then pressed ‘Go’.
When it was all done, the vinyl top was cut, but the backing was not. That made things a lot easier to get the vinyl onto the transfer tape.
You lowered the z a second time after you already set the cutter holder to touching the vinyl and the blade just into the top layer?
Yeah… I had to raise it a bit to move the cutter to the start position so that it wouldn’t cut the vinyl.
Got it. I thought you had leveled it at the starting point. Makes sense.
Thanks for sharing.
Am gonna try out vinyl.cutting, my only problem is unleveled bed.
Whoop! Gig’em Aggies, c/o ‘01!
THANK YOU FOR THIS! Sorry, was excited. I’ve had that drag knife in my cart for over a year now lmao. I think I’m actually gonna pull the trigger on it after watching this. Like. RIGHT now. haha
Good luck guys. My wife ended up getting a Cricut for Christmas at some point. So we’ve been using that to cut vinyl ever since. I still have the drag knife, but don’t use it anymore.
Get a piece of 3/4" MDF the size of the vinyl sheets, or a little larger. Screw it to the top of your surface board. Use a 3/4" surfacing bit to surface just the top of the small piece of MDF but a mm or two.
Now you have a level board just for cutting vinyl.
Thanks David, Going for the advice, indeed a flat bed is my real challenge
Seems to be alot of our issue. Myself included. It’s flat ‘enough’ for the moment, but I think it’s settled alot since I built it. Plus I have much better shop tools these days too. A table redesign is DEFINITELY in my future plans. Now that I have the full sheet lr2, I can actually cut a paulk style table with accuracy which will help keep things square and flat. Or at least that’s the plan. And the hopes. lol
I didn’t even realize this post was 3 years old, gah it showed up as ‘NEW’ a couple days ago! Didn’t mean to necro this, but glad I did get to read it! The spousal unit has been thinking about a cricut too, but definitely wanna try the drag knife first. $9 vs $300 ya know? lol
If it wasn’t for the MIL and I going halfsies, my wife wouldn’t have her Cricut 
and it looks like Robert necro’ed it. so no worries there
