Any chance of classes on the above in the near future? Or at least one on one instruction with anyone willing to spend some time with me on it if we can arrange it?
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If no one gets back to you on this, I’ll give you some encouragement to just tackle this. Whatever software we are currently using, just look it up and you will likely find a pretty good video tutorial to learn the software. After you have done that about 15 minutes trying to cut a few small shapes on the cutter will likely get you to a good enough understanding to do your project.
Key things to learn on the machine:
How to load the material straight.
Remember you will never get it perfect, but you just need it straight enough that you can cut your project before the material rolls off a hold down roller. If doing a job longer than about 2ft make sure your roller are inside the vinyl about 1/2 inch. You lose an inch of material, but you likely won’t lose your job.
How to set cutting pressure.
You will want to know how to do this in the software, because adjusting pressure is the difference between this is perfect and nothing cut. If the software is in grams 80 grams is a good starting point and move up about 10 grams a cut if you need a deeper cut. If you cut all the way through, do the inverse and lower pressure about 10 grams at a time. Cut a small simple object when doing this test, because when it goes wrong on a big object it can seem like everything is breaking. It’s not all breaking, you will be fine.
Know how to bail on a bad cut.
You will get a bad cut, it just happens sometimes and can seem very intense when it does. This isn’t the worst thing in the world. When things go bad, just pop up the pressure lock down arm. This is a large tab usually at the top of the machine on the left side near where the vinyl feeds in. This will typically stop everything. Even if it doesn’t stop everything, it will stop your material feeding and lessen how much you lose to a bad cut.
Know what is likely to beak.
The most likely break on a cutter is the blade. These are cheap, less than $20 often time $4 to $6 in cost. Second likely break is the cutting pad. These are also cheap, less than $20. This is all that typically break or wear out on these machines.
Hope you find this helpful and I hope you are enticed to do some learning on your own to at least get ready for in person training.
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Wait, I don’t recall this from the Titan training. VinylMaster has some kind of pressure display in the program? TIL. I know we have the ‘recommended settings’ decaled on the titan, but I found that even the low end cut through my vinyl last week.
I don’t think replacing the blade was trained back when I got signed off. I’m not sure where we keep the new blades or if the blade is being replaced regularly.
Re: Training, I honestly have no idea who is signed off to train or what the rules are these days, but I’ll probably be up there cutting a few things in the next week or so and don’t care if someone observes.
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Give me a heads up when you’ll be here, okay? Since no-one has stepped up to teach a class, I probably need to figure out the machine.
Right now I’m planning on being up there working on some other projects on 7/31. Could arrange to meet anybody at virtually any time that day.
This video shows cutting pressure settings for that software.
When I’m cutting on my machine, these pressure setting are key to great cutting, especially when the blade is dulling.
I’m not surprised no one is teaching changing blades. Most view it as Admin Maintenance, I do it in my shop anytime I get a cut out of parameters aka too much pressure required. We cut so many different materials that we don’t want to have to dial each in all the time. I probably change the blade once a month or two. Pretty cheap maybe costs $30 a year, Save one hour of time on the machine and that is paid off. Plus it is super easy, loosed a screw to take the blade carrier out, unscrew blade carrier, replace blade and reverse the steps. All done.
Good luck with your work, @kellerwerks looks like you have some teachers now.
Thanks everyone.
Reminder that I’ll be up at the space this Saturday 7/31 for a good part of the day. I’ll be working on a screen printing project in addition to some laser engraving on the epilog. It would be a good opportunity to get some vinyl cutting instruction if anyone is up there that day.
New to the vinyl cutting world. Are there any members who could give me a crash course on the machine?
I’ll add a class to the calendar as our usual vinyl teacher is otherwise indisposed.
Expect to see it in a day or two!
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Approved, it’s on the calendar 
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