A vinyl cutter is a computer controlled machine that uses a sharp blade to cut designs into thin vinyl sheets. The vinyl cutter or cutting plotter can be used to cut designs or lettering for stickers, window signage, decals, etc.
You may bring your own material for cutting, or purchase vinyl that Open Works provides. Ask a technician for assistance if you have questions, issues, or wish to purchase vinyl. Vinyl is stored in a locked cabinet in the digital media lab.
A membership or day pass is required to access the Digital Media Lab.
The vinyl cutter does not require a reservation.
The design that will be cut out is typically created in a vector editing tool, such as Illustrator or Inkscape. Then the design file is opened in the machine's software, which converts it to a format that the machine understands.
The Saga II itself has several rollers to move the material through the machine, and a cutter head that moves back and forth perpendicular to the rollers. The machine can accept both rolls and sheets of material.
This machine can also be used as a plotter with a pen tip installed.
Open Works has one vinyl cutter.
There is rolled vinyl available for purchase. It is priced by length, not by area. If you bring your own vinyl there is no charge.
¶ Acceptable Materials:
Vinyl.
¶ Use with Caution and Proper Technique:
Pieces smaller than 6 inches in any direction may fall out of the machine or behave badly. Consider using a larger piece or using a backing paper of some sort.
¶ Forbidden Materials:
Pieces smaller than 4 inches in any direction.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE):
Sturdy, close-toed shoes must be worn in all shops.
For more information on shop safety visit Digital Media Lab under "Safety."
Keep hands out of the way when the machine is in motion.
The workflow for vinyl cutting begins in the design software.
Files made in Illustrator, Inkscape or any other program that produces vector graphics can be translated for cutting. There is more information on raster vs vector graphics here. Export the design in .svg format.
Measure the size of your material before loading it, as you will need this information later. Take care to load the vinyl properly as this can have a big impact on the cut quality. Pieces smaller than 6x6 inches may fall out of machine or go crooked.
If using a roll, slide the tube of the roll onto the metal bar.
The vinyl cutter begins cutting at the bottom and right of your design, and moves left and back. Zero/home/origin/(0,0) is the point on the loaded material where the job will start.
The relationship between speed and force determines how the blade cuts your design.
We do not recommend changing these settings for our in-house vinyl. However, if necessary, you may use the arrow keys to toggle speed and force in units of millimeters per second, and grams.
For a smaller design use a lower speed, larger design a higher speed.
Now that you have determined your cut settings, modified your image and loaded the material, you’re ready to start cutting. Make sure that you've done all of these steps!
Throw away small scraps of vinyl. Large amounts of unused vinyl may be placed in the box under the cutting table.
*If the pen insert needs to be replaced, you can use an inkwell from a simple click pen, and cut the excess length.
When using 36 inch pattern paper, alligning the paper under the central 5 rollers gives the most consistent results.
Recommended speed is 96mm/second, appropriate force will vary based on pen flow, but typically will fall between 48-63grams. When testing, look for solid unbroken lines without peircing the pattern paper.
While the interior tube diameter for pattern paper will not fit onto the roller brackets, you should slide the brackets to touch the edges of the roll and clamp them to the bar to prevent the roll from sliding laterally.
All machine maintenance pages are only accessible to Staff. All machine maintenance is only to be done by Staff.
Replace the blade by
The blade holder has two rings on it- height adjustment and a lock. The larger one is the adjustment.
The blade holder has a pin opposite the blade that is used to remove it.
The cut depth is 0.1mm. Test this on scrap vinyl, or make sure that it only cuts partially through a piece of paper.
All troubleshooting pages are only accessible to Staff. All troubleshooting is only to be done by Staff.
Feed Rate The rate at which the cutter head moves
Pinch Rollers: Hold down the vinyl to advance it forward under the blade.
Raster vs vector Raster graphics are composed of pixels, while vector graphics are composed of paths. Raster graphics must be converted to vectors to export to the vinyl cutter. More information
Registration The area that the vinyl lines up to
Transfer Tape An adhesive backing is laid on the weeded vinyl when necessary. A squeegee is used to apply the tape, causing it to adhere to the vinyl. The transfer tape and the weeded vinyl is pulled off the release liner, and applied to a substrate,
Vinyl In the context of vinyl cutting, denotes very thin, heat-transferrable or release liner backed sheets or rolls of plastic.
Weeding The process in which the excess parts of the figures are removed from the release liner. Cut paths can be generated to facilitate easier weeding of the figures for small and detailed designs.