Sunday, September 5, 2010

Some Good News?

As you all know, I have been doing some testing on the eCraftshop Pro software.  A few days ago, I posted that I was having an issue with cutting two files back to back.  Well that problem appears to have been solved, and now I think I may be onto something else.  I need all of you eCraft owners to help me test this theory out.

First off, something that I have not experienced before with my Cricut.  When I was having the problem with cutting back to back SVG images, I mentioned it to my hubby.  He is a computer junkie, and started messing around with my laptop, and sat there with me while I tested out some things, and he made a discovery.  The driver for eCraftshop Pro does not load properly if you turn on the eCraft AFTER the software is up and running.  So what we started to do was this....1) Plug in the eCraft to the computer. 2) Turn on the eCraft. 3) Start the eCraftshop Pro software.  When doing this we had no problem making multiple cuts using SVGs that were created in Illustrator, Inkscape, and Make the Cut.

Here is where things get tricky again, I cut a ballerina SVG without a problem.  I don't know where I got this file from, so I cannot share it, but I will show you a picture of it, so you have an idea of what I am talking about.  This ballerina cut fine.



I then decided to cut the ballerina smaller, and resized it to this, and that is when I had the stuttering and dying problem.  When looking at this file, you may wonder why it is having problems cutting it.  When you look closely at the file, the fingers of the ballerina are very close together, and I think that may be where the problem is.



 I went back to some of the other SVGs that I had trouble cutting and made them cut larger and they cut without a problem.  When I made them smaller, again the same problem.  I am now wondering if there is some sort of setting in the program, that prohibits the machine from cutting images that have such close cutting lines.  I also took one of these images, and set it to be a draw line instead of a cut line and that made no difference.



My hubby believes that this is something in the program as well.  I mentioned to him that if I did this on my Cricut, it would cut, but the end product would probably be mangled.  He said that a cutting machine is basically a printer with a blade, and so there has to be something in the software that is stalling the machine.  If you think about this, it kinds of makes sense that this is new to us.  Since the SD cards are programmed so that it will not cut an image smaller than pre-programmed sizes, we wouldn't know how the machine would react if the lines of an image are too close together.

So I am calling all eCraft owners to test this out for yourself.  I am going to try to duplicate this with an SVG from a known source so that I can direct everyone to try with the same file.  Please share your results!

3 comments:

Ruthie said...

Hubby could be onto something there - the ONLY fail I have had was a really intricate cut....then it started cutting random circles and eventually stuttered and died.

I have been saying all the way through that I thought it was the files and not the drivers (but then that was because I could cut my own files straight off but other files failed!).

Ruthie said...

When we were first setting the machines up we were told about not starting the machine AFTER we had started the software but to make sure the machine was on before the software was started. I was trying various files today and tried to cut a file having started the software before the machine - it wouldnt cut at all. I tried starting the machine first and it cut fine. I then deliberately went back and did it the "wrong" way again and it wouldnt cut! Another piece for the puzzle!

AND - tried another file and it imported the wrong size!

Rx

Kate Smith said...

Problem I have with it setting the size you can cut at, is that tons of things that won't cut small in paper, will cut in vinyl or will draw.

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