# Greatcut software cutting a small border



## Spectre2292 (Apr 5, 2012)

Hello again everyone, I've been constantly running into a big problem using greatcut but it never affected the work until now . Whenever i cut using greatcut and my gcc expert 24 it cuts a small border around the entire job. I disabled the weed border and checked for hidden layers and alas the border is still cutting. At first i believed it to be the working area printing, however i adjusted that as well and no better. I've already wasted 15 feet of vinyl due to this and dont really want to burn anymore! Any help at all would be amazing, thanks!!!


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Why would a weed border cause you to waste vinyl?....


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## AnonBri (Jun 20, 2012)

Well be sure to "save settings" after deselecting weed border to make sure you don't have it checked accidentally.

If you're using a GCC Expert look for the help hotline number on your cutter and call it. They have great customer service and are very helpful. Unfortunately they're only open Mon - Fri.

My cutter only cuts a border if I have the weed border selected (or a border in the design). 

Perhaps you should uninstall and reinstall GreatCut on your computer.

You could also try: If you're outputing directly from Illustrator or CorelDraw, maybe you should try cutting directly from GreatCut. If you're cutting from GreatCut try outputting directly from illustrator / coreldraw (with the greatcut plugin).


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## Spectre2292 (Apr 5, 2012)

royster13 said:


> Why would a weed border cause you to waste vinyl?....


It didnt feed perfectly straight and because it was a 64" long cut it caused it to cut about a mm of the vinyl in the "weed border" because it is putting a border less than an 1/8th of an inch away from the perimeter of the whole cut. Normally the mm differences would be acceptable in the jobs we are doing but because of the nature of this one the slight distance makes a very noticeable problem.

I saved the settings before cutting and tried it 3 times cutting through great cut, I tried printing through illustrator just now and when I clicked print the plotter didnt even respond to the input.

I checked over my design in illustrator with a fine tooth comb and wasnt able to find anything there either.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Are you using a long USB connection?....I have found that sometimes when you use a long cable, it messes the cutting up sometimes....


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## Spectre2292 (Apr 5, 2012)

royster13 said:


> Are you using a long USB connection?....I have found that sometimes when you use a long cable, it messes the cutting up sometimes....


I wish it were that, sadly i'm just using the 4 foot jumper that came with my cutter. Do you use greatcut or a different software? or maybe is there a better software out there than greatcut?


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## AnonBri (Jun 20, 2012)

Spectre2292 said:


> It didnt feed perfectly straight and because it was a 64" long cut it caused it to cut about a mm of the vinyl in the "weed border" because it is putting a border less than an 1/8th of an inch away from the perimeter of the whole cut. Normally the mm differences would be acceptable in the jobs we are doing but because of the nature of this one the slight distance makes a very noticeable problem.
> 
> I saved the settings before cutting and tried it 3 times cutting through great cut, I tried printing through illustrator just now and when I clicked print the plotter didnt even respond to the input.
> 
> I checked over my design in illustrator with a fine tooth comb and wasnt able to find anything there either.


You could always try turning on the weed border but making it much further away from the project.

I haven't tried outputting from illustrator, but I remember when I bought my cutter the sales guy said printing wouldn't work, because you're not using a printer, you're cutting.

You install a greatcut plugin (I think you get it on their website or on the GreatCut CD) Then great cut will show up (in illustrator) under file and you click "auto-export" for it to work.


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## Spectre2292 (Apr 5, 2012)

Alright AnonBri I will give the weed border idea a shot, maybe itll trump the one that keeps appearing! Thanks


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Spectre2292 said:


> I wish it were that, sadly i'm just using the 4 foot jumper that came with my cutter. Do you use greatcut or a different software? or maybe is there a better software out there than greatcut?


I use Great Cut almost daily on 2 different cutters (Expert 24 & Cut-3000) and it works well for me....


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## Spectre2292 (Apr 5, 2012)

I'm not sure what is causing it then, maybe the outline command under tools is active. However while looking at it I see no way to disable it. 
Let me ask ya Royster if you dont mind, do you cut anything 5 feet+ on your expert 24 and if so how do you get it to feed prefectly straight the whole way?

Sorry if some of these questions seem stupid to those of you with tons of experience in the business, we are slowly working up to bigger projects and running into issues such as this that were not an issue.


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## Blue92 (Oct 8, 2010)

Spectre2292 said:


> ...Let me ask ya Royster if you dont mind, do you cut anything 5 feet+ on your expert 24 and if so how do you get it to feed prefectly straight the whole way?.....


I can tell you the longest I've cut was sign vinyl 98" in Length. Cut fine with no problem.

The only time I've had an issue was after the rollers on the cutter cracked. Lost a lot of vinyl when that happened.

On cuts of any length more than 18" or so I always test feed the entire length of the cut through the cutter to verify the alignment before cutting.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

The longest I recall doing is 6 feet with no problems........But you do have to make sure you vinyl is lined up....I cut the end of the vinyl square using a square and then line it up with the white grid across the front of the machine....


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## ambitious (Oct 29, 2007)

It can also be your artwork....try going onto whatever vector program you are using and try deleting the box around it... I run into this problem daily with customers artwork..


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## dayloftenshirts (Jul 20, 2012)

I use Great Cut and I have a GCC expert 24 lx. I was running into that problem as well. I found that it was my artwork. when you live trace in illlustrator it creates a outbound box around the artwork. If you ungroup the the design and delete and out side perimeter it will be ok. You may no see it in preview mode but go to view outlines and you may see it.


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## Blue92 (Oct 8, 2010)

New record for me last night. 

10' banner with one section of the design 8" tall and 118" long. 

I ran all 118" through the cutter several times making sure it would feed correctly the entire length.


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## Spectre2292 (Apr 5, 2012)

Blue92 said:


> New record for me last night.
> 
> 10' banner with one section of the design 8" tall and 118" long.
> 
> I ran all 118" through the cutter several times making sure it would feed correctly the entire length.


So jealous! lol

I used the suggestion royster gave about squaring the front first then matching off the white line... fed like a dream! 

Thanks everyone!


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