Vinyl Cutting

For this assignment, I will be cutting the logo that I have designed in the previous week here. Therefore, I will not delve much into the design process, but I will get back and touch upon it in the ‘transferring design to machine’ step.

Overall, here are the process that you need to do to perform vinyl cutting:

Prepare Design Files > Load Material > Setup Machine > Transfer Design to Machine > Execute (Cut) > Weeding > Apply

Machine Parts and Functions

For context, at Fab Lab Bali, we use Roland CAMM-1 GX-24 Vinyl Cutter. I refer to this youtube tutorial and the remote guidance from my instructor on how to operate it. And here’s a user’s manual of the machine that I found from previous FA student, Jofin Thomas, page.

Main Unit

Operation Panel

Setting up Material

1. Prepare the vinyl material, either roll or piece.

2. Place the vinyl on the rollers behind the machine.

3. Before loading the vinyl to the machine, there are a few things we should pay attention to:

   • Locate the small wheels in the right and left side of the machine. These wheels are the ones that will grip the vinyl.
   • Locate white stickers under the rubber wheels. These stickers serve as guide to indicate working area of wheels.
   • Make sure the left wheel to be always inside the left stickers And depending on the width of the vinyl, the right wheel should be placed in any one of the three stickers on the right.

4. When inserting the vinyl, make sure the vinyl is aligned under the right and left wheels and make sure it is straight! You can use the vertical lines on the machine as guide to ensure it’s straight.

5. After loading the vinyl, pull up the lever on the back to lock the material in place.

❗ Only pull the lever up when you’re about to use the vinyl cutter. When not using, it’s better to put it down to avoid degradation of the spring.

Setting up Machine

1. Turn on the vinyl cutter.

2. On the screen, it will ask to select either roll or piece. For rolls, the machine will measure the roll width, and as for piece, the machine will measure the length as well.

3. Through the operation panel, you can set the Force, Speed, and Offset value to then performing cut tests.

4. You can move the cutting carriage by pressing the ⬆️ ⬇️ ⬅️ ➡️ buttons on the operation panel.

5. To test cut, press the ‘Test’ button or through the software from your laptop. The machine will then cut a small piece of circle with a square inside it.

How to know if your setting is good enough?

After performing a cut test, evaluate the cuts through weeding. Ideally, we want the vinyl to be easily peeled off without any parts still sticking together. By using tweezer, try to peel off the outer edge first, if all is well proceed to the inside one.

Moreover, try to look for some cutting scratch/marks on the back layer of the vinyl. Since the vinyl material characteristic might not always be homogenous across all surface, it’s better to thrive for a more visible stroke, but just enough to ensure cuts on the sticky layer and avoid cutting on the back layer.

For me personally, I experimented with many different settings to find the one that is suitable for my design and its size.

Design File Preparation

As I have mentioned previously I have designed the logo that I want to cut in the previous week here. Next, is to just open the editable file on Inkscape and export it in the format that is acceptable by the vinyl cutting software application.

Transfering Design to Machine

The Roland machine comes with its proprietary software, the CutStudio. But since I’m using Mac, it’s a bit tricky to install it. It turns out that on mac you need to use Illustrator to install the CutStudio extension plugin. Here’s the thing, my Adobe Illustrator is already expired 😅, so that’s out of the equation for me.

Apparently Neil and the CBA team develop mods, a new fab modules software that can run any fab lab machines!😲

What is mods?

Mods is a modular cross platform tool intended for use with commonly found machinery in fab labs. It is based on independent but interrelated modules and can be used in various tasks, including CAD, CAM, machine control, automation, UI development, input device integration, and responsiveness to physical models.

In short, mods can be used to control the vinyl cutting machine! Therefore, I try to give it a go with MODS, because you can do it from web, no installation needed.✨

Using Mods for Vinyl Cutting

You can follow this step by step procedure to vinyl cut using mods:

1. Log in to mods: https://modsproject.org/

2. Right mouse click anywhere in the screen > Choose “Programs” > “Open Program“

   

3. Then choose machine “GX-GS 24 vinyl cutters > cut“

   

4. You will be directed to this node tree.

   

5. The first column of nodes on the left are where we can load our file. We can upload SVG, PNG, or HPGL. In my case, I decided to upload SVG to maintain the resolution of the image. Click “Select SVG file”.

   

6. After loading, the node tree will process the SVG.

   

7. In the node “Roland GX/GS-24 Relative”, we can input our settings for Origin, Force, and Speed. Image origin determines the position where the blade will start cutting our image. And then, we can perform a cut test.

   

   On my first cut test using mods, I put the same setting that I previously sucessfully tried from the machine, which is 200g force and 10cm/s speed. But the result with the mods looks very deep and quite harsh, it cut through the vinyl paper.

   I’m not really sure why is that. There could be multiple reasons. But in the interest of time, I decided to go lower on the force.

8. In the node “Cut Raster”, check the tool diameter, make sure it is correct. Then click ‘Calculate’.

   

9. A preview of the toolpath should appear by now. Evaluate the generated toolpath. Ideally, we want all lines to be connected and no red color in the supposedly cutting lines. So, if you notice ‘red lines’ that means the software could not generated the toolpath for that part. Troubleshoot what would be the cause. We can try adjusting the different image settings in the upper nodes, such as threshold, offset, and more.

   

   Trials and Errors

   In my case, there were several trials and errors and unstable toolpath. Here how I resolved them:

   • Couldn’t read outer edges of the design > Making outer boundary: because apparently all vectors must be contained within the bounds of the file canvas. Since there is no working canvas to begin with, so I had to make a square boundary outside of the logo.

     

     resolution: make outer boundary

     

   • Unrefined Edges > Adjust Offset value. I encountered some errors when I tried to make a smaller size. It simplified the edge’s path, and failed to detailing the leaf shape on my logo.

     

     I found out that we can resolve. this by adjusting the offset value.

     Offset refers to the distance between the blade’s center and the tip. This offset value ensures the machine takes the blade into account when cutting so that it does not accidentally cut into the design.

     Now that I learn about this, _I think the role of offset here is just like the kerf value in the laser-cutting (?) By default, the value is automatically set when you push ‘calculate’. But you can change it and view the resulting path in the node ‘Offset’_.

     resolution: adjust offset value to as low as possible. You can see the difference below

     Offset = 0.5Offset = 1.5 (default)Offset = 2Offset = 3

     

     

     

     

   • Threshold Value

     There will also be some occasions, where it just couldn’t read your design properly. Probably, this is because of the design contrast & resolution. You can resolve this by adjusting/playing with the image threshold value. The number that I found is good is around 0.6-0.8. Please note this is dependent to the design.

10. Next, to transfer the file to the machine, go to the bottom right of the tree. Notice there’s a fork ending with “save file”, for saving the file in USB stick, and “webUSB” for transfering the file through USB cable. Because I use USB cable to connect my laptop directly to the machine, so I left the toggle of WebUSB = on.

    

    Then, connect your MODS to the machine by clicking “Get Device” > “Connect”. If the machine is already connected, it should says ‘Paired’.

    

11. Notice that when you’re done ‘calculating’ the toolpath, the button under the webUSB will turn from ‘waiting for file’ to ‘send file’. If all is well with the previewed toolpath, go click “Send File” to perform cutting.

Cutting

Once the vinyl is cut, you can evaluate the cuts and do weeding, the process of peeling the negative space of the cut object.

I’ve did many trials and errors as you can see on the images above. I’ve described how I have resolved them in the ‘Trials and Errors’ section.

Transferring

Next, by using a transparent vinyl sticker I layer the peeled logo with the transparent sticker and made them like this to be able to transfer it to other surfaces.

Results

Key Insights & Reflections

• Interesting because you can see the toolpath generated and evaluate the cut plans beforehand! Examining the toolpath is very important to help us identify potential errors or issues in the cutting process before actual fabrication begins. It helps us verify that all lines and other design features are correctly translated into toolpaths and will be cut according to specifications.
• All vectors must be contained within the bounds of the file canvas. Make an outer boundary if needed.
• The smaller the file size, the smaller the force should be and the slower the speed needed.
• Offset: used so that the cutting blade will not cut on your design files, but on the case of a very small cutting size, you want to make the offset as low as possible for a sharper definition of your file’s edges.