1) Turn your cutter off, and plug it into a free USB port on your computer. The new hardware wizard should appear, or if you’ve already done this, it should go “Bing Bong”

2) On the cutter, hit the online screen. You should see X000 Y000. Keep hitting “Mode” until you see the setting for “Baud.” The value should read 09600. If it does not, use the arrow keys to make that so. Then, hit mode until you see X000 Y000 again. Then hit Online.

3) Make a note of the Com port and set the flow control. To do this: Go to Start, and then Run. In the box enter:

devmgmt.msc

Then, hit OK.

4) Hit the plus sign next to “Ports COM And LPT”

5) You should see “USB Serial Adapter”, Right click on this and go to “Properties”

6) From there, select “Port Settings”. Set the flow control to “Hardware”

7) Hit “Advanced”, Make a note of the Com Port, and if possible change it to something 1-4 if they’re not in use.

8. Hit apply and OK to leave those menus. Close device manager.

9) Open Flexi, use the “T” on the left hand side to type a couple of letters.

10) Go to File, then hit “Cut/Plot”

11) This opens the Cut Plot screen. In the top left you should see CR630 @ com x or CR-1200 @ com x. The x needs to match up with the com port we noted earlier. If it does not:

12)Hit the properties button under the CR1200 @ Com x drop down box. Select the right hand most tab. It has a picture of something that looks like a microphone.

13) At the top, change the com port to match yours. Hit OK

14) At the bottom, make sure “Flow Control” says “none”

15) Hit “Send” on the cut plot screen. Your cutter should come to life.

 Aladdin HASP Key Drivers

VCP Drivers for Windows XP/2000/Vista WHQL Certified

1) Make sure your pinch rollers are the same tension.

2) Make sure you have the proper blade offset.

3) Your pinch rollers may be just plain worn out. If the above two didn’t work, try replacing the rollers. One year of use is their average effective lifetime.

Practice with our friend here.

Pro Tip: For images not so fabulously suited for this purpose, don’t be afraid to use Photoshop to put it into grey scale. Also, use a Blur for smoother edges on images that you’ve enlarged. Pixelation is difficult for tracing.

1. Open a new Illustrator Document.

2. Paste our friend here into the middle of the document. You can leave his size alone.

3. While he is selected (You should see a blue box around him) go to the “Object” Menu.

Select “Ungroup”. Then, from the “Object” menu again, select “Clipping Mask” (near the bottom) and hit Release.

4. Deselect the object by clicking on white space outside the blue box.

5. You’re now ready to trace. Select the “Object” Menu once again, and go to “Live Trace” and then “Make”.

Pro Tip: If for some reason, make is not available, you’ve not followed the previous 5 steps correctly.

6. Most of the time, You’re done. Save in your favorite Vinyl friendly format, and get to cutting. However, sometimes, the trace looks like an impressionist painting of it’s former self. If this is the case, read on:

7. From the “Object” Menu, select “Live Trace” and go to “Tracing Options”

8. In the top left hand corner of the menu there is a drop down box labeled “Preset”. There is a TON of different options in here like “Line Drawing”, “Comic Art”, “Ink Drawing”, etc. Try them all. Just because it says “Comic Art” doesn’t mean it won’t work awesome for your picture. One of these presets will solve 99% of all tracing problems.

9. If it doesn’t work on ANY of the presets, find the one that works the closest. In the window there are lots of numbers and options. …. Start playing.

Solution: This problem is not related to the offset of the blade, but is important that for accurate cuts, you have the offset correct before using this solution! See our guide on Setting the Blade Offset for your cutter.

1. Make sure your blade offset is correctly set.
2. Open up the Settings in your cutting software. We’ll use SignCut X2 for example here.
3. From the Settings Menu, Select Settings, or hit this button from the top toolbar:
4. There is a setting in the middle called “Overcut”. Increase this setting until your cutter no longer leaves pieces uncut. My Refine MH-1351 needed .1 once all was said and done.