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New to Vinyl Cut
Hi
I am new to Vinyl Cutting and have a Chinese Kantana 720MK2 with serial and USB ports. It came with Artcut 2005 which I will begin with and then go from there.
I am in Australia and my main in-house work is embroidery but kept on being asked for ….. well you know how it goes.
My computer technician should be coming soon as I am totally lost with connecting the cutter to the computer. Yes I know how to connect leads but instructions in this case are very confusing to me.
Artcut seems easy enough to follow but – always a but – when go to test the window pops up and nothing happens. If I got a message that it can not find cutter I would be happy but – nothing.
Check Task Manager and I see it is running but usage is Zero so me even more confused.
Seems a lot of cutters coming out of the same factory under various names and Katana gives reference to Rabbit and Hengxing so I assume there is a lot of similarity between a lot of brands.
Any advice will certainly be appreciated. -
6 Replies
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Hello APT Solutions.
Like so may Aussies you have actually bought a vinyl cutter from eBay called a Katana. This is actually manufactured by Jinan Hengxing Computer Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd
http://www.hxlaser.com/products/home.htm
The cutter is a really a Rabbit HX720 renamed a Katana.just in the past week or so…….. all complaining about no service, not able to contact anyone from Katana and software (ArtCut) that does not work. We provide twelve months free technical support and by phone to Australian customers and email to the rest of the world. Unfortunately there appears to be a number of companies selling on eBay in Australia who once the sale is made are gone. No Service, no phone number, no website, not even an physical address that is real.
Over the last 12 months I have lost count of the number of phone calls from Aussie eBayers who have bought vinyl cutters from eBay and then had no support. It is a sad state of affairs that you have to buy another software program just to get technical support.
You guys in the UK are so lucky having REAL companies selling on eBay there who provide great service and backup. These ones in Australia have no website, (sorry one has a website who is currently being sued for breach of copyright, no guesses what that is about) no phone number, no physical address or even a showroom. If you manage to track them down (as we have) we have found, a small sign shop, a garage back of nowhere, a guy working from his back shed and so on. They really do not like being actually tracked down.
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Since my last post I have managed to get ArtCut to communicate with the cutter – even if only for a few seconds before totally going off track.
I like the layout and operation of ArtCut but if I can not get it to speak to the fluently with the cutter then it is pointless continuing with it.
Jerry (Colorchromefirst) offered me help after talking to him found him to be quite genuine in his offer to help. In fact, I am downloading a copy of SignBlaster to trial as I speak. I find him honest, down to earth, and has a sincere interest in the well-being of this industry – someone I am willing to trust in guiding me as I make my way in what is to me an existing new arm of my business. -
hi we purchased a redsail plotter which i guess is more or less the same thing, we also got art cut which is a waste of time, we then purchased flexisign, design everything in flexisign and just import it into artcut or the software that came with your plotter, export them as AI files or HPGL files and you should find it a lot easier to use, we found flexisign a lot easier to use than anything we got free with the plotter, if you go onto ebay you can buy flexisign from a guy on there, we did 12 months ago and it works a treat, hope this gets you on your way.
cheers
jus -
I could do a lot of things if ArtCut would let me send it to the cutter.
Working in ArtCut is not a problem – it is sending the work to the cutter through ArtCut.
So purchasing Flexisign and sending it to ArtCut will still result in not being able to communicate with the cutter long enough to get the job done.Apparently I have a demo or dummy version of ArtCut and they don’t offer support or an opportunity to upgrade or update.
And who wants to work in software that you can not communicate with the supplier with anyway. -
Hello to all on the forum,
My name is Mike and I own a company called Katana Trading. I have an office in Cairns Australia and a small manufacturing facility in Guangzhou China. I am the OEM manufacturer of Katana Vinyl Cutters and Laser Machines.
An earlier poster said "The cutter is a really a Rabbit HX720 renamed a Katana" – This is not actually correct. I source the main machine parts from Jinan HX Computer company, that part is correct. The machines are then finished in my own factory and we change many things so that a Katana is most certainly NOT the same as the machine sold by HX as a "Rabbit".
There also seems to be a lot of talk about companies not being available for backup or service. I have noticed this with some sellers however I have always been available by email to my customers 7 days a week. I was even helping a new user set up on Christmas day! My website has been up for 4 years now so the comments about "dissapearing" and "no web site" certainly do not apply to Katana Trading.
I do not have a retail shop front in Australia – that is true. If I did the cost of running a shop would add at least $100 per machine to my sales price. I am in the budget end of the market, selling entry level machines to (mainly) hobby users of vinyl cutters. My machines sell for AU$699 (about US$599). They are very well built, very reliable and I carry all spare parts required for them in Australia.
It is true Artcut can be difficult to use. It is a basic program that I buy direct from Beijing Wentai (the writers) for AU$8 per copy. I include it free with a cutter as a starting point. I spent a great deal of time writing a very comprehensive document that explains most of the pitfalls using Artcut. I have to say that almost without exception, customers that contact me with an Artcut problem either have not read the instructions I supply or they have not followed them.
When used with other software packages Katana machines perform as well as all other entry level cutters. I have a Roland PC-60 and I must say I get better cutting results using Katana machines over the Roland that cost me AU$12,000. The Roland is also painfully SLOW!
I am always available to assist Katana customers. Cheers,
Mike
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……. My name is Mike and I own a company called Katana Trading. I have an office in …….
I am glad to see Mike from Katana join in the conversation.
The issue I had WAS with the Artcut and switching to Jerry’s Signblazer has meant I can output good without hassle.
When I purchased my Katana I knew I was buying at entry level and expected nothing more than that. For the work that I do now this machine suits me perfectly – I don’t need to buy anything with more bells and whistles.
Mike has really been honest and upfront with me which I appreciate. When we worked out that there was a problem with the circuit board Mike immediately freighted down a brand new one.
Both Mike (Katana) and Jerry (Signblazer) have gone out of their way to get me up and running. A credit to them both.
This is a far cry to when I purchased embroidery machines and virtually was forgotten about once the $70,000 was handed over.
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