can anyone tell me what is offest and what does it do please

[Kevin Flowers]

Paul
you should not have to play around with your offset as each blades as a designated offset below is an explanation from Harry at Edward Mathias. Hope it helps.

CUTTER OFFSET COMPENSATION

If you don’t want to understand it.
Just read what it says on the blade packet and set your plotter accordingly.

If you set it correctly your plotter will cut sharp corners with straight lines in and out.
If you set it too low your plotter will cut rounded corners.
If you set it too high your plotter will cut artificial triangular serifs on corners.

If you wish to understand it read on.
To understand cutter offset it is necessary to know what it does and why it exists.
To understand that you need to know how a drag cutter works.
To understand that it is best to know how a tangential cutter would work [if you had one].

True tangential cutters [as opposed to drag or “tangential emulating” cutters] are more complicated, more accurate and more expensive because they have the mechanisms and firmware to drive the blade and to ensure it is pointed in the right direction at all times.
When cutting a square tangential cutters would cut to a corner, stop, lift the blade, rotate it to point in the direction of the next cut and then lower the blade back into the material.
[Much the same as you would do when cutting with a scalpel]
When cutting a curve the blade would be rotated to keep it at a tangent to the curve.
[The derivation of the description “tangential” cutter]
Cutter offset does not apply to tangential cutters because the blade cuts “on centre”.

Drag cutters are less expensive to manufacture because they are simpler in their design and have fewer moving parts, but they have no means of rotating the blade when it is out of the media, and rather as a windsock depends on wind resistance to drag it downwind of the pole
[Its centre of rotation] a drag cutter depends on the cutting resistance of the media to ensure that the cutting part of the blade [which is offset from its centre of rotation] is dragged behind centre and therefore pointed in the right direction.
[A good example of this action is the castors on a chair which are offset from their centre of rotation and will change direction to “trail” behind as you move the chair around the floor]
Without offset a drag blade would have no reason to rotate and would rip media by attempting to cut sideways, backwards or in any other random direction.

But offset causes a problem at corners [Unless “compensated”]
When the blade comes to a corner the centre of rotation gets there first, and, unless there is some means of causing it do so, [compensation] the cutting part of the blade would never reach the corner, it would simply take the lazy route across the corner and leave a radius instead of a sharp corner. [Just as the rear wheels of your car will mount the kerb at corners if you do not compensate for the distance by which they trail behind the front wheels]
Drivers execute an offset compensating manoeuvre every time they turn a corner.
But think about what would happen if they did not know the length of their vehicles!

The moral of the tale.
If you don’t know the length of your car you are likely to make a mess of turning corners.
Your plotter will do the same if you fail to set it correctly.
When you set the cutter offset on your plotter you are giving it the information it needs to manoeuvre correctly every time it reaches a corner.

© Copyright, Edward Mathias & Co.

[David McDonald]

Try this post

https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … highlight=

Cheers

[Stephen Morriss]

Just to add to this.
The compensation is used to drive the centre of the blade past the corner so that the blade tip reaches the corner, then the blade centre will rotate around the blade tip (radius being the offset) until it is all inline for the next cut. This actually requires quite a complicated move but it’s usually too small to see.
Remember that the blades work like a shopping trolley wheel.

Steve

[Gert du Preez]

So, can I DELIBERATELY set the offset to a lower than recommended figure in order to radius the sharp corners on letters? I currently go through a rather long process to do this. (I prefer having radiused corners on lettering that goes onto vehicles, for example, since it does not catch as easily on a cloth if you wash the car.) I will give it a go tomorrow!

[Rodney Gold]

Corel x3 has fillet/chamfer tools for that. You will start having problems with other shapes if you use offset for general radiusing of corners..it wont work properly.