Blades and Card Weight

Just as matter of interest, since so many people regularly ask about this:

As a rough guide, adjust your blade depth according to the thickness of your card, and adjust the force/pressure according to its weight. The thickness of the card determines what blade setting you use, and (basically) what the Robo can cut through: the thicker the card, the longer the blade needs to be. The weight of the card will affect what force/pressure is needed to cut through it: in general, the heavier the weight, the more effort will be needed to cut.

The same thickness card can be different weights, and the same weight card can be different thicknesses, depending on its structure, etc... One can be used as a guide to the other, but not necessarily always. You eventually get to be able to judge both thickness and weight by look and feel.

On a CR demo on Create & Craft, Ray (from Graphtec) did mention what weight card you can cut with each blade cap:

I believe these figures are correct, I was scrabbling for an pencil and at the same time getting very bad reception, but if not 100% accurate they should act as a rough guide.

If you go by card thickness, the figures generally recommended (in your manual!) are:

And for the sake of completeness, a basic (but incomplete) guide by media type, from experience and/or various sources:

You cannot cut materials such as chipboard.

The Pro has a different blade, which is adjusted for depth by turning a little blue knob on the top of the holder. There is also a second blade holder and blade (purchased as extras) for heavy duty cutting which has a red knob on top.

From experience, I've used as a rough guide (starting with blade retracted):

The Pro will cut chipboard if you use the red blade holder and heavy duty blade; there is a post by MaryAnne on the UK Scrappers forum regarding this.

Both machines will cut thin acetate, and the Pro (and I believe also the little Robo) will cut some brands/colours of shrink plastic (using two/three cuts), and Graphtec have confirmed that it is OK to cut this material.

I am open to correction, and if anyone else wants to add other commonly used media types please contact me, and I'll add them.

Help! My Robo Won't Cut

The most important thing you can do is get yourself used with the machine and how it works, as the main problems people have are usually caused by unfamiliarity with their Robo! Occasionally there are problems with the machine or blade, but they are relatively rare.

Use this checklist before you cut:

What Will My Robo Cut?

The Craft Robo will cut paper, light/medium weight card, vellum, acetate, peeoffs, vinyl, flock, flex, some shrink plastic. The Pro is able to cut thin chipboard with a heavy duty blade.

It may sometimes have difficulty cutting heavily textured (hammered or embossed) card, metallic or pearlised card which has a plastic coating. Some of these will cut better from the back, or will benefit from being cut twice at slightly lower pressures.

It is not designed to cut very thick/heavyweigt card, felt, fabric, metal or thick chipboard.

It is advised not to cut recycled paper or card, as this may be of an uneven texture or have hard "bits" which may cause damage to the blade if they're hit at high speed.

Print and Cut or Decoupage

If used in conjunction with your printer, your Craft Robo can cut decoupage and other images for you.

To be able to do this accurately the Robo needs to be able to align itself precisely: in order to do this, it uses its optical eye to read "Registration Marks". These are the L shaped marks in the corners of your Robomaster worksheet which are also printed out on to the paper with your design for the optical eye on the Robo to read to so it can position the blade accurately in relation to the image it will cut around.

When you set up a new document there is an option to use registration marks, you must select this when you want to print and cut.

First import your graphic image into the Robo and print it via the Robo to get the registration marks printed. You need to trace manually or automatically round the image so that the Robo has cut lines to follow. It can't see images - only cutlines.

To trace manually, use one of the drawing tools that are on the LHS of your work area; probably the best tool to use is the closed spline. Alternatively you can use the autotrace option. (Note: if you have the new model Craft Robo (CC200-20), you'll have a little green square on the RHS of your menu bar - this is your autotrace icon; if you have an old - blue lidded - Robo you may need to download and install the latest version of the software to obtain this. You may also need to download the Pro version of the software if it was not supplied with your machine.)

So:

  1. Set up your new document with registration marks selected
  2. Load in your image
  3. Send it to the printer (via Robmaster)
  4. Trace or autotrace your image
  5. Put printed card on to carrier and load into Robo
  6. Send it to cut

(You can if you prefer do step 4 before step 3 - it doesn't matter)

If it is a problem with the Robo not reading the registration marks, then try the following:

Print and cuts can sometimes be tricky and different people find different things help them get it right, but it really does help if you're comfortable with the workings of your machine and software before you attempt to do print and cuts.

What Is A Carrier Sheet And How Should I Use It?

The carrier sheet is plastic mat with a repositionable adhesive coating. It is used with media that don't have their own protective backing, such as paper, cardstock, vellum, etc. It's main purpose is to protect the blade by preventing it from cutting into the cutting mat or coming into contact with the metal surfaces of the machine. It also serves to hold your paper in place and prevents it from slipping and prevents any loose cut pieces from falling into the machine. It also

The carrier comes in two sizes, A4 for the small Robo and A3 for the Pro; the smaller carrier can be used in both machines. It comes supplied with a yellow protective covering; to use, remove this and replace it after use and return the carrier to its plastic bag: this helps preserve the sticky surface. On the A4 size there are also yellow side strips which should remain in place to prevent getting adhesive on the rollers. The A3 size does not have the side strips.

If cutting a full A4/A3 sheet this should be lined up with the edge of the adhesive coating - leave the thin transparent strip at the top of the sheet clear. When feeding the carrier sheet into the small Robo, line it up with the indented guide on the left side of the machine and feed it in up to the indented marks just behind the cutting strip.

Media with its own backing does not need to be used with the carrier sheet, but in somecases, e.g. with small pieces, it is sometimes useful to do so.

Care should be taken when cutting that the blade does not cut too deeply into the carrier sheet, as this can cause deep score marks or cut out small pieces of the adhesive backing; the uneven surface caused by this may eventually affect the quality of your cuts, particularly on thinner media.

Looking after your carrier sheet: after use replace the cover and put it back in its plastic bag as mentioned above. Scrape any small bits of card or paper off with a small piece of stiff but flexible plastic such as a credit or sim card to maintain a smooth surface. If it gets dirty or dusty, the carrier can be washed and scrubbed with a small brush (e.g. nailbrush) then left to "air dry". This can also help re-vitalise its sticky surface, but if it loses too much of its sticky, it can also be sprayed with a repositional aerosol adhesive.

Replacement carrier sheets can be purchased direct from Graphtec, the Crafty Club,(members only) or various other suppliers. Home made version can be created from various suitable items such as quilters plastic, laminating sheets, table mats, etc.

What Is An 'O' Ring/Stand-off Ring And When Should I Use One?

An 'O' ring or standoff ring is a small, flat plastic washer type disk which is threaded onto the Craft ROBO blade holder prior to mounting it into the blade housing on your machine. Its function is to compensate for pressure when using the carrier sheet. The rings are usually included in new carrier sheet packs, but replacements can also be cut from suitable card using a template.

The ring is only needed with the original (blue lidded) version of the Craft Robo: it is not used either with the Pro or the current CRII, which has been modified to work without one.

What Are The Little Coloured Caps For?

The blade for the small Craft Robo model comes in a black holder with a set of three coloured (blue, yellow and red) caps. The blade depth is preset, and is not adjustable as with standard cutters; the different colour blade caps are instead crewed onto the blade holder to act as depth adjustment guides for the blade. The blue cap is used for the shortest blade depth to cut thin media such as paper and vinyl, the yellow for medium blade depth (thicker paper and thin card), and the red cap for the greatest blade depth for heavier media. See also more detailed information under "Blades and Card Weight".

Replacement blade packs can be purchased direct from Graphtec, the Crafty Club,(members only), and various other suppliers.

What Are Registration Marks?

Registration marks are the alignment guides used in "print and cut" to ensure that the positions of the printed image and the cut line match. They are They can be selected or deselected when creating a new document worksheet, or at any time afterwards. They are L shapes positioned in the corners of the worksheet, and are output during the print stage of print and cut, and are scanned by the Robo's optical eye in order to position the cutting head accurately. The optical eye is only used for this purpose: it does not scan around the image at all!

There are fixed areas around each registration mark which will not be printed, but these areas can (and will) be cut, so care should be taken not to position any print and cut image within these off-limits areas.

The default number of registration marks is three, but the number, position and size can all be modified via the "Registration Mark Settings" in the Edit menu. This may be necessary if for example the printer margins prevent the registration marks from being printed correctly.

For normal cutting, the registration marks are not required, and should be turned off, as they can otherwise confuse your Robo, which will endeavour to search for them!

Craft Robo Pro: Upgrading to the Autotrace Version Software (v2.5)

Installing the new autotrace software can lose the drivers: you may find that you can get as far as the controller but then it may report that it's not in the ready status, or you may find that the Cut option icon greyed out.

So, before you upgrade check under File -> Preferences to see what your Cutter Plotter Model is and make a note of it; mine is Graphtec Craft Robo Pro S.

After the upgrade this may have been reset to Graphtec CE5000, and so the Robo is looking at the wrong driver. Resetting back to the Pro S got it working. If you don't know what your model version should be, try the Pro S; if that doesn't work try the other options until you find the one that does work for you!

Craft Robo Pro Blades and Accessories

The Craft ROBO Pro comes with a chamfered steel 0.9mm blade (CB09UA) as standard; it can be used for paper, acetate, vellum, thinner cardstock vinyl, flex and flock, and cuts up to 0.25mm thick. Please take care when inserting or removing this blade, not only is it very fine, but it has a fine spring attached which can be easily lost! This blade must be used with the holder with the blue adjustment screw knob.

An additional heavy duty 1.5mm blade (CB15U-K30) is also available; this needs to be used with holder (CB15N) which has a red adjustment knob. This blade will cut heavier card and thin chipboard.

For detailed information about the various blades, check the listing here: http://www.graphtecamerica.com/CPtechnotes/tnc013.html.

Both the standard pen holder and the larger bore pen holders will fit both the smaller model Craft Robo (CC200-20) and the Pro. This holder is not included with the Pro; instead it is supplied with a small black "plotter" pen.