Picture this: It’s a dark night and the wind is shrieking. You’re driving on a deserted road when you hear the familiar thump of a flat tire. You pull over, tires kicking up the gravel. There’s a faint light in the distance and you walk toward it, cracking dry leaves and branches underfoot. You come upon a ramshackle house set back in a cluster of trees. A wolf howls and you jump. Steeling yourself, you open the gate on the fence. CRRREEEAAAKKKK. Despite the frightening noises you proceed gingerly to the door, thinking to yourself the whole time how this is like every scary movie you’ve ever seen. You knock on the door and even the wood sounds dull and lifeless. Ever so slowly the door opens, revealing….
Okay, that’s enough! Just like all those noises, there are sounds your machine makes that can terrify you. It may sound like your machine is dying, but don’t worry — the Cut Doctor is here to save your sanity and breathe life back into your cuts.
In general, the machine makes noises when a part is not moving as it’s supposed to. You’ve got several moving parts — the motor box goes left and right, the blade goes up and down, the roller bar goes in and out. When one of those gets stuck, the others keep moving. That’s when you hear a noise that indicates something’s wrong. Let’s look at those more in-depth. (To start with Lesson 1 in this series, go here).
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Symptom: Chattering or Stuttering Noises
Diagnosis #1: Blade getting caught in mat
Chattering, stuttering, jackhammering, woodpeckering — this is one of the most common noises you’ll hear. It’s also one of the easiest to solve, because it’s almost always due to wrong cut settings. If you have your blade number set too high, or the force is too strong, the blade goes too deep and gets stuck in the mat temporarily. The motor box is trying to move but it can’t. But since the roller bars aren’t having a problem, they keep moving. That’s when you get the noise.
Eventually, the blade breaks free and continues the cut. But since it wasn’t moving while the rollers bars were, the cut is ruined. Even if the job finishes, the starting and ending points won’t meet up.
Prescription: Lower your settings for blade number, force and/or speed (in that order). Turn on Line Segment Overcut so the blade doesn’t get caught at a sharp turn on the design.
Diagnosis #2: Material catching when bypassing mat
For some reason, I find this to be a problem quite a bit on my Cameo 2 more than my other machines. Often materials that you cut without the mat are stored rolled. When you load them into your machine, the top edge of the material is usually curving downward. As you load the material into the machine, it’s very easy for that curled edge to catch in the groove in front of the roller bar.
It’s also common for it to fold over, particularly in the middle.
With either of these, the roller bar can’t spin freely, so you get the chattering noise as it tries.
Prescription: Use the “riding on cardstock” method for loading materials without the mat. Store vinyl rolled loosely, not tightly. Counter-roll materials to flatten them out (relax the curl) before loading. Or unroll and allow to relax overnight before loading.
Another place a material curling downward gets caught is in the crosscutter groove on the back.
Prescription: Cover the groove with painter’s tape.
Diagnosis #3: Material catching on silver roller, flat bars or motor box band
I’ll bet you’ve figured it out by now that the stuttering noises happen when something goes where it’s not supposed to. If you’re cutting without the mat and the material is curling upward, it may catch on the flat bar silver bar…
…the motor box band…
…or the silver roller bar that’s between them.
That means the rollers can’t move correctly and tell you that by making noises.
Prescription: Store vinyl and HTV rolled with cutting side on the outside, since curling downward is easier to troubleshoot. Counter-roll materials to flatten them out (relax the curl) before loading. Or unroll and allow to relax overnight before loading. After loading, roll the material through so that it’s beyond all the mechanisms.
Diagnosis #4: Mat not holding material
When I was a Customer Service Rep for Silhouette America, I spoke with a guy who was having problems cutting cardstock. Not only was he getting the jackhammer noises, his starting and ending points were not matching up at all. Even after we took the blade and force all the way down to 1, it kept happening. I then started asking about the condition on his mat. “Oh,” he said, “I need to use the mat?” For paper, yes, dear. LOL! His pieces, once cut from the material, were floating loose in the machine, getting caught in the mechanisms. And, of course, his cutting strip was torn to pieces.
The new Cameo 4 does allow you to cut paper without a mat. It’s called Pop Out cutting.
The purpose of the mat is to hold the material in place while the machine cuts, hold the cut pieces after they’ve been separated from the material and provide resistance against the blade. If the mat is NOT holding things down, those things are running wild and loose. If the whole page slides around, you usually just get a messed up piece of material. But if an edge that’s not sticking catches the mechanism and folds over, it can keep the rollers from moving correctly.
Another big issue is when a piece that’s already been fully cut lifts off the mat. It can also catch on the mechanisms. If it comes off the mat completely and starts roaming around, it will get somewhere it’s not supposed to be and impede the normal movement.
Say it with me now: if the mechanisms can’t move as they should, you get the chattering noises.
Prescription: Use painters tape or washi tape to hold down the material’s edges (temporary measure only). Clean, re-sticky or replace the mat.
Diagnosis #5: Material is too thick for machine
Silhouette machines can cut up to 1mm with a regular blade, 2mm with a deep cut blade (only on the Cameo 3 and 4, Curio and Portrait 2). If you try to cut a material that’s thicker than that, you’re going to run into trouble. The material can’t go under the roller bar correctly. The machine tries to keep rotating the roller bar, but the material is impeding it. So you get a noise that could be the chattering, or could be the grinding (see our next symptom).
Prescription: Only cut material that is the correct thickness for your machine.
Diagnosis #6: Curio base snaps not closed
I’m not sure exactly how to describe this noise, because it depends on how high the snap lifts and what it catches — the motor box, the tool, the roller bar or the black serrated band. The higher it lifts, the worse the problem. It can go from a simple clicking noise as the clip passes under the bar, all the way up to a grinding or chattering noise if it impedes the motor or roller movement. This one is pretty tricky because those snaps are hard to lock down fully, especially since you frequently cut with all the platforms.
Prescription: Ensure snaps are all locked before loading the platform. When snaps no longer close fully, replace them (find those here).
Diagnosis #7: Packing tape or foam not removed
When you first get your machine, you’re pretty excited to dive in and get started making beautiful things. So you may miss a piece of packing tape or foam when you’re getting it out of the box. You’ll usually hear it right when you turn on the machine. When the machine is powered on, the first thing it does is try to move the motor box a little to the left and right. If there’s piece of foam on the left or the blue packing tape isn’t removed, it can’t go left and it will tell you by making a noise.
Prescription: Look inside the machine all around, paying particular attention to the motor box and around the ends of the roller bar the motor box runs on.
Symptom: Grinding Noises
Diagnosis #1: Motor off track
If your machine takes a big bump like falling on the floor, or is jolted around when you’ve packed it and moved houses, or when it’s first shipped to you, the motor can get off track. It’s a very scary noise but it’s super simple to fix.
Prescription: Turn off your machine. Move the motor box all the way left and right a few times. Turn the machine back on. The motor box should move back to the left and the noises should be gone. You can test it by pretending to load a mat, taking the blade out and sending a simple shape to cut. That tells you if the machine was the problem rather than anything else.
Diagnosis #2: Material is too thick for machine
I mentioned above that the sound you hear could be either a chattering or a grinding. So I’m listing it here as well.
Prescription: Only cut material that is the correct thickness for your machine.
Diagnosis #3: Packing tape or foam not removed
Yep — just as with a chattering/stuttering noise, you may hear a grinding noise if you’ve missed removing some of the packing tape or foam.
Prescription: Look inside the machine all around, paying particular attention to the motor box and around the ends of the roller bar the motor box runs on.
Diagnosis #4: Roller bar needs lubrication
This can happen when you’ve been using your machine non-stop all day and it gets tired, just as any mechanical device would. The best thing to do is take a little break — for your own sake as well as the machine’s. But seriously, every once in a while you may need to lubricate that bar that the motor runs along.
Prescription: Turn your machine off and move the motor box to the middle of the bar. Tuck a paper towel under the bar to catch any drips. Add just a couple of drops of a household oil (something like 3-in-1 or sewing machine oil) on each side of the bar. Move the motor box all the way left and right a few times to dispense it along the bar. Let sit for 10-30 minutes before continuing to cut.
Symptom: Clacking Noises
Diagnosis: Blade not loaded correctly
When your blade isn’t loaded correctly the blade holder and the lock are loose and rattly. That means it’s going to make more noise as it goes up and down, particularly when it passes over the rubber, plastic or spring rollers. A clacking noise is a sure sign that you need to check your blade. Yep — I’ve sent a whole job to cut and didn’t notice until the very end that I never loaded a blade. Surprisingly enough, those cuts are never good. LOL!
Prescription: Make sure a to load the blade or tool, ensure it’s all the way down and lock it in fully.
Up Next
That’s all the noises you should hear at any given time coming from your machine. If you hear anything else and can’t solve it, contact Silhouette’ Customer Support. And, no, the Cut Doctor can’t do anything about your cracking knees. 🙂 But if you’ll come back in for another appointment, I will teach you about problems that can happen with the material during a cut.
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