For support services, please select from the following options.
1) Your question may already be answered. Click on the frequently asked questions link at the top for answers to frequently asked questions.
2) Click on the Live Help live chat button at the bottom right corner of the page. Our technicians will help you real time. Technicians are usually available 8AM – 5PM Monday – Friday, 6PM to 9PM Monday – Thursday, 10AM – 4 PM Saturday – Sunday.
3) Click on the Contact Us button at the top of the page and fill out the contact us form. A support technician will respond to your request for support
4) Email us at support@vinylcuttersupport.com and a technician will respond promptly.
5) For sales inquiries, please visit this page: StarCraft Vinyl
6) If a remote session is needed, please download and install 
here. You will get an id number and a passcode which our technicians will need to access your system.
Your StarCraft cutter, out of the box…
When you receive your cutter, open the box from the top being careful not to penetrate the box with a razor blade so as not to scratch the contents inside. The banding straps will need to be cut with a pair of scissors or a cutting tool.
Contained under one of the box flaps on the top there may be documentation. Please save all documentation that comes with your StarCraft cutter. Additional documentation may be contained in the box with the cutter or inside a smaller box packaged with the cutter.
Your StarCraft Cutter will contain your cutter along with a small box of supplies such as the blade holder, blades, USB cable, software, etc.
Your stand and your basket will be in a separate box in the bottom of the cutter box, underneath the cutter.
Information and tutorials on the StarCraft cutter software are available here:
Setup your cutter on the stand, install your basket.
Plug your cutter into your computer using the USB cable. If you need a longer cable you can purchase one. Any high quality standard USB-Printer cable will work.
Plug in the power cord for the cutter. Turn your cutter on with the power switch at the end of the cutter. The cutter will go through a short setup and the LCD will glow blue.
Your cutter will use default drivers included in Windows. These drivers will self-install. Your cutter is now communicating with your computer.
Your cutter is oriented such that as you look at the front, the blue LCD display is to the right.
Vinyl rolls are placed on the stand rails in the back (alternatively you may place a roller bar through the vinyl roll). Vinyl is then fed from the back to the front of the cutter and as the vinyl cuts, vinyl comes out towards you. In general, vinyl is used from the right side to the left side. Positive X and Y go from right to left and from front to back.
Getting the best performance…
Tracking is the ability of a StarCraft Cutter to be able to return to the correct point after cutting out a loop. It is easy for the cutter to track over short distances and small loops of a few inches or so however, if your loops become substantially large such as 10 feet or so you may need to adjust some things so your loops close and your StarCraft Cutter maintains its tracking.
Here are some parameters you will need to adjust when your loops exceed 10 feet or so.
1) Dirt and dust that get deposited on both the rubber wheels on the top rollers and on the grit rollers on the bottom will reduce the friction between the wheels and the vinyl. The cutter depends on a high friction factor between the roller wheels and the vinyl to maintain a good track. Usually, what happens is that when a long cut is made, the vinyl hits the floor. When it hits the floor it picks up substantial debris (lint, dust, etc) due to static charge. This debris deposits itself on the rollers and makes them slippery. In addition, prior to any long cutting, we recommend cleaning the top and bottom rollers. The top rollers can be cleaned with a cotton cloth with some ammonia based cleaner (such as glass cleaner). The bottom rollers can be cleaned with a dry tooth brush. Be careful not to deposit cloth fibers on the bottom roller.
2) In order to increase the friction force between the vinyl and the rollers we recommend increasing the force on the top rollers. This can be done with the adjustment nuts on the back of the rollers.
3) Another factor that decreases the tracking ability of a cutter is the speed which it is run at. When cutting at high speed, the rollers will depart more kinetic energy into the vinyl. When the cutter has to stop the vinyl from a high speed condition, some of that kinetic energy may result in slippage between the vinyl and the rollers. To reduce the vinyl inertia and reduce slippage between the roller wheels and the vinyl it is advisable to reduce the cutting speed. In general, cutting at slower speed will result in better tracking.
4) Roll out your vinyl in advance and use a sharp blade. By doing this, you can reduce the force against the roller bar and thus reduce any slippage that would occur due to these forces. By rolling out your vinyl you will also insure that your vinyl is adequately lined up to the cutter over the distance you expect to be cutting.
5) Grip is the ability of your cutter to bite into the release liner (or carrier material) repeatedly and track back along the bite marks accurately. Some material release liners such as rubber mask liner are very hard and give substantial resistance to the bite from your knurled rollers. To enhance the grip of your cutter to very hard release liners we recommend adding a layer of masking tape to the back portion of the vinyl to aid in grip for longer runs. Adding the masking tape to the hard release liners gives your cutter a softer material to bite into which substantially enhances the ability of the StarCraft cutter to track accurately. The tape should only be placed along the length in the region that will line up with the knurled rollers. You can use any type of masking tape such as blue painter’s tape.
For best results cutting vinyl, please follow these guidelines:
1) Make sure the cutter is cutting the vinyl side of the material. One side is shiny and slippery, one side is dull and papery. Always cut the vinyl side up. The dull papery side is the release liner for vinyl. For heat transfer material, the release liner is usually clear. Make sure the clear release liner is down and the material side is up.
2) Make sure the blade holder is properly seated in the carriage. Tighten the thumb screw with low force to secure it in the cavity.
3) Make sure the blade extends from the blade holder almost 1/16″ = .0625″. This is to ensure that we have enough blade height available to cut through the material while not hitting the shroud of the blade holder. The material is usually thin. The blade tip should not be touching the material when the cutter isn’t in the down position cutting. If the blade tip is scratching the material when traveling over it then it is extended a little too far.
4) Use the appropriate blade. A 45° blade is used for general sign vinyl and heat transfer material. A 60° blade is used for thicker or difficult to cut materials. A 30° blade is used for delicate materials.
5) Use the appropriate force of approximately 60g for a servo or 80g for a stepper (some adjustment from here may be needed for optimization) and a high speed of about 600 mm/s. Lower speed for more difficult to cut materials.
6) Using too much force will cause the blade to jam in the release liner and not slide. We need just the right amount of force. The ideal force is the force needed to fully cut through the material layer and just barely nick into the release liner. The best force would be the force closest to the minimums as possible.
7) Use roller positions 1, 3 and 4 (skip the second roller position which is about 3″ from roller position 1) and center the material over those three rollers best you can. The spool of material will be right against the roller bearing on the right side of the stand roller so it won’t be perfectly centered, it will be to the left of center just a little.
8) Use minimal roller pressure. The rollers may leave a slight impression on the material which is normal. Lighter pressure will reduce this. It is also important that the roller pressure be uniform. To achieve uniform pressure, either start at full pressure and release the same amount of pressure from each roller by rotating the thumb screws the same amount or start from minimum pressure and add the same pressure on each roller by rotating the thumb screw the same amount. Uneven roller pressure can cause your material to not track correctly causing text and graphics to move out of alignment.
9) When the material is not being cut do not leave the rollers in the down position. When you are not cutting and leave the cutter for a duration of 15 minutes or so make sure to lift the rollers. This is due to the tendency of the rubber material to compresses and take a set under the roller pressure causing an impression in the vinyl.
10) If your vinyl material unwinds from the roller by itself contact support on this page to obtain friction bands for your roller bar.
11) Manually roll out enough material to cover the distance in your run. This will reduce force against the drive rollers and improve the tracking of your cutter.
Software Support
In order to migrate your software license from one computer to another, your software code must be deactivated on the existing computer. In the event of a hard drive failure or inability to access the host computer, you will need to file a software release request.
Please visit this web page to request a software release: Software Release Request