Alright I have cut thousands of sheets of proofgrade materials since the PRU days and have some feedback on the eco-iron on material. When it works it is amazing, but the whole point of proofgrade is bulletproof cut settings and the eco iron-on isn’t quite there:
So I am on a basic (1st gen of course).
Cut Settings:
It is confusing that only score is available but if the only setting that works is score, why are the other settings in the UI. That being said score succeeded on many letters (specifically lowercase “e”s cut through the backing.
Proofgrade Problem
The biggest problem I ran into is the actual proofgrade sticker (the QR code) if your design goes over it, interfered with my ability to use that part of the sheet (I had a very full sheet of logos and the ones that intersected the sticker are useless since you can’t separate the sticker and the material). There has to be a way to make the sticker not interact with the material??? @dan that is not a hopper item, that’s a big chunk of wasted material! On normal PG materials, you can just cut through the PF sticker (like draftboard, etc) without a problem so I didn’t think twice about my design going over it…
All that being said the T-shirts came out awesome!
The stickers are stupid and I’ve stated that many times. I turn PG materials upside down, there’s no need for them - but someone pointed out that things like the adhesive-backed veneers only work one way up.
They could so easily be removable but I am pretty sure that’s not something they want to do because mainstream stores would have issues with theft. How much revenue really comes from those stores? All the Joanns have closed here. Michaels never carried it in-store.
The biggest surprise for proofgrade material, unlike say PG ply or PG draftboard, where I understand cut settings are a little variable and you often know how to tweak them after all this time, with this stuff you kind of depend on their expertise (and experimenting is hard given the highly special nature of the material). So on lowercase C and E the arc on the lower side tended to cut through the plasticsheet backing*. That makes it extremely hard to peel off. It is highly repeatable and happened on multiple sheets.
* and when the wife isn’t happy nobody is happy! She was ready to get on a plane and fly to @dan ‘s house and make him peel the letters that cut out off the shirts!
I have a feeling the settings were very dialed in for Aura/Spark with Pros being a bit of an afterthought. The material is suprr sensitive to power fluctuations on the bigger machines.
Sorry didn’t have a bannana but everyone knows the size of a USB-C connector. The detail from this iron on material is impressive (weeding that was awful) but the super thin lines on the VCA logo is impressive
Turned out nice in spite of issues. I have used it a few times and had it cut through at times as well. As you said, it’s hard to weed and get placed correctly when this happens. @dan is there an intent to create some nonironable “vinyl”? That would be great.
