Tuesday, December 5, 2023 6:39:59 PM

Our solution to printing full size patterns

8 months ago
#613 Quote
Hi folks, we arrived back with Patternmaster after a spell with a competitor software that ran on Mac. This was not a successful experience so we made the decision to buy a refurbished Windows 10 laptop (£250) purely to run Patternmaster.  

The second decision was to buy a budget vinyl cutter to use as a pen plotter to print the patterns on 24" wide paper roll. The one we picked was the Pixmax 720 which was £250 bundled with a years subscription to SignCut pro2. Although this is sold as a vinyl cutter, it has a Biro refill holder so it also functions as a pen plotter. FYI we run the cutter at 200mm/sec, 160g pressure.


50m rolls of paper are around £12 if bought as a bundle of 4

A summary of the process is as follows:
1. In Patternmaster, output a multi-page pdf via CutePDF. We arrange the pieces on custom pages 24" x 72".
2. Each page is opened in Inkscape (a free open source vector drawing/editing program) and edited to remove unwanted elements and convert all Objects to Paths. Pages are saved as .svg files.
3. Each page is opened in SignCut and output to the Pixmax

OK, so we spent £500 but we have a system where we can use Patternmaster and quickly print our patterns full size. If anyone is interested I can post a more detailed workflow.
8 months ago
#614 Quote
I would be interested in more detailed view.  I too am thinking of starting to use PMB again after a few years away from it.  I was interested in "Projector Sewing" but I don't see a way to use PMB like that.  So to avoid taping so many sheets, I'd love this option.  
7 months ago
#616 Quote
Hi Mary,

As I can't upload the "Howto" PDF here, I have uploaded it to Google Drive.  Here's the link - copy it into your browser and you should be able to Print or Download it.  Any problems or queries let me know and I'll try and help.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kJl1ZMXabUQMMi3Kp8I-32UliIeVX075/view?usp=share_link

Regards, Stuart