Important Message From Craftwell to eCraft Owners

I picked this up from the eCraft_Crafter's Yahoo Goup.  Sara and Paul are straight shooters in a tough situation.  It was going to be tough enough to launch a new software product.  But, adding the complexity of drivers for various flavors of Windows and then to lose power just puts that task right over the top.  So, I'm certainly willing to give them some slack.

Hi All,

First, I want to thank everyone who has purchased an eCraft. We really appreciate your business and are working hard to provide the best customer service possible.

For a reason I am not aware of (the hurricane hasn't even hit yet and our weather is beautiful) our NY office lost phone and internet connection for 3 hours yesterday afternoon, and power is completely out today. Our entire staff is working from home and no one is at their desks to take support calls. As you can image, A LOT of emails have been coming in with questions and concerns, and please understand that we are doing our best to respond to everyone in a timely matter.

We are in the process of training an entire staff of customer service reps, but until that transition takes place, there are VERY FEW employees who are responding to your inquiries, so it might take more than the 1 or 2 hour turnaround time everyone is used to with us. I apologize for the inconvenience and your patience is GREATLY appreciated.

A side note: As with any new technology company, our first launch of the software is not perfect (as you are all aware), and there will be numerous updates and upgrades along the way before we get to a version that (almost) everyone is happy with. We are aware of the issues that have been pointed out by the first users, and our development team is working as we speak to fix these known issues. We hope everyone can be patient and optimistic during these next few weeks as we work hard to deliver an exceptional product.

Thank you for understanding.

Best,

Sara Wilenkin
Marketing Coordinator
Craftwell

Software Introduction at Purple Paper Paradise

The software arrived at a tough time for me.  For the past year, we have been dealing with defending my wife's elderly parents from a sibling that seems not to be content to wait for an inheritance to get her hands on their assets.  Hopefully, we are nearing the end of this ordeal.  But, we have 3 hearings from today until Tuesday.  And, that is enormously time consuming and mentally exhausting.

Fortunately, others are doing a great job of analyzing the new software and creating videos for you to see.

So, hop over the Purple Paper Paradise and watch the videos.

I will try to put some together over the weekend.  A Denise has found, this software is a start.  But, it has a long way to go before we can praise it without reservations.  So, we will follow two tracks.  The first track is to help you use what IS there.  And, the second track we will use to try to help Craftwell come up with an orderly list of developmental priorities so that the most critical broken or missing items get the highest priority.

There is one thing, in particular, that I would like to find out from those of you that have the software and try to import SVG files.  The behavior I am going to describe is intermittent.  But, I think it may be a driver problem.  Sometimes when I attempt to import a simple SVG created in Inkscape, the cutter starts on the shape and then slows to a miniscule crawl, never completing the cut.  At other times, with other shapes, it cuts just fine.  I'd appreciate hearing from you about your own experiences in this regard.

There Aren't Many Times When I'm Speechless

But, this is one of them.

Through more trials then one should have to go through to load a new piece of software I have eCraftShop Pro up and running.

I said, well before the release, that we were going to have to be patient with this first version.  And, that was accurate.  I have many observations.  But, I don't want to make them immediately after the frustrations of trying to get the software up and running.

So, I will refrain for now, providing any critique of the program itself.

But, I will make some suggestions for Craftwell and for those of you that have not, as yet, downloaded the program.

.RAR File Format

Advice to Craftwell:  PLEASE replace the .RAR file with the more common .ZIP file format.  It will save you countless support calls.  Since XP, the Windows platform KNOWS about ZIP files natively.  It does not have a clue what a .RAR file is.  Save the .RAR file format for the Mac version.

Advice to Owners:  Find WinRAR and install it BEFORE you try to  download eCraftShop Pro.  It will save you a ton of grief.

Drivers

Advice to Owners: Do NOT start eCraftShop Pro before plugging in your eCraft machine and turning it on.  Windows7 (64-bit) owners may find that they have to 'fix' the drivers.  Follow Windows advice and let it find and install the latest drivers.

If you go into eCraftShop Pro and it will not cut, then the COM port is not configured correctly.

Installation on 2 Machines

Notice to Craftwell: I was having trouble, at first, getting the device driver to install correctly on a Win7 (64-bit) machine.  So, knowing that my license allowed for 2 installs, I tried to load it on an XP machine.  When I tried to use the same Key I'd received it told me that it had been used.  OK, I'll go get a second activation.  OOOPS!  No I won't!  It told me that I'd already gotten an activation key.

So, the second install was impossible.

Fortunately, I was finally able to get the drivers on the Win7 machine to load.

The software is up and running and I made a single cut before coming up here to alert everyone to the pitfalls I found while installing.

Everything else will have to wait until tomorrow when I have some more time to reflect on priorities in the review process.

The eCraftShop Pro User Manual is now online

The manual for eCraftShop Pro can now be downloaded from Craftwell's web site.

Or, you can simply click on this LINK TO THE ECRAFTSHOP PRO MANUAL

We're getting closer!!!

This is going to be good news for those that have not purchased an eCraft as yet.  Now, you can explore the features of eCraftShop Pro via the user manual itself.

From the looks of it, the software is very, very basic.  From the manual it is impossible to see how intricately one can manipulate a path.  Hopefully, this is simply an overview of the control structures.  I'm certain it is not meant to be a comprehensive 'hot to' document.

eCraftShop Pro Email will be sent around noon September 1

It was just posted on eCraft's Facebook Page that the emails with instructions as to how to download and install the software would go out around noon today.  I assume they mean Eastern Time, since they are located in New York.

This means any review from here will have to wait until this evening.

You may want to check in on the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo group during the day to see if anyone posts something earlier.  Kim Bush, of Cutter's Creek, has created a VERY active eCraft group and the members include some very astute reviewers.  You can bet that that's where I'll be checking all day.

Deleting a Shape through the Console Interface.

In the short time that we've had our eCraft machines we've been able to cover a LOT of topics.  All of these articles, up to now, have been limited to things we can do through the console of the machine.

In one more day, we will be able to turn our attention to the eCraftShop Pro software.  But, I don't want to go there without covering one more very important console topic.  And, that is the subject of DELETING a shape.

Most of the actions that we do from the console are pretty straightforward and relatively intuitive.  But, if there is a function that defies all logic, it is that of deleting an unwanted shape from the cutting queue.  It sounds simple enough, "Set Multicut to Zero."  Yep!  That'll do it alright!  IF you can find out how to make it go to zero!!!

Here is a video that demonstrates this er... unique... and uh... original process.



Easy, eh? 

But, you have to ask yourself this question, "Why can't I select a multicut of zero ANY TIME?"

Beats me?  But, hey... like I said... we didn't design it, we just have to find a way to use it.  And, we did.  And, it works.  Isn't that what really counts?

Now... on to a new month with our eCrafts and on to the software!

American Crafts Gold Glitter - Blade Cover Effects

A potential eCraft buyer and her dealer had tried American Crafts Glitter paper with no success.  As luck would have it, I happened to have a sheet to test.

As I pulled out the sheet it was immediately apparent that at some point I'd tried to cut the infamous 3" tree in it and had not been able to cut clear through the material.  But, it was probably when I had taken the machine up to my granddaughters and I KNEW we had gotten glitter to cut.  So, this find was puzzling.

Then it dawned on me.  The actual pressure of the blade seems to be dependent on whether or not the blade cover is on.  I've cut enough now to bet that I'd first tried cutting the paper with the blade cover on.  So, this time I would run a little test.

I would first try a cut with the blade cover in place and see what happened.  If it failed to cut this heavy paper in one pass with the blade cover on, I would attempt a new cut after taking the blade cover off.

Here is the result:



As you can see, the blade cover DOES seem to affect the ACTUAL PRESSURE of the blade on the material.  That's puzzling, I know, since the cover had a hole in it that should have no effect on the blade.  But, for some reason it does.

So, if you are having problems getting a cut at the highest Pressure Level (8) then try again with the blade cover removed.

Here are two hearts cut with the blade cap off.  Pressure 8, Multicut 1, Size 3, No tabs.

Click for larger images

As you can see, these are nice clean cuts.  But, the person that alerted me to the issue of not being able to cut the AC Glitter also sent me some photos that demonstrated very clearly that they did have real problems with the blade cover on even with multicut set to high numbers.  There is always the possibility that the differences we see have to do with different machines.  But, I didn't even try to test how many passes it would take to cut this with the blade cap on.  I suspect mine would have looked exactly like hers had I not immediately removed the blade cap.  Perhaps she can test it without the cap and let us know how the machine she was testing performs.