Labeling blank HP 41 overlays

[mfleming]

(02-20-2022 10:35 AM)MeindertKuipers Wrote:  I would be interested in the exact process to generate overlays with a cutting machine. I have been considering to buy one, but wasn't sure if it would really work. Ideally I would like to print it on my inkjet printer and cut out the keys and shape. Is the cutting exact on the printed image?

I did this some years back, first with a Cricut cutter and later with a Brother scan & cut. In the end, neither cutter was satisfactory. The Cricut suffered from a fair amount of cumulative positioning error that made it impossible to cut more than one overlay at a time. For the Cricut you upload your image to their web tool and draw the cut lines on the image (you are locked into their proprietary web site as they sued a company that tried marketing a standalone design program). The cut directions are then downloaded to the machine. With printed cardstock carefully aligned to the carrier base, the cutter would optically align to the base home position, then follow the cut directions as a offset from home. You can do multiple overlay cuts from the same saved cut directions, but the process is laborious and subject to inaccuracies, hardly an improvement over cutting by hand.

The Brother cutter seemed an improvement as it would scan the image you placed on the carrier base and load the image into a standalone program where you could define the cut lines. The program proved to be frustrating to use and difficult to get cut directions right.

I'd love to see what a true CAD/CAM device could do, but I suspect that only a machined stamping cutter could provide an accurate overlay like an HP original.

~Mark