Setting up your software and drivers

Silhouette Studio

The first thing to note with Silhouette Studio is that it has its own built in driver so does not need to have any additional drivers installed for it to work - you can simply install the software, plug in the machine and start cutting.

However, there is one reason why you might want to install the driver and that is to stop Windows nagging that it doesn’t have a driver installed for the device. If you have Windows 7 then this won’t be an issue because it will only show a message about the driver when you first plug the machine in. But if you have Windows XP then it can nag you about the driver every time you switch the machine on so you will probably want to install the driver to stop this happening – if so then please see the driver install info below.

Robomaster

When using Robomaster you must have the Windows driver installed correctly to be able to cut. If the driver is not installed OR the wrong model is selected in the preferences (File menu > Preferences > Cutter Plotter Model) then the Cut icon will be ‘greyed out’ and you will not be able to press it. To resolve this issue the driver must be installed.


How do I know if the driver is installed or not?

The easy way to tell if the driver is installed for your machine is by plugging it in, switching it on and then going to the Windows control panel > Devices & Printers (this will be called Printers & Faxes in Windows XP) and looking for a icon for your machine. If you see an icon for your machine (i.e. Silhouette Cameo, Graphtec CC330, Graphtec CraftROBO etc) then the driver is installed. If you do not see in icon then the driver is not installed.


Installing the driver before connecting

The easiest way to install the driver is to make sure you run the driver installer BEFORE you plug your cutter in for the very first time – this will ensure that Windows has the files needed so it can install the driver as soon as the cutter is plugged in. But that is a little late if you have already plugged the machine in before installing the driver, which is exactly what a few users tend to do, so in this instance you may need to manually install the driver as described below.



Installing the driver after connecting

If Windows could not find a driver at the time that the cutter was plugged in it will normally put the device in to a section marked as ‘Other devices’ – this is where Windows stores any devices that are unknown to it and that it doesn’t have a driver for. This normally happens if the USB lead is connected before installing the correct driver.

To install the driver, first of all make sure you download and install the correct driver for your cutter model from the links at the bottom of the page. Once this is done make sure the CraftROBO/Silhouette is plugged in and switched on and then go to the Windows start menu, right click on Computer and choose Properties. Once the system info window appears, choose device manager from the top left corner.

Once you have device manager open look down the list for a section marked 'other devices' and press the [>] next to it and you should see your Graphtec machine. Select the machine, right click and select 'update driver software'. When the Update driver window appears, choose ‘Search Automatically for updated driver software’ and Windows should associate the driver for you.


Driver links

You can download the latest drivers (at the time of writing) from the following links:

CraftROBO CC100/CC200/CC300/CC330 & Silhouette SD
and
Silhouette Cameo http://downloads.graphtecgb.com/support/


As always if you have any question or problems you can always contact me at BrianP _AT_ graphtecgb.co.uk (replace _AT_ with @) or via the Contact us form at www.graphtecgb.co.uk