which plotter/cutter?

Hi all, i'm looking at buying a vinyl cutter, but as i have not had one before i am unsure as to what sort and size to get. I've been checking out ebay(new not second hand) and there are a lot out there.
I'm looking at creation kingcut , rabbit / creation pcut / prorefine / artcut.
Does anyone know which would be favourable out of these brands? I will be using it primarily for stencils for airbrushing, but also for decals, etc. not sure which size to go for, any help appreciated
DAve

[GPStang06]

Hey Sabre,

I am personally not informed on the different brands however when I was around a sign company in the past and to this day, he is using Roland cutters. I myself picked up a pre-owned 8" Roland Stika for $100 and it is doing the job for what I need.

The issues I had with it was it was old enough that it connects to a PV via a parrell port which is pretty much non exisant on a PC these days and me being an I.T. guy, my PC's are all less then 2 years old. No issue though as I picked up a USB adapter to make it work. The other issue was I had to hook it up to a PC with Windows XP as it does not work with Vista due to it's age. If you buy new, you won't have to worry about this stuff.

For you, size is the main thing you want to figure out. Bigger is better in this case but can be overkill. The 8" I have is fine as I figured I would not need anything bigger but now I can see I may down the road at which time I will look for something larger then the Stika.

[cdv]

Sabre, I'm using a 24" Refine from US Cutter. Went that way so I'd have the size IF I needed it and normally I don't. I run XP on my PC and the Refine works well with that. The cutter program that came with the cutter didn't work well with me... it could have just been me but I ended up buying a different cutter program and all is well. When I occasionally have a conflict with files, I can always try the other cut program and 99% of the time I'm ok, if not, I just go into Illustrator and redo the file and then I'm good to go.
Originally when I bought, I wanted a Roland but since I wasn't sure how or if I'd keep doing this, I didn't want the added expense. Rolands are great machines but can get really pricey as you go up in models and sizes.
PM me if you want more info.
Cliff

[don johnson]

Roland Stika for me is the way to go

I have NO plans on doing cars or trucks so a 15 inch cutter works fine

With cut studio which comes with Roland I've found no image, graphic I can't cut just using cut studio. Including images I've drawn and scanned, jpg's from the web.

I have Illustrator CS 3 with live trace but have never had to use it for anything I've cut, cut studio rocks in my book.

I rather spend my time with a airbrush than in illustrator/photoshop and cut studio gives me the that freedom.

[Sabreghost]

thnx for the info guys, it's what i am needing at the moment. not too many places around here to get this sort of thing, so i'm relying on what i find on the net. i will be using it for cars and bikes, so i think a roland that size is a bit out of my price range, although i haven't found one yet to compare
thnx guys..

[mark f]

hello everyone im new to the fourm
i too am looking at different plotters do all of them work with macs im tired of pc
me and my wife are opening up a bike shop so im not looking for size looking more for quality

[Sabreghost]

Hey Mark, i still use a pc, i ended up getting a cutter from an ebay store, new not second hand, it's a refine, takes 600mm wide rolls, plenty big enough for what i want, it works great, only had it a couple of months and it's saved me a heap of time. got it for $600 with a 10 meter roll of vinyl, cheap stuff but it works fine for making stencils, etc. i downloaded inkscape, a free vector program, to vectorize mi images, and then use the program that came with it, artcut, to cut it out. very easy to do, easy setup, and touch wood no issues with the cutter, cept for me working out the program, lol

[fontgeek]

Originally Posted by mark f

hello everyone im new to the fourm
i too am looking at different plotters do all of them work with macs im tired of pc
me and my wife are opening up a bike shop so im not looking for size looking more for quality

Mark, are you talking about bicycles or motorcycles?
For motorcycles you would probably want a larger plotter than you would need for a bicycle shop.
For most of the plotters out there, there are drivers for either platform (Mac or PC). There are drivers that will let you cut directly from Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. Basically the program sees the plotter as just another printer.
If you don't already own and use a program like Illustrator then it is something you should strongly consider. Learn to use the drawing tools competently. You will find that the vast majority of the artwork out there is garbage, and poorly drawn garbage at that! The difference between well drawn artwork and the auto-traced and poorly drawn stuff will be glaringly apparent especially when you go to print it, cut it, or weed it.
The ability to draw what you want and how you want it also lets you have something that will actually work for your needs, and that won't look like a rubberstamp of a million other peoples pieces. It also allows you to reproduce and sell your artwork in any form without copyright infringement or lawsuits when you design your own stuff.

[Cameron Arts]

I've had my Roland GX-24 less than a year, & it's already paid for itself just in sign work & vinyl lettering for windows & such. I'm glad I got the larger width, but you're right, it's not cheap. Based on the performance of this one, I would easily recommend any other Roland. I can cut 10 runs of something, & the first one comes out the same as the last one with no discernable differences or wierd shifting. Don is right. CutStudio rocks. It came with my Roland & there are times that I just do my design work right in CutStudio & skip Illustrator altogether. (I'm running Windows XP.)

[mark f]

thanks for the info
me and my wife are opening a motorcycle shop
computers and me im only so so . so the easyer the better im getting better the more i use i will display some of the things ive done i just had a pc crash lost alot of work that ive done just bought external hard drive so wont happen again
any more info knowledge is power

[mark f]

i started looking at the roland 15 sticka my thought i only have limited ussage for it now buy the 15 then as i use it see what it can and can not do with it . I looked at roland 24 big price jump . hoo knows if things go great i might just buy roland24 for shop and the 15 for my desk top

[fontgeek]

If you can afford it, the bigger one is the way to go.
It never fails, you get into a job only to find out that what you need to cut is just that inch or two bigger than what the little one will cut, and of course it is always with a tight deadline and an hour after your local sign shops close.

If you do much work it only takes one or two times of that loss of time and money to make up the difference between the two size cutters.
Make sure that any cutter you consider can work on friction feed rather than tractor feed. Tractor feed is great for big complicated and intricate multi-piece items, but for most people it is an expensive waste. The tractor feed materials (vinyl, masking or stencil material, etc.) tend to be more expensive, and much more limiting in their use. Those cutters won't let you cut material unless it has the tractor feed edges on it, so use of little pieces of material and scrap is out.