Plotter Virgin

[Randy Walker]

I have been a laser owner for a few years now and my best customer asked me today if I would be interested in doing his vinyl graphics work for him. He uses a lot of vinyl to finish out the work he does, and he is about to sign another contract for a MAJOR restaurant chain that he does a lot of work for, so I know there will be enough work to justify my buying a plotter. The work I’ve seen him do is both printed and cut, so I will probably need both a printer and cutter head (If such a thing exists). The problem is that I don’t know anything about plotters, or pricing the work. So, would someone be kind enough to fill me in on some of the finer points that I might need to know/ask about buying a plotter, pricing my work, and any other possible requirements.
Something else of note, I do some sand carving and I would like to use the plotter to do some of the cutting for my larger stone and glass work.

My grateful thanks to all of those willing to share their knowledge with me and others.
Randy Walker
P.S. I am covered up with work right now so I may be a bit slow at answering your posts. The new guy is a lot of help but not up to speed yet.

[Joe Pelonio]

There are plotters made by companies such as Roland that do both cutting and printing. They are fine for medium volume work. For a busy shop neither the printing nor cutting has the speed you'd get from two separate units. I've used my plotters to cut sandblast resist and it works great. Vinyl pricing takes time, you have to consider the material cost, premium (cast) vs intermediate (calendered), transfer tape,
weeding time. Simple 3" letters will go very fast, while a detailed graphic or logo can take a long time to weed. It's hard when starting out, but with practice you will get to know how long it will take just from seeing the artwork. You will also have to become good at tracing, to convert rastor images to vector. Because of the price difference, I'd suggest a dedicated cutting plotter for now, and if you do need large format printing, find another shop with a good printer and establish a wholesale relationship with them. Eventually when you find you are getting a lot of that work perhaps a printer would become justified. You are looking at $500-$7,000 for a plotter, $10,000-100,000 for a printer, depending on quality and size.

[Randy Walker]

Thanks Joe
I’d really like to stay below a grand if it is possible. While this is my biggest customer he also gets my best prices. The printer option is primarily for convince, the cutter is what I am really after. Like the title implies I don’t know the first thing about plotters. That said, I had never seen a laser before I decided to buy one either.
I know right now most of the work available is color vinyl cut into long shapes that are applied to various surfaces like tape, or a lot of repeated patterns applied to various surfaces that tie two rooms together. So I think your right, what I really need to focus on is a cutting plotter.
Randy Walker

[Scott Shepherd]

Randy, do yourself a favor and don't skimp on the plotter. If you get a sub $1,000 plotter, all it will do is cut vinyl. It won't take a printer sheet of decals or shapes and cut around them. It'll cut product from a solid color sheet.

You'd probably want something with an electronic eye on it to pick up registration marks. To do that, you're well into the $3000 range. A vinyl plotter will pay for itself in no time. You can make some serious money with them and it's well worth the investment to get a decent one from the beginning.

[Randy Walker]

Hi Steve
Normally I’d be right there with you on getting top of the line equipment but for right now I think that I might be better off with a less expensive version until I can get enough business to justify the higher price models, then I can upgrade and have a backup cutter to cover overflow (dreaming here) work. I do like the idea of getting the electric eye for tracking and positioning.
Sorry about being so long about getting back I have just been really busy lately.

Randy Walker

[Dan Hintz]

Randy,

A less expensive way is to get one with a laser pointer, like what I have. Print registration marks on your images, then use the laser to register on those points... the plotter driver figures out offsets, shrinkage, etc. It's a bit more manual work than the image processing ones, but significantly cheaper, too.

[Randy Walker]

Hi Dan
I like that idea. A laser pointer might be just the ticket. What kind of money would something like that be? I have to get with my client to get a better idea of what his needs are.
How is the used market for plotters? I Know of a sign shop that closed up last year, a few miles down the road but I don’t know what happened to their equipment. Would 50% of new cost be an unreasonable expectation?
For now I don’t mind the extra labor (its mostly just mine) and I will be able to do a better job with my sand carving designs too.

Randy Walker

[Dan Hintz]

Randy,

Here's a quote from another gentleman/board:

I bought the Laserpoint 24 in January and just last week I got the Roland GX-24. The Laserpoint is an incredible value at about 1/4 the cost of the Roland. I have produced outstanding results with mine and had I not got such a great deal on the Roland ($150 at a garage sale) I would still be using it.

However, if the contour cutting is an important feature for you and you will use it often, you might consider a different machine (Like the Roland). While the Laserpoint can do contour cutting, it is both more difficult to achieve and less accurate than my Roland.

It's more difficult because at this point there is no way to extract a contour cutting line for bitmap graphics. With the Laserpoint if you are using a bitmap, you have to create the contour cutting lines manually which can be very labor intensive with even a mildly complex image. Conversely, the CutStudio software that comes with the Roland can extract the cutting line from a bitmap.

As for accuracy, I found the Laserpoint to be not great. I did a sheet with 10 labels on it and for a few of the labels the cutting was accurate but for most it was up to 1/8 of an inch off. The Roland on the other hand is dead on accurate.

If you plan to use the contour cutting rarely then I would highly recommend the Laserpoint. Otherwise I'd try to find a garage sale where you can steal a Roland for $150 like I did.

I agree... but it's very usable, and for the cost (I paid about $200 for mine?), it's easy to get into.

[Mike Null]

I purchased a Graphtec C5000-60 demo model at the Indy show Friday. Saved about $200 off the list which seems to be fairly standard wherever you go.

Even though my work load is relatively light for vinyl I bought this machine for the contour cutting feature which is amazing plus the fact that it has USB 2 connectivity, works with Corel with a Graphtec plug in, comes with a stand, and good tech support.

I do some t-shirt business and have been turning away more than I take due to equipment limitations.

I pick the machine up on Monday and will get a tutorial at the same time from Coastal Supply here in St. Louis.

[Joe Pelonio]

You will have a lot of fun with it, not as exciting as the laser though, and eventually you will become tired of weeding!

I did a bunch of magnetic vehicle signs yesterday, 2 color with fine detail, and have 8 more to do next weekend.

[AL Ursich]

Lots about magnetic signs on Signs 101.... A suggestion to help protect you after Car Paint Damage is to put your Disclaimer on the Invoice and have them sign it....

Suggestions have been something like.... Remove once a week and wash car and DRY CAR..... Ect....

Off topic but I thought it was important.


I love my Graphtec FC7000. I under utilize it as I do my Laser too... Sublimation and V Carving keep me busy. TOO many toys...

AL

[Randy Walker]

I’ve talked to my client twice now and he won’t commit to having me do his vinyl work but I am still going to keep my eyes open for a plotter. I have learned a lot from your comments, especially about price. I have also talked to a sign maker and watched some video’s on the computer. I’m not ready to open a shop but if a plotter comes along I will be ready to buy now. Even if I don’t get the work my client has (I’ll talk him into it), I know my sand carving will benefit from the plotter and I “will” find ways to market the new products. I’m really glad you folks are here. It makes growing a business so much easier when there is someone to guide you through uncharted waters.

Many thanks
Randy Walker

[Mike Null]

Since I'm always so far behind I tried running waiting jobs on my new Graphtec---bad mistake. Since I'm still a novice at vinyl cutting I didn't have it set up properly and instead of doing the smart thing and running small test jobs I ran the whole job then tried weeding it. After hours of frustration I finally came to my senses and adjusted the cutter depth and the pressure properly and it's working beautifully.

Cutting Master works very nicely with Corel.

Don't remind me of my signature.

[Randy Walker]

Owners manual…
We don’t need no damn owners manual…
Plug that thing and lets get going… lol
I feel your pain Mike. I have so many things going on some times that I stand in the middle of the room and can’t remember which thing I’m there for.
I’ve even hired a guy to help but sometimes I think it might be faster to do in myself than get him up to speed.

Randy Walker

[Mike Null]

Randy

Whenever I've hired help it just adds to the confusion. I did solve that a bit by assigning my last helper the job of cleaning up after me.