48"+ Plotter Suggestion

[Patentagosse]

My friend is running a bodyshop and he's having so much requests for big RVs he has decided to jump in it... guess who's been asked for "find a way to create paint masks to help my painter"...

I only have a Mimaki CG-61 24" plotter for decades and the option to use my Roland VS-540 hybrid printer as plotter but as I may have yards of paint mask to prepare for each unit, maybe it will worth investing in a dedicated wide format plotter. No need for any "crop-marks finder" as my Roland handle pretty well it's own prints/cuts.

What would you recommand for "best bang for the bucks" / reliability / trouble-free / easy to operate cutting device? What would be the price tag (average)?

Thanks

*the kinda graphics I will have to do...

 

[GAC05]

The Graphtec CE6000-120 (48") is what I have.
Has the OPS for contour cutting prints
Won't do perf cut thru the backer without a sled - or you buy the European model.
Software to drive it is good - plug-ins for Illustrator & Corel Draw along with a stand alone app.
Mine is a few years old and no real issues have come up.
It's is not the Lexus (Summa) of cutters but it does well at a reasonable price.

Wayne k
guam usa

 

[equippaint]

UScutter SC series to test the waters. Its cheap (under $1k) and works well. It uses step motors so its a little loud and a little slow. Tracking is OK as long as you dont cut super fast and check-recheck that your media is aligned right. I have one thats about 5 years old and have used it alot. I dont care what anyone says, it tracks just as good/bad as my roland and mimaki do. Just takes a little more time to make sure the media is square. If you're just using it for paint mask, its not like you will be using it all day everyday. It comes with a fair vinyl cutting program but Im not sure what the max working size is.
Hope hes charging a lot of $$ for those RVs. We just did a trailer to match one and did the striping layout by the eyeball good enough method with fineline tape for each color. What a PITA. It was for a friend and not our usual paint job, but honestly you couldn't pay me enough to do that all day everyday. Id rather shovel sh*t for minimum wage than do that again.

 

[Patentagosse]

Id rather shovel sh*t for minimum wage than do that again.

LOL

I need a 54" plotter I think... Media will be cut close to edges so don't wanna get a 48" plotter that will only cut 44" ...

He's way more "business" than me so I figure he keeps a good mark-up. He just moved in a bigger location with a 50ft long, 16ft high paint booth and he's selling RV for living (he had run a bodyshop for 25 years).

He wants really complicated masks so once a base color is applyied, we'll cover a section of the graphics, than cover for the next color and so on... He wants 'em to be painted like factory (and big rigs too)

 

[tc2903]

UScutter SC series to test the waters. Its cheap (under $1k) and works well. It uses step motors so its a little loud and a little slow. Tracking is OK as long as you dont cut super fast and check-recheck that your media is aligned right. I have one thats about 5 years old and have used it alot. I dont care what anyone says, it tracks just as good/bad as my roland and mimaki do. Just takes a little more time to make sure the media is square. If you're just using it for paint mask, its not like you will be using it all day everyday. It comes with a fair vinyl cutting program but Im not sure what the max working size is.
Hope hes charging a lot of $$ for those RVs. We just did a trailer to match one and did the striping layout by the eyeball good enough method with fineline tape for each color. What a PITA. It was for a friend and not our usual paint job, but honestly you couldn't pay me enough to do that all day everyday. Id rather shovel sh*t for minimum wage than do that again.

The saying goes, the size of your comfort zone is the size of your income.... So also goes for the size of the vehicle should reflect the size of your income

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

[Gary Wiant]

If your going to be doing a lot of cutting & you want something that is truely reliable, trouble free & easy to operate you really don't want the cheapest cutter.

Bite the bullet & get a Summa they aren't cheap but they are the best & it won't let you down, cutting these long of pieces of paintmask your biggest concern is going to be tracking and nothing tracks like a Summa. I had a Graphtec before my Summa and while the Graphtec did a good job the Summa is much better. I don't see a need to buy cheap first to test the waters, let's say you buy something cheap around $1000 and you constantly have to recut because the machine isn't tracking and then you have to buy a real plotter, now your out the $1000. Your not going to get that money back. Your already in business if your friends painting falls through you'll still have a great plotter, but if your plotter won't track & you can't keep up you may loose the business from your friend. The Summa S2 T series is going to be between $7500 -f9500 depending on if you can find a demo unit or if you have to buy a new plotter. I'm not real familiar with the whole Summa line but the S2 - T are the top of the mountain. If you call Summa tell them your looking for a cutter to cut exceptionally long runs but do not need OPOS registration they may have something that is less expensive.

Cutters are like everything else you get what you pay for.

Enjoy & good luck

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Get a Summa tangential, nothing compares short of a flatbed cutter.

If you want bang for the buck we loved our GCC Jaguar (now RX) when we had it. It was 72" wide, could cut dual 30" rolls with a custom spacer, and was only $6000 new.