Buying new FC7000-160 or Summa S-160

[cdiesel]

Hey all.. we're looking for a new plotter, and are considering both the FC7000-160 and the Summa S-160. The best price I've gotten is $4775 for the Graphtec and $8000 for the Summa. I'm not totally against paying the extra money, as long as it's justified.
It will be used for cutting printed graphics from our XC-540, and our next planned purchase the XJ-740. We use Corel & Illustrator, so either plotters' software will work fine. I'm especially concerned with the print/cut ease. It's simple with our XC-540 doing both, but I need to free it up to print more.
Does anyone have specific experience with a Roland printer & either of these cutters?
Is there any reason I should drop an extra $3k and get the Summa?

 

[Valentino]

Owning a FC7000-130, which I really like and never seeing a Summa D series. I don't think the 3000 is justified putting it feature to feature.

The specs are pretty matched up, except weight, 251lbs. for the summa which is pretty beefy. The Touch Screen is cool. The Accu-Align OPOS system is the same as graphtecs. but nothing special. I don't pounce so the dual strips would be useless. the graphtec has the same microsprocket grit rollers (or like/similar feature).

so... I would say Graphtec.

 

[Valentino]

http://www.summa.be/pages/pr_rackandroll.html

now that winder is cool.

 

[cdiesel]

Thanks! I hadn't seen that before.

 

[ProWraps™]

cdiesel.. now is a great time to buy, did you check sw.com? i know i know people love them or they hate them, but we GRINDED them on a 65" laminator, shipping and a big order. it was almost funny how much we got them down too. its a buyers market and they DONT want to lose a sale.

heres there ebay listing for:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Graphtec-FC7000...ryZ26245QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

i know for a fact they will drop it. especially if you have stuff to piggyback the order with.

 

[cdiesel]

We bought both of our panthers from sw, and used to buy most of our vinyl from them. They jerked us around on service when one of the panthers broke--we only had one at that point. I'll NEVER buy another piece of equipment from them. I'd much prefer to buy from a local distributor, as they can usually hook you up on service when needed.
Thanks tho!

 

[ProWraps™]

service?!?!? they offer that heh.. we got screw drivers for that! but in all serious, i guess we havent had to mess with service from them yet. 4 plotters later, and we havent had a problem. with the plotters that is. thank god.

 

[cdiesel]

I'll tell ya one thing.. the panthers are great. We've had the one for just over four years, and the 2nd for almost four years. Short the one problem, they've been flawless.

Fixing these things isn't hard, but it's time consuming. When I have a problem, all I do is pick up the phone and keep working on something else.