Question Graphtec vs Summa for sheets of stickers/which has a "better" workflow using only rasterlink?

[Snydo]

Perhaps a setting on the plotter i am unaware of?

Recut Offset under General I believe or Advanced Cutting, you can put barcodes less than an inch apart.

 

[Saturn]

I cut full rolls all the time, with all jobs as just 2-3' foot sheets. The Summa just cuts off each one as it finished and I retrieve it from the basket. Works like a charm. I use Onyx and Summa Cutter Control.

I see you mention needing to do kiss and perf/flex. Is this just to do a single die-cut/contour cut where you're going right over the kiss cut with the flex? If so, depending on how thick your material is, you'll get much better and faster results NOT using flex. I just use 2-3 passes of the kiss, and things are quick and very clean this way. Flex cut (for me) was always slow, and left a lot to be desired as far as the finish/look of the cut. I cut many thousands of complex die-cut stickers a week.

 

[RonnyCrack]

I cut full rolls all the time, with all jobs as just 2-3' foot sheets. The Summa just cuts off each one as it finished and I retrieve it from the basket. Works like a charm. I use Onyx and Summa Cutter Control.

I see you mention needing to do kiss and perf/flex. Is this just to do a single die-cut/contour cut where you're going right over the kiss cut with the flex? If so, depending on how thick your material is, you'll get much better and faster results NOT using flex. I just use 2-3 passes of the kiss, and things are quick and very clean this way. Flex cut (for me) was always slow, and left a lot to be desired as far as the finish/look of the cut. I cut many thousands of complex die-cut stickers a week.

In most cases it's to have a sheet of weeded, contour/kiss cut stickers on individual pages. Easier to ship, easier for clients to hand a stack of pages to workers.

So from what I'm reading, seems like the summa is capable of contour cutting, then perf-cutting out the individual pages from the roll for me to yank out, all in one command.

Seems the graphtec can also do this, but also has a separate cutting channel/tool position you can pause in between jobs and switch between if you want to save your cutting strip?

 

[Saturn]

So from what I'm reading, seems like the summa is capable of contour cutting, then perf-cutting out the individual pages from the roll for me to yank out, all in one command.

You'd set up your file with both a regular/kiss cut, and then a flex cut, yup. You'd want to let the pressure stay driven by the cutter, not the RIP. If you leave the RIP in charge of the pressure, you can't change it after the fact if you're using the barcode—A brand new blade takes a lot less pressure than a worn in one, so it's nice to have the option to tweak things by the time the print gets all the way to the cutter.

The cut strip will cause you no trouble. It's cheap and easy to change. In my mind it keeps Summa cuts superior to anything else because it acts as a table preventing tear-out. Not sure why folks comparing the two brands would count it as a fault rather than a plus.... I've been cutting full cut little fiddly stickers for years and never once thought I'd prefer an alternative. Changing one take 1-2 minutes, and if you run a 30" version, you can get 4 uses out of one strip. They last weeks, to months, to years, depending on what you're doing on them. I mean if you stop and think about it, a worn Summa cut strip is the same as a Graphtec channel, right?

I used to think you couldn't go wrong with a Summa, but it seems like a lot of folks have trouble coming to terms with them. I just bought a second one because I think they're amazing, so I definitely am biased. Graphtec or Summa should treat you fine.

 

[ikarasu]

Just pointing out with my graphtec, Ive never had to change the strip and I do rolls of vinyl every week... I've never changed a summa strip -but if it only takes a few minutes, thats not too bad.

Our operator always cuts too deep on my work graphtec - And we change the strip often on that one... I dont know how, I've had my graphtec for 3 years now, I do at least 2-3 rolls a week on it, and not once have I changed it... He's just very clumsy. Anyways.... the strip on the graphtec sucks. It leaves behind the double sided tape...then you have to clean it all away, make sure its perfectly flat.... It requires a pencil eraser, glue remover, alcohol, takes about 30 mins of prep work depending on how bad the strip is cut / glue is squished down, Then you have to wait until next day for the new strip to adhere fully - Of course you dont have to do that... but they say to, and its not hard to do at the end of the day.


People who are used to graphtecs will prefer graphtecs - people who are used to Summas will prefer summas. It's like Mac VS PC.... Illustrator VS Corel... Iphone VS android.... graphtec and Summa are both fully capable plotters, I dont think theres anything a Graphtec could do that a summa couldn't.... As for the Summa vs graphtec... If you have tangential module, itll do smaller cuts better, so I guess summa does have a leg up on Graphtec in some regards! but for OP's workflow, and most peoples workflow, either machine works.

 

[ikarasu]

Been awhile since I uploaded a video...

Here it is doing the kiss cut over the channel...Then doing the Perf cut over the channel... no need to change the tools or cut into the strip at all. This one is an easy rectangle, then a perf cut rectangle with rounded corners - Doing intricate cuts is a bit harder over the perf channel... I'd say 95% of what I run can be done without swapping the blade. But 90% of the time I just load the roll, kiss cut everything with the take up.... put the takeup on the other side, then perf cut. That way I can walk away and do other stuff for an hour, come back when its all perf'd and pop everything out.... frees up my one man shop to work on other things and not babysit the cutter. The kiss cut is at about half speed just because its setup for smaller / intricate cuts... could jack up the speed to the same speed as my perf cut, but I have everything setup to be automated and automatically select the right condition, and im too lazy to change it for one job.

This is on the cheapest $100 a roll material - The cut is pretty good... not perfect, but thats because the backing paper sucks, 3M backing paper is always really clean. The lady that buys these stickers wants them kiss cut, then perf cut so she can easily peel them off and apply them to her boxes / products.... I thought about buying a label printer just for this job... I probably do 2-5000 stickers a month... but usually I print a whole roll at once and walk away. I'm just trying to use up some small 27" roll I had as an offcut, and too lazy to setup the take up reel for 27" media...so I'm popping out as they go. Takes under an hour to cut a whole roll of material, if I sit here I can just watch TV and pop them out.


https://photos.app.goo.gl/pakzPo1DqSrZjUAz6 Photo of them popped out - I usually weed just the top of every 500 just to make sure the kiss cutting is working good and the blade didn't go dull when I wasnt around.... Only happened once so far, but I hate sending 5000 decals to a customer then them saying it didnt cut all the way through.