• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Looking for suggestions on buying first plotter

RyanD

New Member
I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a good quality plotter that costs around 1000 dollars.
 

FatCat

New Member
Hmm, does it need to have any specific features? Size limitations? What kinds of things will you be doing with it? Do you know what kind of software you'll be using?

$1,000 might find you an older used Roland or Graphtec...I stress might.
 

signrios

New Member
get used roland graphtec or suma 24", i bought mine used about 6 years ago
its a roland camm1 its going and going..... its been abused to its max and its still working great, a friend of mine bought an animal plotter and it broke about 3 months later.

also do a search this has been asked quite often.
 

RyanD

New Member
more info

I already have flexi 8.5 software from the sign shop where I work. I wanted to get something that was at least 24" and I was going to mainly use it for custom decals.
 

mamos

New Member
Believe me, they is little more frustrating than a long list of jobs and a plotter that doesn't work properly.

Get a decent plotter and it will give you years of service.

I don't know how much things cost in America but for £1000 pounds you could buy a Summa D60 with opus system and have a fantastic plotter that will make that money back 100s of times over it's life.

You can easily make $1000 on one job

Find the money and but a decent plotter

mamos
 

Jim Doggett

New Member
cut and weeded

You should have no trouble with most cutters. Graphtec and Summa are the best, albeit, Graphtec when it comes to pure cutting is the superior of the two.

Easier weeding would be the advantage of a high-quality cutter.

Graphtec's CE series is a great, more affordable cutter. It's whisper-quiet, great tracking, and the blade movement technology is sublime, resulting in more throughput even running at the same speed as other cutters.

Our Qe Plus cutter is made by someone I cannot mention by name. But I can say it's whisper-quiet, great tracking, and the blade movement technology is sublime, resulting in more throughput even running at the same speed as other cutters.

With prices coming down, and deals going up (economic times being what they are), I suggest you stay with new. These thing are reliable as heck, but if a main board or cutting head goes out, it get's spendy. The warranty is a great way to sleep at night, and the cost delta is much less these days than in the past.

My, slightly biased, opinion :^)

Best,

Jim
 

animenick65

New Member
We have a graptech thats 10 years old here. Only been in for service once. Has paid for itself hundreds of times over. Pay a little more upfront now for a good plotter and you'll have it for a long time. Like others have said, buying a crappy plotter and having it die on you in the middle of a big job will kill your business.
 

rcook99

New Member
Stay with the brand name plotters as they have a proven track record for many years. I would stay away from all the chinese plotters. Best of luck with your purchase. We have 2 graphtecs and love them both, we just upgraded to the FC7000-75 30" from the CE2000-60 24". The CE2000 will be going up for sale as soon as we dial in the new one.
 

Jim Doggett

New Member
How much is just the plotter? I have everything else
Thanks Jim

I try not to tread too heavily on our Sales VP's turf, since anyone wearing sales colors coming onto my turf is getting a cap in their ... :^)

Kidding, sort of. I should defer to our sales folks. Pete Wenger is the VP and one of my favorite cutter reps is Rebecca Hefner. First name dot last name @signwarehouse.com is our email convention.

Thanks,

Jim
 
Top