Noob from uk

[Ceefree]

Hey guys

I’m new around these parts and looking to get involved so I can learn more about cutting and printing. Have been using the Roland gx24 for 5 years and gradually moving over to the sp300v I’ve had sitting in the warehouse for some time, for cutting only for time being. We cut wraps for devices. I know some places Roland is not regarded as top quality so I’m also up for hearing some views on other brands as my machine does cause me the occasional problem meaning wasted material and lost time.

For now though hola

 

[Jburns]

welcome - I think Roland is a reputable brand - and I think the SP300V owners are generally happy.

 

[Val47]

Welcome! We have two Rolands - no complaints. Just stay away from their GR cutter though.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

The sp300v was a good printer. I'm pretty sure that the SP540 and 300 is what put them on the map.

 

[The Big Squeegee]

2 From OK

 

[Ceefree]

Val47 Ill do some research, in all honesty this was on my purchase list for when we find some growth. The features list on the Roland site for the GR540 sounded right up my street. We eventually are looking for 100% accuracy with every cut and decreased interaction so when a customer orders we just change the roll and click print.

 

[signheremd]

As far as excellent plotters, both Graphtec and Summa are excellent and you can print on the Roland and cut on these. As far as printing, we have a Roland XR640 and it is a really excellent printer - reliable, high quality, trouble free, economical inks. The XR640 is not the best cutter of vinyl. But it does a fair job and can produce good sellable results on most items. When cutting long panels, you will need to have all the rollers over grit rollers or the weight of the material seems to cause the cut to be distorted. In my experience, cutting 10-11 foot long large graphics will track and cut true with all rollers on and will not without all rollers on. So why would you ever not have all rollers on? Well sometimes the center rollers can leave a track that is noticeable where ink is printed over that track. Seems to happen more on thicker material like banners, and when a small amount of ink is used like for pastels and screens. We have had the XR640 for about 5 years and love its print quality. We added a Graphtec FC9000 last year and this has been a boon for a few reasons: first, the Graphtec cuts small text better than the Roland; second, it cuts more accurately; third, it allows us to print more pieces in a day with one printer since we don't have to stop printing to cut printed jobs. We use Flexi and have both VersaWorks and Onyx. Hopefully that gives you some ideas

 

[Boudica]

We have two Roland printers, and XR-640 and an XJ-640. The XR is also a cutter - and we have found it to be a champ for both. The XJ is semi-retired and dedicated to banners. It prints fine, but after getting our Epson printer, we just use the XJ less.

The Roland Camm-1 GR-640 has been less than stellar for us (being nice). I would not recommend this machine - especially if you want to large runs of decals/stickers and use the perf-cut to eliminate cutting down by hand. Does NOT work like it's supposed to. I can cut with it - just not able to utilize all the features we purchase it for.

 

[Joseph44708]

I have the XR-640 and its the Cats Meow. I print a 100' roll of 6 mill every day on in it, then the next day while printing the next roll i'm cutting the 1st roll on the Graphtec 160 cutter. A great combo.

 

[Ceefree]

I’m finding at the moment that the sp300v is beginning to be my go to for cutting at the moment. We are not doing any printing at present, naively bought it and the store I bought it from said that for our uses we did not need a laminator for our prints, turns out we do. So what I’ve ended up with is an expensive cutting machine.. since the heads have dried up due to not being used!

thanks for all of the suggestions so far, and the warm welcome also!