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US Cutter Plotters

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1jayrodder

New Member
Hello, has anyone had any success with the US Cutter plotters sold on Ebay? They are so inexpensive (they even include software) that I thought I might buy one just as a backup for my aging Roland. I don't want to be stranded without a plotter. These are made in China, but so is Roland I was told. Any thoughts?
 
DL Signs

DL Signs

Never go against the family
These are entry level, very basic. If you look at the specs, they don't even have the sensors to read registration marks for print/ cut.
 
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victor bogdanov

Active Member
I started my business with a capcom cutter from uscutter. Was around $500 for 54", worked very well and lasted about 2 years of daily use until the stepper motors gave out. Some of them do have registration mark reading capability
 
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1jayrodder

New Member
Thank you for your feedback. I hope to just use it as a back up. My Roland has gone down twice for different reasons that took days to sort out. I was out of commission and stressed about not completing jobs. I am hoping this will relieve that a bit, until I can find a newer Roland CX24.
victor bogdanov said:
I started my business with a capcom cutter from uscutter. Was around $500 for 54", worked very well and lasted about 2 years of daily use until the stepper motors gave out. Some of them do have registration mark reading capability
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D

damonCA21

Active Member
I haven't used one myself but I know someone who uses one pretty regularly for their internal signs they make, and it seems to work pretty well. They probably won't last that long with heavy use or specialist materials, but should be ok as an emergency backup. One thing I would say is make sure you get the one that has the fan built into it as it sucks the vinyl down flat, and the basic models do have issues with this.
 
1

1jayrodder

New Member
damonCA21 said:
I haven't used one myself but I know someone who uses one pretty regularly for their internal signs they make, and it seems to work pretty well. They probably won't last that long with heavy use or specialist materials, but should be ok as an emergency backup. One thing I would say is make sure you get the one that has the fan built into it as it sucks the vinyl down flat, and the basic models do have issues with this.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the reply, I will look for these features and decide which one to go with. I appreciate the feedback and quick response from members. :)
 
Splash0321

Splash0321

Professional Amateur
I believe they are compatible with flexi.

I had two of them when I first started. They don’t track well for anything over several feet in my opinion. If you do basic lettering and smaller stuff there’s nothing wrong with buying one if that’s what your budget allows for. Just know you’ll have to babysit the machine most of the time and run it much slower than you would with a higher quality cutter to achieve acceptable accuracy. They are also loud…they sound like what nightmares are made of.

After several years of not being able cut larger designs with accuracy I bought a used graphtec fc7000-160 and it changed my life. Night and day difference in accuracy and speed. A automatic cross cut feature to cut the design off and start a new cut job. It was like gaining an employee and it was quiet. I do very intricate cuts that are 12’ long on a daily basis and never have tracking issues.
 
Smoke_Jaguar

Smoke_Jaguar

Man who touches printers inappropriately.
Picked up a LaserPoint 3 53" ARMS cutter from them a couple months ago to hold us over (just snagged a Summa, yay) and found it to be pretty good. The thing is CRAZY basic, lacks paper sensors and such and it will happily just throw your sheet into the basket if you're not paying attention. The cut speed is decent and WAY faster than the built-in cutter on the Mimaki UCJV300 and it's really accurate too. Just make sure to chuck a pen and paper in and run the calibration first. When running batches of prints, the copy feature is really simple to use and it can save an obscenely large job. Seems the thing has a 2GB NAND chip in it, whatever's cheap and works.

Software-wise, I use Vinylmaster for most cutting, just stupid simple and fast. Basic shapes, a good trace and can get a cut ready in 2-3 minutes. Lacks a lot of fancier features from other RIP programs, but it's great when paired with a capable graphics program to do the actual design work on.

I also tend to keep sheets under 50" long, so tracking isn't a huge issue. Feeding rolls of printed media can be a pain however, as the rollers are far too likely to let the thing unspool. Since the cutter lacks software-controlled force, I have to catch the cutter between contour cuts and perf options if I want to have a chance of popping out prints.

Only major issue I had was the com port drivers not installing, and US Cutter got me hooked up nice and quick with that. Finding a good used cutter at that price with the width and ARMS wasn't going to happen, so was very pleased with my purchase.

A nice added benefit, the mark reader seems to work surprisingly well on holographic media with UV ink. My older Summa despises it however. The newer Graphtec sensors seem to be fine with it as well.
 
1

1jayrodder

New Member
Smoke_Jaguar said:
Picked up a LaserPoint 3 53" ARMS cutter from them a couple months ago to hold us over (just snagged a Summa, yay) and found it to be pretty good. The thing is CRAZY basic, lacks paper sensors and such and it will happily just throw your sheet into the basket if you're not paying attention. The cut speed is decent and WAY faster than the built-in cutter on the Mimaki UCJV300 and it's really accurate too. Just make sure to chuck a pen and paper in and run the calibration first. When running batches of prints, the copy feature is really simple to use and it can save an obscenely large job. Seems the thing has a 2GB NAND chip in it, whatever's cheap and works.

Software-wise, I use Vinylmaster for most cutting, just stupid simple and fast. Basic shapes, a good trace and can get a cut ready in 2-3 minutes. Lacks a lot of fancier features from other RIP programs, but it's great when paired with a capable graphics program to do the actual design work on.

I also tend to keep sheets under 50" long, so tracking isn't a huge issue. Feeding rolls of printed media can be a pain however, as the rollers are far too likely to let the thing unspool. Since the cutter lacks software-controlled force, I have to catch the cutter between contour cuts and perf options if I want to have a chance of popping out prints.

Only major issue I had was the com port drivers not installing, and US Cutter got me hooked up nice and quick with that. Finding a good used cutter at that price with the width and ARMS wasn't going to happen, so was very pleased with my purchase.

A nice added benefit, the mark reader seems to work surprisingly well on holographic media with UV ink. My older Summa despises it however. The newer Graphtec sensors seem to be fine with it as well.
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Thank you Smoke, some good advice, though I have had to read it like 3-4 times for this old man brain to comprehend. I know just enough about programs and systems to be dangerous! I am hoping that there will be drivers for my Flexi 8.1 to connect to. Otherwise I will get the Vinyl Master program and still design in Flexi and then export to Vinyl Master, as I think that it what you say you are doing. Thanks again!
 
Smoke_Jaguar

Smoke_Jaguar

Man who touches printers inappropriately.
1jayrodder said:
Thank you Smoke, some good advice, though I have had to read it like 3-4 times for this old man brain to comprehend. I know just enough about programs and systems to be dangerous! I am hoping that there will be drivers for my Flexi 8.1 to connect to. Otherwise I will get the Vinyl Master program and still design in Flexi and then export to Vinyl Master, as I think that it what you say you are doing. Thanks again!
Click to expand...
The cutters themselves just run through com port emulation over USB, really basic stuff. Just an open port waiting for instructions to be streamed to it. Heck, if it has a 9-pin connector and you have a program that speaks the cutter's language, you could run most basic cutters through DOS. Not a lot has changed in the world of the more basic cutters in decades, just the more compact electronics and the ridiculous price decrease. Great time to be alive.

Also, welcome to the forums!
 
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