handglider

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Hi All,

I am in the market to purchase a Vinyl Cutter - something that would cut vinyl, painting masks and monokote.

I've seen many 12" cutters around $800.00 but I am hoping to find something less for than $500.00....

anybody have any info - or a cutter they might be interested in selling?

thanks in advance, Dean

Campgems

Try checking the Yahoo Groups, "Sheetcam" and "Jobshophomeshop". One other group, "DIY-CNC" may also be of some help. I know that there has been a lot of talk on Vinyl cutting on both teh Sheetcam and Jobshophomeshop groups in the past.

By the way, if you can find a CNC vinyl cutter for $800 that is self contained, jump on it. I have well over that invested in my CNC mill without the cost of the mill itself included. That is just for the steppers, drivers, power supplies, and the control software. This doens't include the CAD software for design.

Let us know how your search goes.

Don

ozzieflyer

Dean,
I went down that path several months ago.
If you do a search for vinyl cutters, you will come up with "thousands". There a lots of cheap copies, and as I found out copies of copies.

There are lots on ebay.

Regarding the "chinese copies", they seem to work, but are often noisy, and not always well supported from a software wise.

Stay away from 12 inch models, I had a small one for years, and it was always too small.

Finally I went for a Roland GX-24. This was quite a lot more than my original budget, but it is a beautiful machine. 24 inch wide, cuts down to really small lettering (something the cheaper units struggle with).

The thing is, once you have one, you will start to use it for more and more, and as I have found out, I now have a growing business in my aeromodelling club.

I have only just started cutting paint masks, they worked fantastically well.

BUT
Cutting monokote? well I haven't been successful yet. It doesn't feed through the cutter, because normal vinyl is attached to the carrier, which the cutter relies on. With monokote, as soon as you cut, it lifts away and jams the cutter. I have tried on a different cutter, same result.

I hope there is a way to cut monokote, as it would certainly grow my options even more.

With the cutter.
I use Illustrator to design, as you need vectors.
Then I use a third party software called Signcut, found at www.sc-x2.com which does a great job of controlling the cutter (much better than the supplied software).

Then, the sky is the limit.
But be warned, like everything, there is a learning curve in dealing with vinyl, multilayer decals etc.
But it's great for your 'planes.

My 2c worth,
Bruce

Erchur2000

Roland makes a 15" cutter named Stika SX15. It works pretty good for the price. I think I paid $600 on e-bay. you can cut just about any graphics you can make on software like Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator.

I hope this helps...Good luck!

rcflyermike

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Dean

I am using a old Stika 7 that I bought back in the 80's for about 150.00. It works great for me. I have used in on everything from Monokote,trim,paint mask's .....
It works well with Adobe or Corel. You don't need to worry about finding film for the smaller machines,when you order it just tell the size you want the rolls and they will cut them. Any questions I'll see you at the District.

handglider

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thanks for the info guys !