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Suggestions Best printer cutter for reflective vinyl

L

Lorrie Acord

New Member
We currently only cut vinyl and are looking to replace our cutter with a printer cutter for reflective vinyl. We'll use it for traffic signs, mostly pedestrian signs, but also for some regulatory or neighborhood signs, typically using 30" rolls of vinyl.
Pros & Cons of various brands we should look at?
 
Solventinkjet

Solventinkjet

DIY Printer Fixing Guide
There are certain printers that are certified for traffic signs specifically. One that comes to mind is the Avery Traffic Jet (Re-branded and modified Mutoh VJ1638). It uses a special ink set that hits the required colors spot on. I don't know of any printer/cutters that are speced like that but you can always get a separate cutter.
 
L

Lorrie Acord

New Member
Maybe I should say Pedestrian Signs instead of Traffic Signs, because that will be the bulk of our sales. We currently manufacture street name signs by cutting EC film overlay for reflective vinyl. We do very few regulatory traffic signs. Looking for one machine to both print and cut.
 
B

bteifeld

Substratia Consulting,Printing,Ergosoft Reseller
Solventinkjet said:
There are certain printers that are certified for traffic signs specifically. One that comes to mind is the Avery Traffic Jet (Re-branded and modified Mutoh VJ1638). It uses a special ink set that hits the required colors spot on. I don't know of any printer/cutters that are speced like that but you can always get a separate cutter.
Click to expand...
The current Avery Traffic Jet Expert is actually a Mutoh 1682SR.
 
S

SanQ

New Member
We use a Summa S75T solo for reflective materials.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn JSN-L21 met Tapatalk
 
I

ikarasu

Active Member
Are you using the correct blade?

You need this blade - not from this site... Just the first that's come up for me. And a cb15 holder. It's super expensive, but cuts through pris.atic pretty good. The more pinch wheels you have the better as well... We added 2 to our fc9000.

And then there's limitations. Cutting anything under 2" is a pain - well, cutting anything is a pain... Anything under 2 is hair pulling pain.

www.swingdesign.com

Graphtec CB15UA-K30 60° Super-Steel Blade - For High Intensity Reflective Media

Blade CB15UA-K30 designed to cut high intensity reflective. Packs available. Highly durable. Diamond grade. Prismatics and reflective sheet media. For use with CE & FC series. We offer 0% financing & Free shipping. Live chat & customer support.
www.swingdesign.com www.swingdesign.com
 
T

TheRealDSJ

New Member
ikarasu said:
Are you using the correct blade?

You need this blade - not from this site... Just the first that's come up for me. And a cb15 holder. It's super expensive, but cuts through pris.atic pretty good. The more pinch wheels you have the better as well... We added 2 to our fc9000.

And then there's limitations. Cutting anything under 2" is a pain - well, cutting anything is a pain... Anything under 2 is hair pulling pain.

www.swingdesign.com

Graphtec CB15UA-K30 60° Super-Steel Blade - For High Intensity Reflective Media

Blade CB15UA-K30 designed to cut high intensity reflective. Packs available. Highly durable. Diamond grade. Prismatics and reflective sheet media. For use with CE & FC series. We offer 0% financing & Free shipping. Live chat & customer support.
www.swingdesign.com www.swingdesign.com
Click to expand...
Hi Ikarasu - thanks for the info - we do have this genuine graphtec blade and holder - the biggest issues we've had (and others have said the same) is the 3M HIP media (3830 & 3832) we are using just slips on the rollers (The backing just wont grip on the rollers - almost at all.) It starts off seeming to be fine then (even at really slow speeds) it will just completely shift the sheet of media sideways and rotate it. We are using 4 pinch rollers - do you think more than this would help? I'm willing to try this with more pinch rollers - if I can get someone to say it actually works - just don't want to invest the $$ in more rollers if its not going to make a lick of difference...... How many rollers are you using?

It's at the point where we are going into much larger metal sign production and still using roll to roll printers so need a solution - or we'll just get a CNC flat bed router....
 
D

DieselPoweredNun

New Member
We were having some problems feeding longer jobs through our 9000, but turning up the grit roller pressure (all to high) and pre-feeding we minimized the issue.
We are using 4 rollers and some jobs will go over 100 inches with only a 1/32 to 1/16 depending on the backer of the substrate.
 
I

ikarasu

Active Member
TheRealDSJ said:
Hi Ikarasu - thanks for the info - we do have this genuine graphtec blade and holder - the biggest issues we've had (and others have said the same) is the 3M HIP media (3830 & 3832) we are using just slips on the rollers (The backing just wont grip on the rollers - almost at all.) It starts off seeming to be fine then (even at really slow speeds) it will just completely shift the sheet of media sideways and rotate it. We are using 4 pinch rollers - do you think more than this would help? I'm willing to try this with more pinch rollers - if I can get someone to say it actually works - just don't want to invest the $$ in more rollers if its not going to make a lick of difference...... How many rollers are you using?

It's at the point where we are going into much larger metal sign production and still using roll to roll printers so need a solution - or we'll just get a CNC flat bed router....
Click to expand...
If you're doing high volumes.of thick reflective... Get a flatbed cutter. Doesn't have to be a big 4x8 one, the graphtec flatbed is nice as is the summa.

You can cut decently on the roll laminators, more rollers help... But when we cut 10ft long sections it still skews a bit, which causes the edges to not be perfectly cut and the weeding requires cleanup.

It's just the nature of the beast with roll cutters... You can get by with one, but if I were cutting highway signs every week I'd buy a true flatbed
 
T

TheRealDSJ

New Member
ikarasu said:
If you're doing high volumes.of thick reflective... Get a flatbed cutter. Doesn't have to be a big 4x8 one, the graphtec flatbed is nice as is the summa.

You can cut decently on the roll laminators, more rollers help... But when we cut 10ft long sections it still skews a bit, which causes the edges to not be perfectly cut and the weeding requires cleanup.

It's just the nature of the beast with roll cutters... You can get by with one, but if I were cutting highway signs every week I'd buy a true flatbed
Click to expand...
Hi again Ikarasu - agree with you - thanks for the advice! :) Much appreciated
 
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