Does A Summa Really Do Perfect Print/cut Jobs?

[Signed Out]

Looking to upgrade our plotter. Currently we have a roland gx500. A 54" plotter that really is only able to cut 48". The plotter works fine and has never had any problems, but it just isn't accurate enough for print/cut jobs, especially anything over 8' in length is a crap shoot. Obviously when cutting colored vinyl it doesn't matter. But the longest we've ever been able to successfully print/cut a job is a little over 13'. Cut accuracy isn't good at that length, even with bleeding you'll run into issues, especially where different colors meet.

I've read much about the summa cutters and seemingly everybody praises their tracking/registration/cut accuracy for print/cut. Specifically what I'd like to know is if you were doing print/cut on your summa, how long of a print can you cut with dead nuts accuracy? I'm talking cut so precisely, that you wouldn't even need to bleed the graphics. Over 10', 20', 50'? All our print/cut gets laminated, so need to know if that makes a difference on the summas.

We are seriously looking into a new s class 64", even possibly the Tangential cutter. Any feedback on cut accuracy for these models is greatly appreciated.

 

[nate]

No. They're not perfect. At one time we had six of them for a project. They had their fair share of troubles, misfeeds, cuts that were off, parts needing replacing, etc. But they did get the job done and when the project was over I sold them off for half of what I paid for them so I was pretty happy.

 

[gnemmas]

No, they are not. We have tracking problem even after adding additional two pinch rollers at $400 each. It lacks the initial loading guide to assist in loading media straight.

 

[doublesigndude]

I'm on my 3rd Summa Tangetial plotter, 1st one was a 30", 12 years later and we're using a newer 64". We always use bleeds, always. They're pretty accurate but they do tend to wander with larger jobs.

I've had Ioline, Roland, Graphtec (worst in my opinon, I know a lot of faithful users though), even had one of the original Gerber IVb that had 4 fonts, yes I've been doing this a while & I'm still enjoying it.

Certain brands have claims of how far they can track accurately, but longevity they all wear down with use. Not sure of the types of jobs you're running, they're all different. Add in the barcode workflow & flexcut capabilities, the labor costs are reduced greatly. Be nice if Summa had some kind of training or resources to help you know what these things can really do & how to utilize them better. Most of their manuals don't cover any of it.

 

[PHILJOHNSON]

Hello All-Sigz,

I would be happy to discuss our various models and the accuracy guarantees for each if you would like. Please feel free to contact me via email at philj@summa.us or by phone at (800)527-7778, ext 112 if I can help.

Best regards,

Phil Johnson
Summa Inc.

 

[31legen]

Very happy with my summa. Its way better and more accurate than my mimaki.

 

[Signed Out]

No, they are not. We have tracking problem even after adding additional two pinch rollers at $400 each. It lacks the initial loading guide to assist in loading media straight.

Which model do you have?

 

[Signed Out]

The type of jobs that we are really looking to improve our cutting capabilities are print/cut vehicle graphics, partial wraps, large box truck and trailer lettering. Basically any print/cut over 8' in length. When cutting anything over 8' on our roland, cuts are usually off by up to an 1/8" in some areas of the print. Yes we bleed everything, but where colors meet, even when bled, it leaves the wrong colors behind. For some jobs that is not acceptable and you have to go in and manually trim the graphics in spots.

The other issue with the roland is that the sensors have a real hard time finding crop marks on prints longer than 10'. I have recently found a way to fool the plotter to find them though. You need to pause the plotter after it has traveled to the rear cropmarks and measure the distance that it has come up short. Then you need to enlarge your cut file vertically by the percentage the plotter came up short. Rip the new file, and use it for cutting. It's an annoying process and although it works, the cuts are still off considerably at that length.

So I'm looking to find out if I can load a 20' printed and laminated (3751/290) into a summa and expect it to actually be able to find it's cropmarks (barcodes?)? And how accurately will it cut? Would it cut within 1/16" or even 1/32"? I'd also like to assume that the summa is brand new and being operated by an experienced user.

 

[Signed Out]

Very happy with my summa. Its way better and more accurate than my mimaki.

What model summa do you have? Can you elaborate a bit on how accurate and how long of a print/cut job can it handle? Really appreciate the feedback.

 

[Fast46]

we print and cut fairly long runs all the time, mostly around 15' or so. most of the time with no issues, but on occasion the print will get skewed and get off. usually that is because the print gets jacked up a bit in the baskets. with any plotter you have to watch that on long runs. the better/thinner the material the worse it is. if the vinyl rolls up normally you wont have any issues. Still a good idea to have a bleed, but 1/16" is totally within reason.

 

[31legen]

What model summa do you have? Can you elaborate a bit on how accurate and how long of a print/cut job can it handle? Really appreciate the feedback.

I have the d140. My longest run so far was a 22 foot long crane boom decal. It was within 1/32 of an inch from start to finish.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

I don't own a Summa that reads crop marks (have an old 48" tank) but I think printing/cutting anything without bleed is unrealistic, especially at those lengths.

I wouldn't trust any plotter (even sprocket fed Gerber plotters) in our shop cutting with targets without a bleed.

Just my first impression. I'm also interested in the Summa standalone plotters as I'm also not that impressed by our Roland print/cut units when it comes to cutting.

I've never seen a piece of machinery that offered that kind of performance. Even the most well engineered CNC machines have "slop" in them. Granted, they're in thousandths or ten-thousandths (or more) of inches- but they're still there. I've run Mimakis, Graphtecs, and Gerbers of the friction fed and sprocket fed varieties and they all had their pros and cons, but I've always found the majority (80%, at least) of tracking problems are due to the operator not paying attention.
If you ever do find a perfect plotter, please let all of us know!

 

[gnemmas]

We have T140 S2.

 

[jerry369]

So I'm looking to find out if I can load a 20' printed and laminated (3751/290) into a summa and expect it to actually be able to find it's cropmarks (barcodes?)?

To cut long job using OPOS you need an S2 class (possibly tangential) and enable OPOS panelling (4 points). It allows to correct more accurately drag errors.

And how accurately will it cut? Would it cut within 1/16" or even 1/32"? I'd also like to assume that the summa is brand new and being operated by an experienced user.

To know the exact accuracy there is no other way than to try, it can depend on many factors: material, size, knife pressure etc etc

 

[tulsagraphics]

I've owned a number of Graphtecs (FC to CE series) over the past 15 years. Now I have Summa S2T160 model (been using it for about 3 years). There's no such thing as a perfect plotter, however, the Summa is the best I've used. Of course -- just like any other machine in your shop -- the weakest link is usually operator experience. Summa's plotters have a ton of functionality -- they can run quite well "out of the box", but the more you learn about them the more accurate they can run. It's really nice when you can load a roll of material, scan a barcode, and walk away without worry. (just make sure your configurations are set properly for each type of job you do, then you can just switch to your custom profiles as needed).

Like "jerry369" said -- paneling definitely helps.

Also, the S2 series comes with roll holders for the media and "U-shaped" alignment channels on the feed rollers. The roll holders keep your media suspended above the feed rollers, and the U-channels keep the roll from moving side to side. It doesn't completely eliminate tracking issues, but it really helps. Note: For longer, single print/cut jobs on thicker materials (e.g., IJ-180+8518) it's probably best to clean your floor and bypass the basket (since laminated vinyl can buckle easily). Summa's take up reel help can also help, depending on the type of jobs you're running.

My favorite thing to do is load up an entire 50 yard roll of printed media, scan a barcode, and walk away -- then come back later (or the next day) and have a basket (or box) full of decals which have been contour cut and separated into sheets (e.g., 12" x 54" sheet cuts full of 1" x 2" decals). The best method I found is to break larger jobs up into smaller ones and run them back-to-back. That way the plotter will scan the barcode for each job, find the marks, cut the decals, flexcut (if required), sheet cut, then automatically move on to the next job. (I use Caldera VisualRip+ and a barcode scanner on the Summa). If i'm using the Flexcut feature, then I'll put about 1/2" between each decal and run the jobs in smaller batches (in case something goes wrong during the flexcut pass, I can adjust the next job and restart without being forced to hand cut the entire remaining job). Right now I'm running a decent size print job (about 20 yards of 3" x 6" decals) which involves lots of different address numbers, contour cutting, flex cutting, and sheet cutting (Hint: I use Adobe Illustrator and custom XML files for variable data output and automatic batch creation of production-ready PDFs), then I drag those files into the queue (using a custom workflow I created in Caldera) and hit start. Like anything else, it gets easier once you get a few of these jobs under your belt.

One of the biggest jobs I ran included approximately 123,000 labels (variable data and custom quantities of each label to match client's warehouse inventory meant I couldn't farm it out), That job required about 5 rolls of 54" media. I don't normally get jobs that big (and it's a lot to handle for a one-man shop), but that project was THE reason I decided to pull the trigger on the Summa. Production time from start to finish? Printing + Cutting = approximately 2 days and zero errors!.

I included 1 picture of a partial batch of finished sheets (about 20k labels in that picture). It would have been nice to have a photo of the entire job sitting on the table, but I had to deliver the labels to my customer (2 or 3 times per day) as they came off the plotter (super rush job). Still pretty thrilled I was actually able to do that big of a job in-house by myself though.

I love my Summa!

 

[burgmurk]

I've worked with mimaki, mutoh, summa and roland cutters, and the summa was the most accurate of the lot.
Nothing's perfect of course, but if you're after a new one, get the summa.

There are some fancy tricks to split a long cut job into several smaller ones, if you want to work on the overall accuracy.