I need help choosing plotter or help simplifying my process

[athepworth]

Right now I just get printed vinyl pattern segments from my local shop, use the big squeegee to laminate, and run it through my PCut. I then weed and cut the final product into 4"x6" sheets. It basically ends up being a sticker sheet with 10 of the same design per sheet. I manually add a label that was printed separately to get the final product.

Because I don't have plotter that can read registration marks my decals are limited to just chunks of a repeatable pattern. I need more variety in the designs I use and need to find a better solution. Printing the labels right onto the vinyl would be a lot better as well.

First question: If I send batches of decals with registration marks is there a plotter that can read and cut 50+ different registration marks at the same time (only have to push the cut button once)? The decals are all the same size but the printer will often have different spacing between rows so the it won't totally be uniform.

Second question: I would love to have a perf cut feature to then cut out each 4"x6" sheet. Is there one that would be able to do a good job cutting through 3mil vinyl and 3mil laminate? would it be able to cut several sheets out at once with different reg marks or would i have to keep lining up the plotter and hitting send?

Third question: Is there an easier/better/different way to do this? I am open to suggestions but I need to keep the cost per 4"x6" sheet under 50 cents for a full color high resolution print so I would prefer doing most of it in house. The next purchase will be a printer. I got a quote from a different local shop to do the whole process and they wanted $3/sheet for a finished product.

Thanks in advance for the help

 

[Fred Weiss]

I think the only way you will get what you want at the price you're willing to pay ($3 a sq. ft.) is to do it all in house. For that you need an ecosol printer, and OPOS plotter and the software to run it.

 

[athepworth]

I think the only way you will get what you want at the price you're willing to pay ($3 a sq. ft.) is to do it all in house. For that you need an ecosol printer, and OPOS plotter and the software to run it.

thanks for the reply. The $3/sqft cost is currently what I'm paying for a final product with having someone else do the printing. The biggest hassle right now is having to add labels, and cutting each sheet out. I do 500-1000/week right now so a better plotter with perf cutting would be awesome if it can do a full batch at a time.

 

[Fred Weiss]

I just think that you either need to gear up to do it all yourself or have an outsource do it all for you. Shopping around for the best price for the complete job from a reliable outsource would be a logical next step and, if you don't find one at the price you can afford, then shop for the equipment and software you would need and see if you can cost justify it.

If you can't find either, then your price may be too low.

 

[athepworth]

Is there a plotter you would recommend that can do this?

 

[iSign]

so, 4" x 6" is 6 pieces per sq. ft.

you ARE paying 50 cents each, or you WISH that was your cost?
Sounds like you got a quote for $3/ ft (50 cents each) for a FINISHED product...

..so, isn't that what you want?... or is the word "finished" wrong, because the logo's aren't on there? ...and why aren't the logos already on there? You said you "get printed vinyl pattern segments" so, why is that printing process not including the logos?

I'm sure I'm missing something, so others may be as well... can you tell us what these are? got pics?

 

[athepworth]

so, 4" x 6" is 6 pieces per sq. ft.

you ARE paying 50 cents each, or you WISH that was your cost?
Sounds like you got a quote for $3/ ft (50 cents each) for a FINISHED product...

..so, isn't that what you want?... or is the word "finished" wrong, because the logo's aren't on there? ...and why aren't the logos already on there? You said you "get printed vinyl pattern segments" so, why is that printing process not including the logos?

I'm sure I'm missing something, so others may be as well... can you tell us what these are? got pics?

I got a quote for $3/finished piece 4"x6" so $18/sqft finished.

 

[iSign]

can you tell us what these are? got pics?

might get more help when we understand what you're doing.saying

 

[Fred Weiss]

I got a quote for $3/finished piece 4"x6" so $18/sqft finished.

I think if you shop around you will find lots of reliable wholesale outsource vendors that will do the whole job for you for a third of that or less.

 

[jiarby]

Get a used Graphtec CE5000... Get your stuff printed on 24" wide material. I use 60" wide material but print 24x60 sheets for contour cutting small decals. If you can afford it get a 36" FC Graphtec.

Gang up your art into 24x60 sheets (allowing 5-6" in the in the back so the sheet doesn't fall out of the cutter!) and some space for pinch rollers, and then space for the registration marks. I budget 20" x 52" (on a 24x60) sheet as useable art space. Gang up as many of your 4x6 things in that space as you can.

Using my system I would get 40pcs from a 24x60 sheet.
This is a 66.66% sellable yield. I use 10 sqft of material, and get 6.66sqft of decals.

210 Lam only comes in these sizes: 30", 36", 50", 54", and 60". I stock 36" because I sell alot of 24x36 stuff too, but for your decals I would use a 36x55 swath of 210 and trim it down to fit the 24" sheet (3651, or 3165RA)

So, I get a paltry 48% sellable yield on lam. (I have a big bucketful of 12x60 210 lam scraps!!)

With my 24" plotter I can yield 40 pieces of a 4x6 decal, which consumes 10 sqft of vinyl, and 13.75 sqft of lam. You can do your own math about what the costs are for that.

So, now when I quote this kind of thing, I have a minimum quantity of 20"x50".
I use an excel sheet that calculates the cost of the vinyl, the lam, the ink, and divides by the # of pieces in the useable area to get me a piece costs. Then another few colums that lists what the piece price would be at a given $$/sqft.

 

[cdiesel]

Get a VersaCamm. 30" or 54", either would work for what you're doing. The newer ones haver the perfcut feature, and you can send multiple jobs at once.

 

[CropMarks]

as far as a simple plotter goes, I bought a graphtec ce5000 24". I do all my printing like jiarby says. I think I paid $1500 for the plotter new. If you have the money and want to do it all... then the versacamm 30" might be for you. It seems like there are a bunch of them used for around $5000.

 

[athepworth]

Can a Graphtec CE5000 24" or a Roland GX-24 do perf cutting? I can only find documentation for higher end models

 

[AUTO-FX]

what about a summa dc4sx ? print , cut, perf, the whole 9

 

[CS-SignSupply]

What software do you have? This will make a big difference as well.

I would think your next hurdle would be figuring out how to "die cut" your final job when combining one decal on top of a printed pattern. Do you have the artwork for both of these? Registration marks have to come into play.

The original background print will have to have registration marks included, then you manually add your printed decal (and just how do you register that)

Maybe I am not following correctly.

In order to get Perf Cutting on the Graphtec, I believe you would need to step up to the FC8000 Series. 24" MSRP $3795, 30" MSRP $4295

The FC8000 Series and FC7000/FC7000MK2 series of professional cutting plotters comes standard with a Perf Cut option installed.

 

[CS-SignSupply]

+1 Roland VersaCamm or Summa DC4x

 

[athepworth]

I've thought briefly about the Summa DC4x but am concerned about the level of detail I could print. I have fairly intricate floral and lace patterns in the 2"x1" space. They print beautifully with the Roland at the local shop. Does anyone have any samples or experience with small detail on a DC4 or 4x?

 

[iSign]

You've been asked twice to show us WTF you are doing here... just for the privilege of trying to help you... (3 times actually)...to which you never even acknowledge the question... yet here you are, asking for SAMPLES??? Let me get right on that

 

[CentralSigns]

You've been asked twice to show us WTF you are doing here... just for the privilege of trying to help you... (3 times actually)...to which you never even acknowledge the question... yet here you are, asking for SAMPLES??? Let me get right on that

Dude iSign is right. Many have tried to help but you have avoided telling us really what you are doing. You remain sketchy at best, with what you want to do. There would be far more help and better equipment suggestions if you give us all the information. Show us a picture of the detail, both printing and cutting. We can't help you choose the best equipment for your application if you don't help us. For now your just blowing wind out your, well it's just getting stinky over here.

 

[athepworth]

Here's a sample of a sheet before I send it through the plotter. I then line it up with my basic plotter and cut out the shapes (most are simple ovals).

I appreciate the help I've received and haven't tried to be too ambiguous. I've got a weird niche product that probably only has a couple months before everyone jumps on board so I've been trying to keep it fairly close to the hip. If I haven't provided enough detail I apologize.

Would a Summa be able to get this kind of detail?