I need help choosing Software for my cutter

[p5enterprise]

I am very green in sign cutting. I have a Refine MH721 that I bought a year or so ago and I recieved SignCut X2 with the cutter. I can cut some simple things such as plain text and numbers. I am needing to do some small logo design cutting for a new trash company that has requested me to do some of their lettering. I need a software that I can at least import their logo into and then cut it out. I also need to be able to do numbering with the shadow effect? where you would place text over the same text of larger size and different color to cerate shadow effect. I hope I am explaning that correctly. I have no experiance through a shop as I am only self tought. I am looking at Flexi 8.6 Starter. Is this the right software for me with mininum experiance?? I am in St.louis Missouri area.
Thanks In Advance.

I need a user friendly program that I can do these few simple tasks in.
Email me at Mikebaseler@gmail.com

 

[Fred Weiss]

The Refine MH721 is also known as the US Cutter MH721. FlexiSign must support it because US Cutter sells FlexiSign ... however in my copy of FlexiSign Pro 8.6 there is no listing for either Refine or US Cutter under their supported plotters. I would guess that US Cutter is supplying their own driver for Flexi.

To do what you want in Flexi, your best choice is FlexiSign @ $1495. Flexi Starter is very limited and will not cover your stated needs.

Other options such as CiberCut Max for $695 may serve your needs better but they also do not list the Refine or US Cutter brand as supported. You would need to check with them for how to run your plotter from their software.

Other options would be CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator along with a bridge program for your cutter such as CoCut. Again, check with the supplier as to support for your plotter.

 

[Cadmn]

signcut should handle all of that , just a learning curve they have a rep named KIMON that is very knowledgeable/helpful if you search him out he can help. pm me or Kenny

 

[thmooch]

I do not want to steer you away from professional design software(which you will need down the road), but you could take a look at Inkscape which could suffice at this time. It will import many types of files. It will export .eps which you should be able to import into your cutter software.

 

[MachServTech]

To do what you want in Flexi, your best choice is FlexiSign @ $1495. Flexi

Quoting Fred has become a hobby of mine

Save yourself a lot of hassle and buy the Flexi product.

 

[CS-SignSupply]

The Refine cutters will work with either the Creation, Roland or RedSail drivers.

All of which are supported by CiberCut Max ($695) and FlexiSIGN ($1195)

Feel free to contact me via PM, phone or email if you have any questions.

With the driver issue in question, we could help you with the installation and configuration of either CiberCut Max or FlexiSIGN when purchased from us.

 

[igneous]

i learned flexi yeaaaaars ago without any experience in any graphics/cad program and the learning curve was fair.

but

when i went from flexi to signlab, that was tough - but once mastered, i felt it was unbeatable. however now all layouts are done in adobe illustrator and exported to flexi.

 

[rdm01]

i learned flexi yeaaaaars ago without any experience in any graphics/cad program and the learning curve was fair.

but

when i went from flexi to signlab, that was tough - but once mastered, i felt it was unbeatable. however now all layouts are done in adobe illustrator and exported to flexi.

This is how I work it now. Any layout or decent design gets done in Illy, and I use flexi as nothing more than an import and send to cut program.

 

[Jackpine]

CiberCut Max is a very good program for the money. You can design and cut from it.
Corel is my choice for design.

 

[Cadmn]

Corel

 

[Techman]

corel draw and the plugin cocut will do exactly what you want. it will be a perfect combo..

You can get an older version of corel and a used cocut pro for such a low cost that you wll be shocked, All that and the low cost added in with a combinaion that can do anything the full flexi can do..

 

[Joe Diaz]

It is possible with certain plotters that you can cut directly from Corel without cocut or other bridge software like cocut. But I'm not sure if the plotter you have is one of them. Either way Tech is right. Corel and a bridge software is a low cost, but still very powerful solution.

 

[Doug Pulver]

I am currently using Flexisign Pro 8.1 and haven't found anything that I needed to do that couldn't be done in Flexi. I would say that Flexi is very user friendly. Also there are training videos for Flexi out there.

 

[iSign]

You can get an older version of corel and a used cocut pro...

...a combintion that can do anything the full flexi can do..

true... except of course for the things that the full flexi can do & Corel/cocut can't do...

 

[Joe Diaz]

true... except of course for the things that the full flexi can do & Corel/cocut can't do...

And what exactly is that?
Not being an a$$ or anything, I just want to know.

 

[Techman]

except of course for the things that the full flexi can do & Corel/cocut can't do...

Sorry,, but in my opinion... Corel draw and cocut pro can do anything vinyl wise that any other high end sign software can do..

The context of this post is vinyl cutting. If you are referring to digital wide format printing you may be surprised what I can do with corel draw and the postscript driver...

I too would like to see just one vinyl technique that corel and cocut cannot do that you can do in any other program. If you have one technique,,, that would be something I have not observed in years of using corel and cocut pro. In fact that includes all versions since version 9.

There used to be a claim that corel and cocut could not do consecutive numbering.. However that notion has been disproved long ago.

 

[iSign]

I'm not trying to be an ass either... but the trouble with using words like "anything", is that it needs to mean "anything", and if it doesn't, it's the wrong word, and results in a false statement.

In my opinion, a growing business, planning for the future in the sign industry, does not equate to a context limited to vinyl cutting. As we all know, digital printing is very common, printers are priced lower, and many many shops are running their own printers, so yes, I am mostly referring to the rip feature, that I almost spent $2K for when I bought a printer, before my vendor found out I owned Flexi. I am impressed with Corel, there is no reason to stack the deck with erroneous claims like "can do anything Flexi can" ...if the statement is only true within some undefined context that one fails to mention.

I'm sure there are others than the one that I, a non Corel user, can come up with on the spot... but I'll add 1 more that may not be relevant to the op on this thread, but in an unlimited context, I can benefit from the fact that Flexi can open all Casmate files too.

 

[PSG]

P5enterprise-

:Welcome: to :signs101:

SignCut X2 will do exactly what you are asking for. http://www.signcut.net/

It is a bridge or plug-in program for cutting extremely similar to CoCut and others. Meaning, if you are cutting from it now, you must be designing in a graphics program like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw or Inkscape. What program are you designing/cutting in?

So the problem most likely lies in your knowledge of the design program and the additional design features added when SignCut X2 is installed for what you are looking to do. There is an additional program in SignCut X2 called SignIt X2 which adds many of the popular sign making design features that graphics programs often don't do as well or as easily as most sign design programs.

This is a list of those features from their website.

-Contour effects
-Shadow effects
-Extrusion effects
-Hypertrim effect
-Stripes tool
-Serialization tool
-Colour separation tool


In another thread last week, I stated the fact that many times sign design and cutting programs are often easier to learn to design and cut from than a graphics program with a bridge or even yet a graphics program with a separate cutting program, like Flexi. There is less learning curve to designing and cutting than the graphics/ bridge or graphics/sign program. I am not saying that they are necessarily better, just easier to get from start to completed cut product. That sounds like exactly the reason you are asking for a product that will give you the easiest, most basic way to get from point "A" to point "B"

If you don't like the SignCut X2 program and really want a sign design and cut program, I would be interested in talking about a trade with you. I am looking to pick up a copy of SignCut X2 and I have two different sign design/cut programs that me be right up your alley. Both will drive that plotter because I have that same plotter as my back-up plotter.

If you are interested send me a PM (personal message).

 

[Joe Diaz]

I'm not trying to be an ass either... but the trouble with using words like "anything", is that it needs to mean "anything", and if it doesn't, it's the wrong word, and results in a false statement.

In my opinion, a growing business, planning for the future in the sign industry, does not equate to a context limited to vinyl cutting. As we all know, digital printing is very common, printers are priced lower, and many many shops are running their own printers, so yes, I am mostly referring to the rip feature, that I almost spent $2K for when I bought a printer, before my vendor found out I owned Flexi. I am impressed with Corel, there is no reason to stack the deck with erroneous claims like "can do anything Flexi can" ...if the statement is only true within some undefined context that one fails to mention.

I'm sure there are others than the one that I, a non Corel user, can come up with on the spot... but I'll add 1 more that may not be relevant to the op on this thread, but in an unlimited context, I can benefit from the fact that Flexi can open all Casmate files too.

Semantically speaking You would be correct. I'm sure there are things that Flexi can do that Corel can't.... But I'm also sure there are things Corel can do things that Flexi Can't. I was confused by your statement, because it sounded as though you were trying to say,as a whole, one system was superior then the other, and I was focusing more on your statement then the semantics of the one you were responding to. So I apologize for that.

I think the point that was trying to be made was that Corel + Cocut/(other cutting plugin), and even if you bundled in rip software, you still have a more affordable solution. But really I don't think the OP was wanting to know about printing anyway, at least not from what I gathered from the title of the thread and his post.

As for us, our printer came with it's own ripping software, built specifically for that printer, that works just fine with our Corel setup. But.... We did find a way to printed projects directly from Corel. It's not near as nice compared to our rip software, here again because the rip software was made for the printer, so we never do it, but it is possible, at least with our printer. Regardless, we can accomplish the same jobs with our Corel setup as those who have Flexi.

I'm curious though, How does the newer versions of Flexi do with bitmap editing? Last time I used it, it wasn't quite up to par, but that was several years back. At the time it seemed kind of pointless to be able to rip from Flexi if it didn't have the bitmap editing tools that we were so used to using in Corel and Photoshop. Has it improved? I think we were using 6 or 7 then. I can't remember.

 

[ddarlak]

i started out on the gerber systems, then used corel, but have stayed with flexi for the last 15 years or so.

i would recommend flexi.