Just getting started

[earthling]

Background. I am an engineer with daily working knowledge of CAD/CAM and 3D printers. My wife is a graphic artist and both of us use illustrator, photoshop, etc..

Looking to pick up a vinyl cutter primarily for use in our own business needs and to give the kids another tool for moving images from computer to the physical world. We would also like to do some light production. Both of us are picky with quality/repeatability. (neither of us wants to fight equipment once we learn a workflow).

I have looked at some newer/cheap equipment and some higher end but older equipment (used, good condition).

One option I looked at was a used Summacut D60, I can pick this up for a very reasonable price and it looks to be basically unused.

1. Is the Summacut D60 a decent model to get started with? The new ones I noticed are dark in color, this one seems to be beige/white-ish so I assume its older than 5 years (maybe more).

2. Have any of the cheaper brands gotten to a point where they could be used as I described (reliable, high quality but low production volume).

If you could pick up a used Summacut for $300 or a newer plotter which would you choose?

Thanks

 

[balstestrat]

1) I think it can be up to 10 years old. I wouldn't touch a used one if you want quality/repeatability with ease. Other thing is you might need an older PC with Serial to even use it.

If you think you are going to use it for making money, get a new one. If you want one for kids to play around get the used one.

 

[Johnny Best]

Baistestrat is giving you the best advice you can get.

 

[earthling]

1) I think it can be up to 10 years old. I wouldn't touch a used one if you want quality/repeatability with ease. Other thing is you might need an older PC with Serial to even use it.

If you think you are going to use it for making money, get a new one. If you want one for kids to play around get the used one.

Thanks for that feedback. The unit only had a few days of use but unfortunately it was sold by the time I got back to the seller. I was not really concerned about compatibility at this point, software/system engineering is what I do, the field I work in still uses serial, parallel, GPIO, and other ancient technologies on a daily basis. My focus now is which of the newer cutters offer the best compromise in performance/reliability given that I will be using it at very low volumes.

Johnny Best this is not going to be used commercially in the sense that no direct output from it is ever going to be sold. At most it will be used to 'decorate' the store where our core business is events and design (think corporate, government, wedding, etc). When we need something for one of the events we go to our local sign guys as it is typically going to be large and/or have structural considerations (safety). Typically it will be used as I described, for STEM style education for the kids and some hands on practice with moving designs from the computer to the real world. We took the same approach to the 3D printer we bought and the kids have it going all the time now, I just thought a vinyl printer would be fun for them as well.

 

[Michael Colella]

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https://www.colex.com

 

[aerial]

I picked up a gently used Summa D60 on Craigslist years ago. I use it for occasional work. I design in Illustrator and connect my MacBook with USB. The files are sent to their free software, MacSign cut. It's a very nice machine.