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Suggestions Looking to purchase first routing table for the shop, suggestions?

ADVANCED DISPLAY

ADVANCED DISPLAY
I've decided I need a router for the shop. It just gives us so many capabilities we don't have that aren't huge but when they come up, I loose my shit. I'm really leaning hard towards an Esko (even if I haven't figured out how to pay for it) I'd love to hear from anyone who's had experience with this brand and/or other brands you may suggest Itake a look at?
 

FatCat

New Member
The question you must ask is "Do I need a router, or a digital cutting table?"

A true router is more industrial and will typically process heavier materials and metals with ease. While some do offer electronic eye for contour cuts, they aren't quite as refined as what you would find in a Zund, Esko or Summa digital cutting table. That said, the digital cutting tables typically won't excel at heavy duty materials and metals, but they are more friendly for sign shop needs when you need to cut down not only typical sheet goods, but roll materials like banners, posters, decals, etc.
 

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Like Sean pointed out - what do you really want/need out of the machine?

We just picked up a Summa F1612 last year and are pretty happy with it. Routing aspect definitely has some limitations but as a digital cutter it's been great.
Price point and footprint were a big deciding factor for us and it checked both those boxes.

In the meantime, if you can build a relationship with a local shop to do your routing and track your need/expenses related to outsourcing, it will help with the decision.

Good luck with your search, definitely one of the most exciting purchases we've made in a while and something I wanted ever since we added our first printer.
 

ADVANCED DISPLAY

ADVANCED DISPLAY
Yea, I guess digital cutter is what I'm really looking for. The most heavy duty workflow I'd need would be for .080" aluminum routing, which I don't have to do all that often. Although with the capability it'd really fastback orders if I can just cut shapes or signs period out of 4'x8' sheets. So I've not heard much about summa, I'm looking at their website now, looks fantastic. How much of a learning curve was there for you to get confident using it?
 

Robert Armerding

Listen Sharp
I've decided I need a router for the shop. It just gives us so many capabilities we don't have that aren't huge but when they come up, I loose my ****. I'm really leaning hard towards an Esko (even if I haven't figured out how to pay for it) I'd love to hear from anyone who's had experience with this brand and/or other brands you may suggest Itake a look at?
ADVANCED DISPALY First off, I am here to help you be more profitable.
Before you actually purchase the machine, there are some topics that we can discuss to help you make the best decision. You have touched on two of them in your thread. The first is that your router project is not profitable. Let's explore ways to correct that issue. FatCat and White Haus mentioned a couple of good ways. Let's dig deeper into this issue.
The second that you mentioned, "paying" for it. The price you pay for the machine is only one part of the picture. Once we take a close look, we may find that the total cost of the machine may be more than what you might lose on router sign projects. There is a profitable solution. We may have to hunt for it.
It is an important decision. I am here to help you make the best decision, the most profitable decision.
 

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Yea, I guess digital cutter is what I'm really looking for. The most heavy duty workflow I'd need would be for .080" aluminum routing, which I don't have to do all that often. Although with the capability it'd really fastback orders if I can just cut shapes or signs period out of 4'x8' sheets. So I've not heard much about summa, I'm looking at their website now, looks fantastic. How much of a learning curve was there for you to get confident using it?

Learning curve was a factor, but not horrible. Unfortunately we've slowed down quite a bit since we got this unit and learning on and off has been super inefficient, but it's fairly easy to use. If you're familiar with printers and roll plotters, it's not really that different. As far as I know Esko/Summa/Multicam/Zund etc. all have proprietary software and their way of doing things, so that's definitely something to look into and decide which one you'd like to operate the most. The machine (Summa) itself is fantastic and when you cross all the T's and dot all the i's, it will do a great job. Like anything else there are steps that need to be remembered and taken when using it in order to get the best results. I guess that's kind of a vague answer but hopefully you get when I'm sayin'.
 

FatCat

New Member
Yea, I guess digital cutter is what I'm really looking for. The most heavy duty workflow I'd need would be for .080" aluminum routing, which I don't have to do all that often. Although with the capability it'd really fastback orders if I can just cut shapes or signs period out of 4'x8' sheets. So I've not heard much about summa, I'm looking at their website now, looks fantastic. How much of a learning curve was there for you to get confident using it?

We have a Summa F-1612 as well. It's a great all-round machine, with a much lower price point than a Zund or Esko. Big shops might argue it's not built to the same level as Zund or Esko, and I would agree, but it is still just as capable. But for about half the price, it does pretty much everything they will do. We love ours, doesn't run daily, but many times a week and we've done some pretty big jobs on it. We have the standard router, the HD knife, the Double Edge knife, oscillating knife, drag knife and kiss-cut tool. We cut down posters, banners, static cling and other thin materials off our R2R machines. We cut coro with the HD knife or Double edge knife, we do the oscillating knife for foam board and the router will cut just about anything else like PVC, poly-metal, acrylic, etc.

You're not too far from my shop, if you want to come down and see it run just shoot me a PM.
 

PHILJOHNSON

Sales Manager
Good morning,

As previously mentioned, the F1612 is a capable and more affordable alternative to the other brands you mentioned. We have some really nice promos on the F-Series machines right now and have worked with many members here on the site, including Sean. Let me know if I can answer any questions about the different tool, software, and media handling options for the F-Series and if you might be interested in seeing some pricing and I would be happy to help however I can.

Best regards,

Phil Johnson
Airmark Corporation
(800)527-7778, ext 112(office)
(509)280-6354(cell)
philj@airmark.com
 

brdesign

New Member
the shop I used to work at had a Summa F1612 it's a great multi purpose machine and doesn't take up much floor space, but I would not recommend it for cutting aluminum. It works great on ACM but it's not built for .080 Aluminum. The only thing I don't like about it, is that it only works with the Summa software. The newer Summa Go software is a HUGE improvement over the software that originally came with the machine, but it would be nice to have the option of using more advanced software with it.



Yea, I guess digital cutter is what I'm really looking for. The most heavy duty workflow I'd need would be for .080" aluminum routing, which I don't have to do all that often. Although with the capability it'd really fastback orders if I can just cut shapes or signs period out of 4'x8' sheets. So I've not heard much about summa, I'm looking at their website now, looks fantastic. How much of a learning curve was there for you to get confident using it?
 

zspace

Premium Subscriber
If you're looking for a cutting table and not just a router, Colex is worth putting on your radar I'm impressed with the edge quality of acrylic - not quite flamed but pretty nice.
 

a77

New Member
If you're looking for a cutting table and not just a router, Colex is worth putting on your radar I'm impressed with the edge quality of acrylic - not quite flamed but pretty nice.
Hi zspace, do you have a colex or are you going off of the samples colex gives out?
 

CanuckSigns

Active Member
I have an F1612 and it's a good machine for 90% of sign shops looking for a digital cutter. The router functionality leaves much to be desired, but most of the limitations are in the software, so hopefully they get improved over time.

Cutting 0.080" aluminum is not something I would do with this machine, even with the heavy duty spindle, to properly cut metal you need to use a coolant mist to keep the bit cool, and that isn't possible with any of the belt fed machines, not to mention the mist will get into the camera system and ruin it, then you are looking at $10,000 or more to get that fixed.

If you want to cut aluminum look for a proper CNC router, even a used shopbot would work fine for this
 

White Haus

Not a Newbie
I grabbed a ShopSabre IS612 at the end of last year with a camera on it. It's very nice, reads marks reliably, cuts aluminum with mister, amazing edges on acrylic, came with a 25hp vacuum which has been a dream over an old 3hp blower, the camera auto retracts when not in use and has a manual lens cap cover to protect from misting and chips, F*CKING POPUP PINS for lining up sheets that auto retract before cutting, so otherwise the table is all flat, 5 position tool rack, auto tool length measurer, and was only about $90k.
Learning curve hasn't been the worst, since I've been generating my own g-code for 10 years now, but to most other folks you'll want to use a good post processor to make your files.

That looks like a bada$$ setup! Is knowing g-code required for running a CNC like this? Any tips for learning/getting my feet wet with g-code? Would love to get a small CNC to play around with, rather than wreck our Summa F trying to run materials I shouldn't be lol.
 

Josh Martinez

X-Edge Products Excellent Speed, Excellent Quality
I've decided I need a router for the shop. It just gives us so many capabilities we don't have that aren't huge but when they come up, I loose my ****. I'm really leaning hard towards an Esko (even if I haven't figured out how to pay for it) I'd love to hear from anyone who's had experience with this brand and/or other brands you may suggest Itake a look at?

We test our tools with a MultiCam 1R with a drag knife and oscillating knife. This is a great router and knife system. We also have a MultiCam 3000. This is older and does not have a knife system. Both have been amazing with no problems. Might be worth looking into. I wish you best of luck.

Josh
 

zspace

Premium Subscriber
Hi zspace, do you have a colex or are you going off of the samples colex gives out?
We have been installing this week. So far the acrylic we cut has great edges. We also got very clean cuts on .063 aluminum. We haven’t tried .080 yet. It’s done a good job with foam board and the belt worked well for a roll of diamond reflective decals.

That’s all I can tell you after 2 days of working with it.
 

White Haus

Not a Newbie
It is not a requirement at all, they even provide a 'free' copy of Vcarve pro and have their own post processor, so it can be very simple. I'm just so married to corel that I would rather put offsets on my parts in there, as well as layer all my parts (holes, then insides of letters, then outsides of letters, etc) myself. It all stems from when we lost a functioning copy of gravostyle 98 during a particularly hard time financially speaking, so buying another CAD at that moment was not an option. It's really backwards to do it the way I do, but it's just habit at this point. I am currently having one of my employees watch all the videos for vectric so perhaps they can make files, but we will see.
The support has been great as well. The one giant bump in the road we hit was the electrician not knowing the startup amp draw on the motor was going to be insane for a 25hp motor (900 Amps on 220v 3 phase), but once that was determined it was smooth sailing.
If you are looking into doing coro displays and stuff, they also have a creasing wheel and oscillating knife setup.

Good to know, thanks. We do have a Summa flatbed cutter that we can do coro etc. on but I'm realizing that (when we can afford the $ and space) a dedicated CNC would be a valuable asset. Do all the clean and/or roll stuff on the Summa, and leave the dusty/heavy duty cutting to a true CNC with a powerful router.
 

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Yeah, that's the one thing I didn't much consider when I got the camera system. Here is a big fat for instance. We use belin upcut bits, which work great on aluminum up to .125" in a single pass, as well as ACM, but when cutting with the camera on a print, the upcut bit pulls the edges of the vinyl up, requiring some cleanup. After I did this the first time, I said H*LL NO, this should be a finished product, so I set the machine up to read the marks, but then to also cut the marks out (The marks for this can be set to different things, for instance this run was .25" black circles.) Once it cut the circles, I slapped pieces of black vinyl over the holes, flipped the panel, flipped the artwork so it would match, then reran the camera scan program with the actual shape instead this time. It worked great, no lifting on the vinyl in the least! Though I did find out the vaccuum is strong enough to pull the panel into the table, and any chips left behind before the panel was loaded will be nicely pressed into the vinyl/sheet itself. Also, anywhere the cut line traversed a line previously cut into the table did not actually cut all the way through the laminate. The lam was pulled into the trough by the vacuum while the bit cut the dibond and the print material. Long story short, cutting prints out of dibond should be done with a straight or downcut bit.


That's good to know. We also use a Belin U/C bit for cutting dibond w/ prints and ran into the same issue. Some laminates work better than others, but 3M 8518 definitely leaves a crappy edge. I've tried adding a cheap premask before routing, and that helps a bit, but not 100%. I will try your method (Summa has a way to cut on backside) and see how that works.

Any specific P/N's for the Belin straight/downcut bits you've had good success with on dibond with prints? Makes sense that the "exit wound" should be on the bottom so you're not chewing up your prints.

I tried playing around with routing some aluminum (pretty sure it was .040 or .060) on our Summa and it just chewed the crap out of it. Not sure if it's even worth playing with without misting/cooling but it was a bit of a failed experiment.

PHILJOHNSON I would be curious to know if any of your customers have successfully cut aluminum with the Standard router on the F Series?
 

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Just to be clear, you're going to try the downcut bit with the graphic facing up, right? Just saying, doing both a down cut bit and cutting from the backside is going to do the same thing as an upcut bit cutting face up. I'm pretty sure you got me. Belin LMT [HASHTAG]#22476[/HASHTAG] works well. They advise having space between the material and cutting table, though I find MDO surface with ACM chips, they just kindly disintegrate anyways, just don't expect it to cut acrylic without fusing the chips back into the part.
View attachment 152466

Awesome, thanks! And yes, I would try downcut with prints facing up to hopefully eliminate the need to flip it over. We do have a cutting mat/underlay we put down down when routing so we don't chew up the belt, I wonder if I could get away with using a thin sacrificial sheet of MDO instead, probably a hell of a lot cheaper!
 

Raum Divarco

General Manager CUTWORX USA / Amcad & Graphics
We have been installing this week. So far the acrylic we cut has great edges. We also got very clean cuts on .063 aluminum. We haven’t tried .080 yet. It’s done a good job with foam board and the belt worked well for a roll of diamond reflective decals.

That’s all I can tell you after 2 days of working with it.
have you tried the 8mm bits that can work with the right collet. Those make short work of certain projects that dont have smaller details.
 
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