Summa Contour on winplot vs flexi 19 Opinions

[Wildgoose]

So I have resurrected an old Gerber Edge printer and am working on a decent workflow. I also got a gerber envision plotter to mate to the edge and have successfully printed and cut through Flexi 19 and these two machines. I have my trusty D75R cutter with OPUS and flexi seems capable of outputting to it. I would MUCH rather use my Summa than the gerber. (no offense to gerber lovers but ya got no clue what you're missing) I have not have time to give it a whirl yet due to the Christmas rush bust I was looking at it last night at midnight trying to determine if Fexi will feed the OPUS info correctly. I am an Illustrator user primarily and FLexi has a lot of stuff going on that I haven't learned yet. I read several posts in the Flexi section but none seemed to answer what I want to know

My real question for those who may have some actual experience is am better off spending the time working through Flexi production manager for both steps or would it work out better to output the file then swap over to winplot? I have no preference just don't want to spend the next 2 nights monkeying around only to discover that I went the wrong direction and have wasted my time.

I don't even use winplot for my regular cutting, I have a dongle for SignCut Pro 1 and just cut regular AI files for most of my HTV and sign vinyl work. It has some contour cut options but not ones that will utilize the OPUS. When I first got the cutter I messed around with some test projects so I would understand the OPUS and winplot worked fine but I don't like it for everyday cutting compared to SignCut. I have never had a printer until now and it didn't matter.

Any help you guys have is appreciated.

 

[rjssigns]

I run my Summa through Flexi. Production Manager separates printing from cutting. Each device has its own cue. Really simplifies workflow.

 

[Wildgoose]

Thanks for the reply. That's good news. I'll post up my thoughts after I give it a go.

I run my Summa through Flexi. Production Manager separates printing from cutting. Each device has its own cue. Really simplifies workflow.

 

[Wildgoose]

The cut side of the operation through the Production Manager was flawless on the Summa. Way easier than I expected. No communication errors or anything.

I am still struggling with the RIP settings in Flexi but I know it's just lack of experience on my part. I have been successful in 2 of 4 test print projects so with some more playing around I'll get that figured out.

 

[Wildgoose]

Follow-up. The Gerber enVision cutter does have the advantage of no loss of print space by using the single centered bombsight point whereas the summa registration marks eat into the small printing window of the Edge printer. All good things though. Both are up and running which made my Christmas break fun. Hard hat stickers here I come.

Gotta give a shout out to Jburns who I got this equipment from for being such a good dude.