i have been looking through forum and come across summa graphtec and roland cutters, i am totally new to this and am searching to find which machine to buy as a beginner, i plan to do signs and vehicle graphics and maybe progress into vehicle wrapping but it will be one step at a time, is there any other brand of machine that i should consider, and the other thing that i am not sure about is the size of machine to purchase, i am quite happy to buy a secondhand machine, and one last question, are some make of machines cheaper to run/maintain than others, any help and advice most welcome, thanks rab
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summa graphtec or roland or other?
- Thread starter rab
- Start date
CreatedDesigns
New Member
You can get a Graphtec FC7000/FC8000-130 for some decent coin. Under $3K to start out with. These will accept 60" material and produce up to 600 grams of cutting force.
rjssigns
Active Member
Summa's tech support is second to none. When you call there is a human in the other end. Email with a question and a rep calls you back same day. Usually within a couple hours. Although the only reason I've ever called was to ask a question about a larger cutter with OPOS. Our old(nearing 15 yrs) Summa keeps running.
Dennis422
New Member
As you have seen above, Summa is a great product. I have not use one, but I have never heard or seen a bad comment about them.
Graphtec is a great product too, I have owned 2 of them. CE5000-60 that I have sold few months ago. Now I own FC8600-130 and I love the cutter.
No issues whatsoever. Why I went with them instead of Summa? Summa was way out of my price range, and as far as the support, I'm not much worried about it because there are not many issues with a Graphtec cutters.
Tracking is not as great as with Summa (I heard that and I'm guessing it it true) but I have not seen many issues with mine since I owned it.
Roland, I do not know, my hunch is that I would trust them more with the printers than with the cutters.
Graphtec is a great product too, I have owned 2 of them. CE5000-60 that I have sold few months ago. Now I own FC8600-130 and I love the cutter.
No issues whatsoever. Why I went with them instead of Summa? Summa was way out of my price range, and as far as the support, I'm not much worried about it because there are not many issues with a Graphtec cutters.
Tracking is not as great as with Summa (I heard that and I'm guessing it it true) but I have not seen many issues with mine since I owned it.
Roland, I do not know, my hunch is that I would trust them more with the printers than with the cutters.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
No issues with our Roland cutters.
Have no idea about their service department though as I have never had a need to call.
Used all 3 and prefer the Summa, although we still have several Graphtec flatbeds (they are used for one specific task.) If price were of no consequence I would switch all of our flatbeds to Summa.
Summa equipment is extremely reliable and Summa Tech support is the best. Period.
You will need tech support at some point, unless you are a hobbyist or a genius. Tech support is just as important as the equipment itself.
Make sure that your choice fits into the rest of your workflow.
Make sure your revenues support the equipment price.
Good luck and have fun!
Summa equipment is extremely reliable and Summa Tech support is the best. Period.
You will need tech support at some point, unless you are a hobbyist or a genius. Tech support is just as important as the equipment itself.
Make sure that your choice fits into the rest of your workflow.
Make sure your revenues support the equipment price.
Good luck and have fun!
graphtec all the way
the FC series graphtecs cut at 58 inches per sec.....twice as fast as almost all the other "pretenders". Roland has a new cutter that comes in at about 3/4 of that speed for the same money. why not get your work done twice as fast? if you just want to cut vinyl then you can usually find a roland camm-1 for $200-300.....they run on xp even. that's almost free.
the FC series graphtecs cut at 58 inches per sec.....twice as fast as almost all the other "pretenders". Roland has a new cutter that comes in at about 3/4 of that speed for the same money. why not get your work done twice as fast? if you just want to cut vinyl then you can usually find a roland camm-1 for $200-300.....they run on xp even. that's almost free.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Be careful with using fastest speed as your bench mark.
I don't know of a machine that something isn't sacrificed the quicker your run it, typically quality (especially the longer it goes in a single sitting depending on the machine you are talking about).
Depending on what your substrate is, running at top speed may not be the best thing to do.
CreatedDesigns
New Member
I agree on the speed not being used to judge if its the best or not. I run my Graphtec at 10-20cm/s most times. It does just fine. On another note, I would love to try a Summa.
rshacklett
Wholesale Sign Specialist
Summa for sure
I'd keep an eye out for a used Summa even... A used Summa will be better than a new Graphtec. I've owned both. Graphtec will do a decent job, but is considerably more buggy, and can't take large amounts of work. We consistently had to let ours cool off for 30 minutes after running for 30 minutes. If we didn't, it would start screwing up, and that gets really costly really fast. I was soo happy when I sold my FC7000... Luckily the guy I sold it do was really only doing vinyl cutting as a hobby, so his workload was practically nil.
We currently have 2 of the T series, and one F-Series. Perfectly reliable, great registration... just plain and simple work horses!
I'd keep an eye out for a used Summa even... A used Summa will be better than a new Graphtec. I've owned both. Graphtec will do a decent job, but is considerably more buggy, and can't take large amounts of work. We consistently had to let ours cool off for 30 minutes after running for 30 minutes. If we didn't, it would start screwing up, and that gets really costly really fast. I was soo happy when I sold my FC7000... Luckily the guy I sold it do was really only doing vinyl cutting as a hobby, so his workload was practically nil.
We currently have 2 of the T series, and one F-Series. Perfectly reliable, great registration... just plain and simple work horses!