Summa S140D or Roland GX-640 contour cutter?

[graememck]

Just wanting some opinions on which will be the best contour cutter out of these two options (Graphtec do not have a local supplier in New Zealand).

I am just getting into this, having just purchased a HP Latex 260 with an Onyx RIP (version 11) as well as already having two indoor ink jets (Canon ipf8300 and Epson 9600). We will probably do runs of stickers as well as small runs of wall decals, etc. Don't envisage doing too much outdoor signage, but who knows.

The Roland can cut the wider width (64" as opposed to 54"), but the Summa can use more registration marks when cutting. The Summa is the previous generation (S rather than S2). The quotes I have for both cutters are very similar to one another so as not to be a factor when purchasing.

I have searched the forums, but I thought I might get more exact opinions from people who have used either cutter. I can't find too many opinions/reviews about the Roland. Any opinions welcome, especially from people who have direct experience with either cutter.

Regards, Graeme

 

[AF]

Summa will compensate for the distortion caused by the 260 if you get the OPOS version of summa and print with barcode out of onyx. Nothing will compensate Onyx's registration misalignment of cut path to printed image. Use huge bleeds until they patch their rip.

 

[FrankW]

Forget the Roland for contour cutting. It is much slower, less accurate, more complicate to adjust, have more fails in recognizing markers, less features than the Summa.... over all not competitive and technically outdated. You will not get lucky specially when wanting to do contour cutting with latex-prints.

 

[hotrod46]

Summa the better choice

For workhorse reliability and repeatability I would choose the Summa.

 

[graememck]

Thanks

Thanks for the replies. I was leaning towards the Summa from what I could glean from other posts in the forums, and what you have all said just helps confirm this. As to the Onyx RIP and Summa cutters I have also read about the misalignment in the other posts—I will probably cut from other software (Mac/Win plot) until that is sorted.

 

[FrankW]

No issues here with misalignment using Onyx and Summa-Plotters.

 

[graememck]

Summa is Summacut

I had a chance to actually look at the actual Summa cutter today and it wasn't the same as the brochure they sent me. The brochure was for an S series 140D but the one they want to sell me is the Summacut (R series?)—which looks flimsy by comparison.

So, given this, is the Summacut R series 140D better than the Roland GX-640 Pro? The Roland is cheaper and can cut 64"