48"/1220 + plotter wanted can you help me find one!?

[J. Hulme]

quote PGsigns:

Hi People,

Just starting a sign business, and want to get a 48″/1220mm plotter, :

Do you think you’ll ever plot to full available width? I don’t.
610mm vinyl (whatever width machine) you buy is the most popular size.
A machine the desired size, I bet you’ll never need. All a big machine does is take up space. If new to it all, ever thought about a Roland stikka? 😉
Maybe not, 610’s a little too wide. 😉

[Kevin.Beck]

got to agree with outline.

I`ve got a roland 610 and a muto 1250, the muto only gets uncovered twice a week…

The 1250 comes in handy sometimes, but theres things like

space,
vinyl price
storage of vinyl

to be concidered

[Robert Lambie]

Got to disagree with you both guys..

We had a 24inch Roland
And a Roland pc60 printer which is capable of cutting also. 24inch wide.
We then bought a 48 inch Roland that cut flat out from 9am till 5:30pm full width half width whatever.. We hardly used the 610 anymore.
We then bought a Graphtec 54 inch wide… same story cuts flat out alongside the Roland 48” so much so we stuck the small roland in storage and never used it again.
The pc60 was used daily but never for just cutting.

Most of your jobs coming in will be up to 24inch wide… but!
Why restrict yourself? When designing I bet you say to yourself… better drop the size of that a little or it will have to be tiled.
Cutting time is also increased on large machines. You can take all the text you would have on a transit van. Stack it on screen and hit cut… and walk away… within a few mintutes the jobs completed… no moving to next start point or retracking etc…
Roll width…
You buy twice the width of a roll of vinyl but pay less for it…
e.g. 24 inch wide roll £2 a metre – 48 inch wide roll £3.75 a metre
So you are also saving because the rolls aren’t slit reboxed etc…
So instead of buying 6 metres at 24inch wide you could buy 3 and save.
On top of this, god knows how many sign companies pop in to get large stuff cut on our machines, so you could offer a trade cutting service also if you wished.

Flat cut Perspex letters etc
… The extra width allows you to pen plot text on arc for templates and more..

Years ago we had a large contract which we ended up losing simply because our machine was 24inch wide. We could do everything on the vehicles except a large logo on the side. We did in 2 tiles. The customer was unhappy, so we had to buy in from a trade supplier, increase cost and increasing turnaround time.
Our customer got fed-up after some late arrivals of graphics due to buying in and went elsewhere… we lost about £20 grand of the order. If he would have told us he was going to go to someone else we would have just bought a machine. But doesn’t work like that…

Nowadays with the machines we have we know this wont happen again.
There are many advantages of having large machines, more than I have just stated.
And for what a couple of grand more?
The cutter is your bread and butter.. The most used tool you will invest in…
Look at all the advantages and buy the best you can afford. Second hand may sound a good choice but comes with nothing other than a handshake and smile.
You don’t know how heavy it has worked… May have an almost burned out motor cost hundreds to replace… the list goes on… I am not saying all second hand sales are like this.. Im merely pointing this out, its worth thinking about.
😀

[Bill Dewison]

Humble opinion, but I’m guessing it depends on your wallet. I agree fully that I alter designs to fit the plotter I work with, it makes life easier, but the 610 plotters are a starting point.

If you’ve got the cash to jump to a 48″, you got the best of both worlds. You can still use 610mm rolls but you have the option to go upto the 1220mm any time you choose. You’re not limited on your designs, and as Robert has pointed out, the versatility of a 1220 plotter is greater than that of a 610.

So if your wallet is brimming with bank notes, or your bank manager likes you, why not! 😀 Rarely seen them 2nd hand though 🙁

Cheers, Dewi

[Nigel Fraser]

I definately agree with Rob on this one – I started off with a 610 Roland cutter and often found myself reducing things a bit to avoid going over the cut width and also you can cut large blocks of text like a whole sign in one go all ready centred/spaced correctly.
When I upgraded to my current Mutoh 1220 plotter I though I would only use it’s full size odd occasions but I was totally wrong ! I would 100% recommend anyone to upgrade to a larger machine if the budget allows although I don’t think it is necessarily a good idea if starting from scratch with no experience and a limited budget.
Don’t forget you can still run your 610 wide vinyl through a 1220 machine easy enough but on the whole I bet you would end up buying 1220 once you’d tried it !

Nigel

[Andy Gorman]

I have exactly the same decision to make at the moment so appreciate all of the above comments. I have used larger plotters before and the ability to run large quantities on the bigger material can be a great bonus. I find myself designing to the plotter size also, which is a restriction I would rather not have limited to 610. I also find that certain types of work, for example window etch, often require a much larger size than 610. I think I’ve probably convinced myself to go for 48inch; now I’ve just got to convince ‘er indoors.

[Robert Lambie]

Your right dewi, at the end of the day it is down to the budget. Going straight to 1230 etc is/can be a big step if just starting out. But depends on what type of thing you will be going for.
Could it be a trade service, could it be fleet graphics etc etc?
Something that is very handy when having a large cutting plotter is light boxes.
Take a menu board, you have plain white/opal Perspex. Stick in any colour of translucent vinyl and reverse weed the text on the menu once cut. Apply as one and you now have coloured perspex with illuminated white text (no joins)
Same goes for light box fascia signs. The actual text on the fascia maybe 15inch high but the depth of the fascia is 30inch. To try and flood this Perspex with a vinyl to change colour would mean a join right up the middle that when illuminated stands out like a sore thumb.
24inch machines are more than capable of churning out work, day in day out for any size of sign company.
But I am guessing PGSigns is after the larger model for a reason… maybe not…