Advice required

[Nigel Fraser]

Steve,

Is that 2K including the PC aswell ?
I started using a 610mm Roland and it was a really good little machine, in fact it never put a foot wrong in 5 years I had it. I guess what you sould buy depends on where you are intending on going with you business. If you are planning to grow and tackle progressively bigger jobs then I would strongly recommend going for a 610 plotter not the narrow Rolands as this will undoubtedly cause you frustration later on.
If however you are only going to do this as a “hobby” and want to knock out names for boats, bike graphics etc etc then maybe the Sticka range would be adaquate for you. “Horses for courses” I guess.
Dont know what software you will use though – I use Coreldraw for all my designwork (except digital print images) and cut using a little driver program called “Signscript” which just allows you to import AI or EPS files, scale/rotate and cut on most plotters. You can have a copy of this if its any help, I think the people who wrote this have long since gone out of business so shouldn’t be a problem.

Hope that’s some help…?

Nigel

[Steve Smith]

Cheers Nigel.
The 2K does not include a PC. I have several PC’s already. It would be nice to use one of these PC’s on a project that could pay for itself in the long run. I understand what you mean about getting a 610 unit rather than a smaller one. As I expect I will asked to tackle a few bigger jobs later, when word gets round (at work and play) that I’ve got a new toy.

Software should not be a problem, I’ve already got a good selection by Corel and Adobe plus others. I already do a fair bit of graphic work, including a few websites etc for local bike clubs.

[Bill Dewison]

Nigel, does the Signscript integrate into Corel or is it a seperate program? It sounds similar to Wincut.

Cheers, Dewi

[Nigel Fraser]

Dewi/Steve

Signscript is a separate program completely, I just layout all the design in Corel as I want it cut and export it as an EPS file, then bring that into Signscript. It will do stuff like paneling, cutting different colours separately, mirroring, scaling etc. The only real prob I have had with it is that it gets a little upset if you try and bring a REALLY complex design with 10’s of thousands of nodes in to it, but its worked for me for 10yrs+ !

Steve, you will still need another “driver” program of some sort for outputting your files from your design package. You can get a “plug-in” for corel I think called co-cut but never used it so don’t know if it’s any good. I’m assuming that you don’t get any free software with the new Rolands and the like ?

Nigel

[Bill Dewison]

I looked into the Cocut plugin here:

http://www.cocut.com/index.dml?unten=pr … m&von=html

(!) Hope Robert doesn’t mind me posting this link, I’m not advertising them as such, just quicker than explaining it. (!)

It looks pretty good, but I like the sound of this SignScript, it saves spending £250+ atm for a sign package that I have to get used to, when I already know Corel fairly well. And if you been using it for 10+ years without a problem, its a good advert for doing it that way. Is Signscript downloadable from anywhere?

Cheers, Dewi

[Nigel Fraser]

Dewi,

I just had a go at posting it as a ZIP file for you (+others) don’t know if its too big a file for Rob to let me put on here though 😕

If it works and you got any questions just drop me a line….

Nigel

[Bill Dewison]

Nigel,

Just downloaded it, thanks for that 😀 I shall go and have a little play 😉

Cheers, Dewi

Edit: Just unzipped it, installed it, works a treat! 🙂 Now if Father Christmas brings me a plotter I can start making signs 😉

[Kevin.Beck]

when I was looking for a 12inch cutter, i bought a 2nd hand stika, sent it back straight away. its a toy nothing more.

2nd hand 610mm cutters can be bought for £600ish