can anyone advise on an optical eye for graphtec CE3000-60

[Jim Clough]

Have a look at http://www.thetransferpress. they have the Graphtec with or without the optical eye at a reduced price plus free stand.
Jim

[Robert Lambie]

peter
i do beleive that the optical eye can be fitted to your machine mate, but best calling direct. ask for neil, as he deals with uksg members.
i didnt know a whole lot about registration mark sensors and the like with cutters but over recent months ive been reading up. lots of suppliers offer this new feature, i think some of the first was summa and graphtec though word has it, graphtecs sensors are one of, if not, the most accurate. if you get one, it would be good to get some feedback later… 😀

[Jayne Marsh]

Jeff (Graphtec engineer) says there is an optical eye for the CE3000, ring Graphtec and they will tell you more detail. He says that they can be fitted even if you didnt buy one with the original machine ( but it will cost you ).

[Kevin.Beck]

i`ve got a summa with opos fitted.

if i remember rightly, i enquired if i could get it fitted at a later date, the answer was no. it may be different with your model though.

[Gordon Forbes]

Summa has 2 model D60 think its the D60s that has Opus not been out for very long.

Goop

[L J.]

http://www.thetransferpress./
Jim, that link doesn’t seem to work.
L J

[Marekdlux]

Just take off the “/” and add a “com” and it should work.
-Marek

[L J.]

cheers Marek

[Cheryl Tissington]

LJ you need .co.uk on the end of the link

try http://www.thetransferpress.co.uk

Great people, down to earth and very helpful

Cheers,

Cheryl 🙂

[Jim Clough]

OOps!
I forgot the co.uk on the end.
Jim

[L J.]

already found it, but thanks anyway Cheryl.
L J

[Andrew Bennett]

I know I’m the dumb one here but I have to ask.
An optical eye does what?
Do I need one for my Graphtec cutter please?
regards
Andy

[Marekdlux]

Andy,
It’s so you can cut digital prints on your plotter. You would print “Crosshairs” on your print at designated spots, then load in on your plotter and line up the “crosshairs” with the blade. (I think)
-Marek

[Kevin.Beck]

yep, thats more or less correct.

i have to create the job in 2 templates that contains 4 registration marks.

first template has the print job in it.

the second has the contour cut job in it.

print the job.

then place in the cutter. align the optical eye above the first reg mark, press the “go buttton” the machine then finds the reg marks, then returns back to the start position, you press cut, and the cutter contours cuts around the printed images.

i find this does a much better job than the plotter suppled with the gerber edge. all be it abit more long winded.

[Andrew Bennett]

Hmm.
Thanks for that.
So if I read you correctly, I don’t need a digital plotter just a digital printer then I can use my CE3000-60 to cut?
(slightly off topic- any idea’s on a really cheap digital printer?)
regards
Andy

[Bill Dewison]

One of the cheapest printers for doing printed stickers is a home inkjet printer. The inks are ridiculously cheap, the machines themselves are so cheap you literally throw them away if they break as they’re not worth fixing, its cheaper to buy a new one. For larger prints, Epson do a supersize A3 printer (Slightly smaller than SRA3), the 1290C. These can be picked up new for £300.

Only problem is what vinyl to print onto. I think its a tad more expensive than standard vinyl. The other alternative is to get sub-inks, but again its increasing the cost. Someone a while ago mentioned about laser printers being used to do the same job, but I can’t understand that as part of the process of a laser printer involves quite a high heat that would surely melt the vinyl? 😕 At the very least distort it.

Cheapest of the large format printers, or largish, is the PC60 I think. At the moment these are actually going up in price, which is puzzling 🙄 Big price jump though, as these are £1.5k or thereabouts.

Depending on how much the optical eye is for the Graphtec, if you are using the desktop inkjet to print from, it could be more cost effective to buy something like the CraftRobo. These are specifically designed for the task I’m led to believe.

Blimey, this is quite indepth for a Sunday morning! Where’d I put that newspaper? :lol1:

Cheers, Dewi

[Andrew Bennett]

THanks dewi.
Trouble is, as a 1290 owner, I don’t believe you can put vinyl through it.
It’s not mentioned in the instruction book.
If anyone knows different……….
regards
Andy

[Bill Dewison]

There is some vinyl available, I think its MagicTouch or Xpress who sell it. It was mentioned in an earlier thread. Graphtec also sell some compatible vinyl in A4 sheets I believe. Hopefully Jeffus will come on later and correct me if I’m wrong, but I know the products are available. Its similar to the magnetic sheeting that can be printed through an inkjet.

There was a firm at SignUK last year (not at this last one though 😕 ) called i-Sub. They sold augmentations (if thats even a word 🙄 ) for the 1290, allowing you to constantly refill your ink system through bottles. The whole thing looked very untidy and no doubt they’ve improved the system by now, but the benefit of the system was that you could easily switch to sublimination inks with a couple of cleaning cycles. The 1290 is a very versatile machine, Rodney Gold mentioned a flat bed version a couple of months ago that would print onto foamboard 😮

I’ll dig some details out if you’re interested Andy, it’ll all be in my well organised pile of suppliers catalogues. So well organised that even when the pile falls over and catalogues are strewn around my desktop, I can still find what I’m looking for in oooh, about an hour 🙄 😳

Cheers, Dewi

[Andrew Bennett]

Dig away please Dewi and thanks for the update.
most appreciated.
regards
Andy

[Dave Bruce]

I was at a show recently and they had a Xerox laser printer using wax ink, cheaper to run than usual laser as there is no oil required and no messy toner either. Cost about #370.

I put some Oracal 751 through it and it printed no trouble, I was testing it for small stickers. The colour was fantastic although you would need to laminate/frog juice the result to protect it, and it couldn’t do waterslide transfers, which was my main aim.

Cheers

Dave

[jeffus – Graphtec]

Hello,

The CE3000 and Fc5100 ranges can all have an optical eye (ARM graphtec jargon) , and they can be retro fitted at a later date, for the CE3000 they are about £200 + labour + vat and take about an hour to fit and set up.
If you want you can arrange to call into Graphtec and we can fit it while you wait, if you have an FC5100 that takes about 2 hours to fit £350 + Labour + vat.

with a bit of practice they are really easy to use, and can be very accurate, the process can be simplified even more depending on whose software you are using.

The process is basically create your design with your image and cut lines and reg marks, print the job , place it in your cutter , detect the reg marks, and press cut, certain software packages have there own reg marks that are printed when required so you don’t need them in your design.

Jeff

[Bill Dewison]

If you were using a desktop inkjet to print onto the vinyl, would the CraftRobo be a more cost effective solution for small stuff though Jeff? Boab said the CraftRobo was about the £300 mark, so at £200 + labour + VAT, the price difference isn’t much of an issue.

Cheers, Dewi

[L J.]

Dewi, that firm called i-sub was there this time, i was interested in the ink carts at £45 for eco-solvent plus instead of £58
L J

[magpie]

Great to see how the threads developed, for printing the decals I’d be looking at using my
Canon i965 (as recommended by Liquid Lens), however I suspect the inkjet vinyl they
supply is a little on the expensive side so I’ll be looking into that a little futher.
The CraftRobo (Dewi) mention had crossed my mind too, especially for an intitial foray into
the market.
Jeff (nice to meet you at the show btw) is the ‘Robo and the Ce3000
upgrade much of a muchness quality and accuracy wise?

Thanks everyone.

Peter

[Andrew Bennett]

Has anyone got a craft robo whereby they could post an example of the most intricate work it can do please (?)
regards
Andy

[magpie]

Great to see how the threads developed, for printing the decals I’d be looking at using my
Canon i965 (as recommended by Liquid Lens), however the I suspect the inkjet vinyl they
supply is a little on the expensive side so I’ll be looking into that a little futher.
The CraftRobo (Dewi) mention had crossed my mind too, especially for an intitial foray into
the market.
Jeff (nice to meet you at the show btw) accuracy wise is the ‘Robo and the Ce3000
upgrade much of a muchness quality and accuracy wise?

Thanks everyone.

Peter

[jeffus – Graphtec]

OOh right,

Craft Robo, is a great little machine, pretty accurate, you can create lots of different jobs , fancy cards, card models , and cut out decals, and it can cut standard vinyl, it cuts and area of A4 width and max approx 1m length, if you had one of these your CE3000 would still be free to do other jobs, the ce3000 with an arm kit will have a greater cut area and will be more robust and capable of cutting tougher materials and faster, the accuracy is not a problem on either machine, its a personal thing which way to go , for the money both options are cheap, perhaps as you already have the CE3000, go for a craft robo ,then when its made you loadsa money 😀 upgrade your CE3 to an arm and double your output of decals, http://www.graphteccorp.com/craftrobo/index.html follow this link to the craft robo page gives you an idea of what you can do with it.

Jeff

[Brian Christenson]

Hi Jeff. We have just been onto Graphtec in Wrexham and they have again told us that an opitcal eye cannot be fitted to the Graphtec FC5100-130 that we purchased from them. Help whose right? regards, Brian.

[Peter Dee]

Brian, did you notice the date of Jeff’s last post?
3 years ago!