Is there a Universal Cutter take up reel on the market?

[David Stevenson]

Haven’t seen a universal one about. I’d say for it to do what you want you’d need the genuine item. We bought one from digiprint which was great for print only jobs on our sp540 but couldn’t be used when cutting as the motor was constantly pulling the media using an adjustable clutch to stop the motor burning out.

[Robert Lambie]

The only true one to work that i know of is the Summa cutter with its automated take-up. £1000 extra add-on to a particular summa model of cutter (i forget the series)
it allows batches of printed graphics to be contour cut and then taken up by the reel.
it does this by reading a bar code periodically printed along with the graphics in batches.
the bar code allows for automated alignment and the take up system works each time a batch is printed, takes up, then feeds out the next x-amount of metres to be contour cut and repeats.

what i am trying to say, and i could be wrong, is that there needs to be a brain somewhere in the system to tell the take-up reel to kick-in, and when it does, how many metres at a time.
If a normal take up works on slack of the dance-bar or by breaking a laser and then taking up. it wont work, because it takes-up the slack till there is none. meaning as the cutter fires back and forward it will create a motor jam.

it could work easily if it was manually done each time by a simple button. but unattended is a different matter.

also, having a universal take-up would be pointless as the tracking will run out every 5 metres or so.

I purchased the Summa cutter for this very reason. roll to roll contour cutting of prints. however, i had to return it after months of fails and wasted media. Ultimately I was let down by the company "Perfect Colours" in overcoming the problems of what i believe in the end was a rogue/faulty machine, if not, i was miss-sold the machine by Perfect Colours.

[Steff Davison]

quote Robert Lambie:

The only true one to work that i know of is the Summa cutter with its automated take-up. £1000 extra add-on to a particular summa model of cutter (i forget the series)
it allows batches of printed graphics to be contour cut and then taken up by the reel.
it does this by reading a bar code periodically printed along with the graphics in batches.
the bar code allows for automated alignment and the take up system works each time a batch is printed, takes up, then feeds out the next x-amount of metres to be contour cut and repeats.

what i am trying to say, and i could be wrong, is that there needs to be a brain somewhere in the system to tell the take-up reel to kick-in, and when it does, how many metres at a time.
If a normal take up works on slack of the dance-bar or by breaking a laser and then taking up. it wont work, because it takes-up the slack till there is none. meaning as the cutter fires back and forward it will create a motor jam.

it could work easily if it was manually done each time by a simple button. but unattended is a different matter.

also, having a universal take-up would be pointless as the tracking will run out every 5 metres or so.

I purchased the Summa cutter for this very reason. roll to roll contour cutting of prints. however, i had to return it after months of fails and wasted media. Ultimately I was let down by the company “Perfect Colours” in overcoming the problems of what i believe in the end was a rogue/faulty machine, if not i was miss-sold the machine.

I think there was a problem with a certain batch of machines, I too had many problems with a Summa using cut server. Art systems were absolutely spot on and provided exceptional service. They ultimately replaced the machine for me.

Ive recently bought another Summa , same model this time I needed to register the machine specifically for use with the cut server, the machine hasnt missed a beat (it cuts for 8-10 hours a day) top notch machines.

[David McCarroll]

quote Robert Lambie:

The only true one to work that i know of is the Summa cutter with its automated take-up. £1000 extra add-on to a particular summa model of cutter (i forget the series)
it allows batches of printed graphics to be contour cut and then taken up by the reel.
it does this by reading a bar code periodically printed along with the graphics in batches.
the bar code allows for automated alignment and the take up system works each time a batch is printed, takes up, then feeds out the next x-amount of metres to be contour cut and repeats.

what i am trying to say, and i could be wrong, is that there needs to be a brain somewhere in the system to tell the take-up reel to kick-in, and when it does, how many metres at a time.
If a normal take up works on slack of the dance-bar or by breaking a laser and then taking up. it wont work, because it takes-up the slack till there is none. meaning as the cutter fires back and forward it will create a motor jam.

it could work easily if it was manually done each time by a simple button. but unattended is a different matter.

also, having a universal take-up would be pointless as the tracking will run out every 5 metres or so.

I purchased the Summa cutter for this very reason. roll to roll contour cutting of prints. however, i had to return it after months of fails and wasted media. Ultimately I was let down by the company “Perfect Colours” in overcoming the problems of what i believe in the end was a rogue/faulty machine, if not i was miss-sold the machine.

Every point you mentioned rob is the thoughts I’ve had and something also niggles me that you and I have spoke about this on here before or you have mentioned it previously.

We run Graphtec’s and tbh they never cause any problems so I doubt we’d switch to the summa cutter but it would be nice to have some form of a take up.

It seems I may have to go to the drawing board and see what I can come up with, even something simple along the lines of the cutter produces 1m of cut material and takes 1 minute so I leave the first 5x meters “on the deck” and set the take up/roll up at 2mins per meter so that it’s always running behind. Obviously not an unattended option as a whole and needs work for the speeds etc to work properly and efficiently but in the end it’d be nice not to have to roll up 50 meter rolls.

Thanks for the replies all (y)

[Luke Culpin]

For the amount of vinyl you are cutting I think it definitely warrants the summa with the take up! We bought for exactly the same reason and we wouldn’t look back! We’ve never had any issues with the machine or take up. Does a fantastic job, and to be honest, I’d say it’s the only solution to the problem! I can’t see you be able to make something that works as well as it needs to!