printing vinyl?

[Karl Williams]

You will need either a thermal printer, ie, gerber edge or an eco solvent or full solvent printer for the image to stay fixed to the vinyl.
You must ensure that your rip software is rigged up to be capable of contour cutting and have a cutter with the opos eye to read the markers on your image.
Your desktop printer runs on water based inks and so would not adhere
to the vinyl. There are many printers out there so you would have to do your homework to assess your needs before buying one.

Karl.

[Chris Wool]

depends if for fun or reward.
a lot of the newer photo desktop run pigmented type inks i think epson do vinyls some ingenuity of lining up the cutter and laminate.

else something like a versacamm colourcamm or edge etc.

chris

[dcurzon]

Thanks, gives me somewhere to start from – my cutter doesnt have optical eye.

although those little craft robo’s do, and would be more than big enough…

i’ll have to look into those printers. thermal would be no good, as i would be doing colour.

thanks again 🙂

[Peter Normington]

thermals can do colour, why do you think they cant?

There is no cheap way to print outdoor durable vinyl stickers, by cheap I mean cheaper than others so as to compete, You can do limited stuff with a laser printer, and it may be a solution for your needs. Try http://WWW.themagictouch.co.uk as a reference point,

Peter

[Phil Barnfield]

i guess you was thinking thermal as in heat transfer type paper…. like till rolls and the like.

I too am looking for a good quality Solvent printer to get into the digital era 🙄 I feel I am missing out on a fair chunk of work with solid vinyls. Trouble is the price of the equipment aint cheap, even second hand.

I would be looking for a 24" width print and cut. Any suggestions?? Guess I would need a laminator too?

Sorry to hijack the post, but I was going to ask the same question, so it makes sense for us both to get advice from one post 😛

[Peter Normington]

most inkjets now start off at 750mm. Personally I would go for a separate cutter. (What do you do if your printer is working and you want to knock up a few vinyl signs?) you don’t need a laminator to start with, you can always laminate manually until you can afford the laminator

Ordinary stickers and the like I woudnt bother to lam, there is also the liquid lam or frogjuice route, never tried it myself but others have (a lot of large format print producers now go for liquid lam.

Peter

[Phil Barnfield]

just emailed The Magic Touch. Very interesting website with video’s on there. Currently I own a Oki C3100 which although is a base model, I am certain it will print to dedicated vinyl media, self clings and transfers.

I have emailed them to confirm and see if I can get a sample pack sent to me. Its a start, at least I can do small runs of stickers. Then I can progress to a large format printer……… when I have some more pennies mind you!! :lol1:

[David Rowland]

quote dcurzon:

what would be the best way of aligning to get my cutter to cut around the graphic afterwards?

don’t, just use a scalpel and remove the crap then tape.

[Peter Normington]

quote Dave Rowland:

quote dcurzon:

what would be the best way of aligning to get my cutter to cut around the graphic afterwards?

don’t, just use a scalpel and remove the crap then tape.

thats fine dave, for a large graphic, but not really practical for a 100 decals?

peter

[David Rowland]

thats right… no practical at all unless you stick to rectangles 🙂

Peter when you get bored of that cutter, stick it in the post for me.

[Peter Normington]

I would dave, but the new postage rates only allow it if it will fit through a letterbox 😉

Peter

[Phil Barnfield]

was thinking the same. Not sure Dave’s answer is the best one 🙄

I am using a CT630 (chinese and cheap gags at the ready), so I have a cutter. But if I were to print and then feed to this cutter, how would I get it aligned to suit? It doesnt have optical eye on it – obviously :lol1:

Either that or look into a craft robo or another one of creations madness mini cutters (think they have optical) if I decide to do small A4 sheets only.

[Martin Pearson]

Phil you may be very dissapointed with the stuff that is available for your Oki printer, I know the Oki printers that are sold by people like LG for doing some sort of sign work are modified and operate at higher temperatures etc than standard machines.
I got some samples from various companies a couple of years ago and had a try because I had an Oki 5400N and the results were not really that good and the colours faded in a relatively short period of time. Maybe things have changed since then but I wouldn’t have used the printer I had at the time for any proper sign work.

[carla ritchie]

we use oki c3100 and the c3200 basically same machine we print to lg vinyl a4 sheets no problem great quality
we also spend some time drawing in flexisign the outlines of the graphic printed thensizes them equally spaced like the print very tricky but patients is a vertue not really cost effective in time though

[Martin Pearson]

Were either of these 2 machines supplied by LG or are they both bog standard OKI printers? I couldn’t get very good results on the C5400N which I believe is similar to the C3100 and the prints didn’t really last very well outside even when laminated.

[Phil Barnfield]

still looking for a basic "starter" type print and cut machine. As suggested, the Oki is fine, but I might as well bite the bullet and go for a large format jobby and do all sorts with it.

Any suggestions on something to get me started. Bearing in mind above comments re seperate printer and cutter – I already have a 24" cutter which I intend to keep using.

[dcurzon]

am in the same boat as phil…

thanks for all the suggestions people, i’ll look into firther options, i might just farm it out for now 🙂

[Phil Barnfield]

quote dcurzon:

am in the same boat as phil…

thanks for all the suggestions people, i’ll look into firther options, i might just farm it out for now 🙂

so much choice out there too. Confusing! Plus there is such a variance in price too! 🙄

[Rod Young]

quote Phil Barnfield:

dcurzon wrote:
am in the same boat as phil…

thanks for all the suggestions people, i’ll look into firther options, i might just farm it out for now

so much choice out there too. Confusing! Plus there is such a variance in price too!

Hmm, okay. Fortunately, there were a couple people recently asking about colour theory and colour management, and the following two videos can likewise help you to better understand your requirements. They were created to help SignLab users, though they have enough general information to be of benefit.

Video on Color Theory
http://www.cadlink.com/infoSource/nfo_s … Theory.php

Video on Color Management
http://www.cadlink.com/infoSource/nfo_s … build8.php

Regards,

Rod at CADlink

[Phill Fenton]

I have a 30" Cadet which I am very happy with. This prints and cuts which makes it ideal for labels as well. It’s the same as a Versacamm but modified to take a different ink. If I hadn’t bought the Cadet I would probably have bought the Versacamm. I also have a seperate 24" cutter which is in constant use for vinyl. The cadet also provides a backup cutter if need be. I think the combined printer cutter has many advantages but you obviously pay more for the additional cutting feature over a straightforward printer only.

[Graeme Speirs]

same as phill for me but I have a bigger one 😀 the cadet plus that is, got to say its been fantastic, I mainly print banners but have had a few print and cut jobs of late ie: 200 large stickers, I can pretty much set the job up and let it print and cut, return in an hour and its done. the versacamm is pretty much the same but was 4k dearer when I looked. You wil pick up a second user cadet 30" for about 5-6k and a 54" one like mine for circa £9k.

edit – sorry meant to say I srated with an omega 760mm cutter which I still use, its not worth selling although I could do with the space. I ran my first cut vinyl job on the cadet plus last week and it worked out well so as phill says the cadet is a great spare cutter when the other one fecks up.

all the best,
graeme

[dcurzon]

(mod-edit)

[dcurzon]

oops, sorry mod 🙂