purchasing new plotter?

[Lorraine Buchan]

Hi Mike,

The only thing i can really say is that when i was looking at these two plotters the main difference that swung my choice was the fact that the D60 can work of a usb port this should make installation easier and data transfer faster. Otherwise i found there was very little difference between the two, in the end though i didn’t get either as i was fortunate enough to be able to buy a cutter from the old company i worked for.

One point of warning though, if you do decide to go for the D60 and want to use it via the usb port make sure your sign softwear supports it via usb as some older softwear doesn’t.

[Michael Stevenson]

Hi Lorraine,
thanks for the info. good points I’ll be aware.
regards
Mike

[Mike Brown]

sorry Mike – can’t help – don’t know the machines at all… 🙁

Come on – someone else must know something about these machines?

mikethesign

[Tim Shaw]

Hi, can’t comment on the Roland but if the DC60 is anywhere near as good as the D1300 i would.nt hesitate in byuing it .

Our D1300 as run faultlessly for nearly 10 years with not one second of trouble.

Every time I think of Roland machine I think of Camm 1’s, that put me of any thing Roland for ever. IMOHO

[Robert Lambie]

short post here…

i would suggest buying a graphtec even though we have 3 rolands and only one graphtec… i think the roland machines are good but there support in scotland stink… equinox i think they are called.
because of this company “only” i switched my make of plotter…

the 3 roland machines i use work flat out every day… no real bother from them!
what i would say though and i guess this with lots of new makes is that they are replacing the metal casing with plastic.. metal is well better and stands up to the knocks and cracks the machines take daily..

[Michael Stevenson]

Thanks Robert & Tim,
I will look further into this ie. Graphtec!
or maybe even poss s/hand any thoughts? anyone
regards
rocket

[Jodie]

I run a Roland CX24 its only 15months old and its not been any bother , but if I was in the market for a new one I would probably try the summa. Brian P.S. Happy new year to you all 😀

[Mike Brown]

and to you too Brian! 😉 *drink*

I’ve always used a Graphtec – that is, I’ve always used the same Graphtec 😆 Had it for more than 11 years now…only two services and one plastic bit broken!

Someone once told me that there was a certain sequence of key presses you could make into the front panels of a graphtec to find out how many metres it had run/cut?…could be a myth, but it’d be great to find out! 😕

more soon

mikethesign

[Henry Barker]

I am not sure about Summa’s D-series, but having run Gerber plotters for many years, decided to change, looked at Graphtec, but went for a Summa SignPro T-series plotter with OPOS.

Itsa very robust and trouble free machine, made with metal casing. I beieve its the only real tangential friction machine on the market. Graphtec have a tangential emulation, but not like the 2 motor summa cutterhead.

I guess it depends on what you are cutting we wanting a lifting knife instead of a dragknife for cutting thicker rubber sandblast resist.

I should imagine that the Graphtec, Roland, and Summa D-series are all similar types and quality? Given that I would still buy Summa! 🙂

[Robert Lambie]

good point henry… we only actualy use the tangental function when cutting very small text.
we find it is far more accurate and weeds better cut like this…

when cutting blast material like you said then it narrows down the choice on offer.. i havent tried a summa but have recently looked at the summa d2 in preference to edge… but still not sure if we should make the jump yet…

[John Childs]

We have run a Summa T1010+ for six years with no problems at all. We also have a Roland, I think PC50, which has also not caused any trouble.

The Summa is better built and more robust than the Roland. Also the Summa software better suits the way we work.

Tried a Graphtec about eight years ago but got rid of it because it wouldn’t track more than a couple of metres. However, apart from tracking, it was a great machine. I would think that they have cured the fault now and I would consider another.

[Martin Pearson]

Well thats made things easy for you Mike, you had a choice of 2 and now we have expanded the range for you, bet your glad you asked now !!!
Seriously though I think the most important aspect is good support from who ever you decide to buy a plotter from. I had a problem with my plotter last week, fortunatly we managed to sort it out ourselves with the aid of a post on the boards but we were starting to say how are we going to manage this job and that job. Probably the best think to do if all the plotter manufactures are much the same is look at the support for each in your area and use this info to decide which make to buy.