What printer cutter for transparent vinyl and White designs?

[Chris Wilson]

quote Robin Summers:

Hi, I’m new to these forums and need some help regarding printers. I have ran a decal business for the past few years using an excellent summa plotter, which I have now decided to step up to a printer and cutter setup.

As my business focuses on mostly wall decals, I don’t really want a white border/background to the designs. Can any large format solvent printer print well onto transparent vinyl, or do I need a one that can print white?

Also a lot of my designs are just White and after doing a fair amount of research, it sounds very difficult to print a good looking all white sticker without a black border or background. Is this another area where a printer with white ink comes in? Would it allow me to print just white onto transparent vinyl?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Rob

Hey rob,

We got our first print and cut machine just under a year ago. We have a Roland VS540, it’s print and cut in one. Quite happy it. Spent a lot of time looking around a various machines.

I decided to run it on CMYK though, which at times has been a bit of a pain sometimes for certain jobs. Plenty only machines about, but if am going by the experience of laminating prints and then loading them back In to cut.. its stressful and takes time. I can’t imagine a stand alone plotter is much better.

As for the white outline/boarder we set the artwork up to go over the cut line by a few mm.

As for the white ink being poor quality a lot of things can effect this from ink quality to material quality to profiling, to print set-up etc..

Best thing to do is go and look at a few machines with your nearest supplier and see them running. Any supplier we have dealt with are always happy to take along your own files so you can see the results on a file you know.

[Robin Summers]

quote Chris Wilson:

quote Robin Summers:

Hi, I’m new to these forums and need some help regarding printers. I have ran a decal business for the past few years using an excellent summa plotter, which I have now decided to step up to a printer and cutter setup.

As my business focuses on mostly wall decals, I don’t really want a white border/background to the designs. Can any large format solvent printer print well onto transparent vinyl, or do I need a one that can print white?

Also a lot of my designs are just White and after doing a fair amount of research, it sounds very difficult to print a good looking all white sticker without a black border or background. Is this another area where a printer with white ink comes in? Would it allow me to print just white onto transparent vinyl?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Rob

Hey rob,

We got our first print and cut machine just under a year ago. We have a Roland VS540, it’s print and cut in one. Quite happy it. Spent a lot of time looking around a various machines.

I decided to run it on CMYK though, which at times has been a bit of a pain sometimes for certain jobs. Plenty only machines about, but if am going by the experience of laminating prints and then loading them back In to cut.. its stressful and takes time. I can’t imagine a stand alone plotter is much better.

As for the white outline/boarder we set the artwork up to go over the cut line by a few mm.

As for the white ink being poor quality a lot of things can effect this from ink quality to material quality to profiling, to print set-up etc..

Best thing to do is go and look at a few machines with your nearest supplier and see them running. Any supplier we have dealt with are always happy to take along your own files so you can see the results on a file you know.

Hi Chris, thanks for that information it does clear up a lot. So getting a good print onto clear/transparent vinyl is purely down to the overall setup of machine and software, but it is possible to get good looking images?

I think the problem I have is all of my designs are created from scratch to look perfect when cutting with a plotter, so introducing a printer to do the job of a plotter is maybe a bit too much to ask and I should probably look at other possibilities with a print and cut machine, rather than just one colour transparent decals?

As an example if you take a look at the eps I have attached, you will see that if cut out on a plotter it would look exactly how it does on the screen with just the image cut out in either Black or White vinyl and no background or border at all. I take it to replicate this look with a print and cut machine it’s much harder work, especially if you want just a White image?

---

Attachments:

minions.eps

[Peter Johnson]

Hi.

If I understand correctly, it actually doesn’t really make much sense why you would want the extra expense of a printer with all of the associated costs (inks, printheads, materials) to print a single colour image and then cut it out? Why not just carry on cutting them out of single colour vinyl?

I understand that the time involved in weeding out cut vinyl is greater than just print/cut, but for the extra cost, it doesn’t really make sense.

It sounds like we both started the same way. All I did was make cut vinyl decals for many years. But when I decided to invest in my printer, it was with the thought of producing totally different products to add to my range; full colour canvas prints, wraps etc. And since then, I have learned to do many more things. But never to basically reproduce/replace my cut vinyl decals with printed ones. Just supply the old design as a printed sticker.

Hope I didn’t misunderstand what you are asking.

Pete J.

[Robin Summers]

quote Peter Johnson:

Hi.

If I understand correctly, it actually doesn’t really make much sense why you would want the extra expense of a printer with all of the associated costs (inks, printheads, materials) to print a single colour image and then cut it out? Why not just carry on cutting them out of single colour vinyl?

I understand that the time involved in weeding out cut vinyl is greater than just print/cut, but for the extra cost, it doesn’t really make sense.

It sounds like we both started the same way. All I did was make cut vinyl decals for many years. But when I decided to invest in my printer, it was with the thought of producing totally different products to add to my range; full colour canvas prints, wraps etc. And since then, I have learned to do many more things. But never to basically reproduce/replace my cut vinyl decals with printed ones. Just supply the old design as a printed sticker.

Hope I didn’t misunderstand what you are asking.

Pete J.

I had a feeling this would be the case, I had this thought myself. My idea was exactly that to reproduce the decal designs as a sticker as I thought it would be a lot quicker to do this via print and cut, which in turn would allow me to sell more.

I would still like to invest in a printer as like you said it allows for many more marketplace opportunities. Surely a printer and no laminate/transfer paper wouldn’t cost that much more than decals with transfer paper?

Say if I printed a full colour photo at a foot length by 60cm wide, what would you say the cost of that would be just in ink costs?

Thanks,
Rob

[Steff Davison]

quote Robin Summers:

quote Peter Johnson:

Hi.

If I understand correctly, it actually doesn’t really make much sense why you would want the extra expense of a printer with all of the associated costs (inks, printheads, materials) to print a single colour image and then cut it out? Why not just carry on cutting them out of single colour vinyl?

I understand that the time involved in weeding out cut vinyl is greater than just print/cut, but for the extra cost, it doesn’t really make sense.

It sounds like we both started the same way. All I did was make cut vinyl decals for many years. But when I decided to invest in my printer, it was with the thought of producing totally different products to add to my range; full colour canvas prints, wraps etc. And since then, I have learned to do many more things. But never to basically reproduce/replace my cut vinyl decals with printed ones. Just supply the old design as a printed sticker.

Hope I didn’t misunderstand what you are asking.

Pete J.

I had a feeling this would be the case, I had this thought myself. My idea was exactly that to reproduce the decal designs as a sticker as I thought it would be a lot quicker to do this via print and cut, which in turn would allow me to sell more.

I would still like to invest in a printer as like you said it allows for many more marketplace opportunities. Surely a printer and no laminate/transfer paper wouldn’t cost that much more than decals with transfer paper?

Say if I printed a full colour photo at a foot length by 60cm wide, what would you say the cost of that would be just in ink costs?

Thanks,
Rob

I too started off with just a vinyl cutter, I didnt think about a printer until I got to a certain volume of business with cut vinyl. Printing will not replace cut vinyl, its a different product in my opinion, in your market. If you were producing fine detail car window decals then I can see the value in white on clear. Its a big investment just to satisfy that product niche.

As for how much, some on here will tell you its got to be costed out at £60 m2 or you wont make any money, well thats one view, I suppose if you only print 20m2 a week they may have a point. Online printed decals is getting tougher, sellers are finding it tough to maintain margins and volumes, be careful.

Oh and good luck

[Peter Johnson]

Yes, I don’t think I was clear enough when I said there would be extra costs involved with regards to materials.

Maybe what I should have said is that if you buy a printer and all the associated materials that go with it, it will not necessarily mean that you will replace your whole ‘cut vinyl’ range with printed. Which then means you will still be buying normal rolls of vinyl for the cutter, but you will now also be having to buy materials for the printer.

I would seriously look into what market a printer will allow you to go into + if you can actually produce those products with the equipment you currently have. Obviously, not including the printer/mats. But are your current PC’s, laminator/applicater, cutter, workbenches, graphics package etc, capable of working with large printed graphics and making contour cut stickers? Do you have laminating capabilities? Can your cutter/software make and read registration marks?

As every single person on here knows, whenever you decide to produce something new, and then set aside a budget to produce said product, there is always something you overlook. Whether it be physical equipment, software or required materials, the costs are always more then you realise.

So, before making quite a big investment, make sure you have a product to sell, a market to sell to, and the backup funds to pay for everything, even the stuff you haven’t thought of yet.