Vinyl cutter plotters

[porina]

Watching some random videos on tempered glass cases on the tube, came across one where I saw a device cutting up a sticker sheet, and thought that would be really handy. I've seen people offer various designs of pre-cut stuff on ebay, and thought the machine to do that must be expensive. It might not be the case, and they seem to be vinyl cutter plotters, costing as much as an mid to upper range mainstream CPU. Not expensive at all!

 

Now, I don't know anything about them and am at research stage, but I think having one would be very useful to customise PC builds. No idea about running costs (presumably just the vinyl, maybe occasional wear and tear parts), or how to create an appropriate design.

Does anyone have/use one of these already? Any tips?

 

On a similar note I keep thinking a 3D printer might come in handy, but I couldn't do 3D to save my life. At least here we're working in 2D, and I can just about cope with that..

[Bananasplit_00]

hmm makes me kinda want a vinyl bee or three for Northern Bee... i would assume its quite a lot like CNC controll, either its built into the machine or you feed it an instructions file. There are websites that should let you make those and download them.

[W-L]

3 hours ago, porina said:

Watching some random videos on tempered glass cases on the tube, came across one where I saw a device cutting up a sticker sheet, and thought that would be really handy. I've seen people offer various designs of pre-cut stuff on ebay, and thought the machine to do that must be expensive. It might not be the case, and they seem to be vinyl cutter plotters, costing as much as an mid to upper range mainstream CPU. Not expensive at all!

 

Now, I don't know anything about them and am at research stage, but I think having one would be very useful to customise PC builds. No idea about running costs (presumably just the vinyl, maybe occasional wear and tear parts), or how to create an appropriate design.

Does anyone have/use one of these already? Any tips?

 

On a similar note I keep thinking a 3D printer might come in handy, but I couldn't do 3D to save my life. At least here we're working in 2D, and I can just about cope with that..

It's fairly simple to use since most use a drag or roller knife, all that is really needed is a 2D design that you create most times using their software. Something like the Sihouette Portrait are good for hobby and craft use and I've seen it recommended a fair bit.

https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/shop/machines/portrait

[porina]

2 minutes ago, W-L said:

It's fairly simple to use since most use a drag or roller knife, all that is really needed is a 2D design that you create most times using their software.

I've been looking at what's available and at the low end they all seem much of a muchness. The differentiator could lie in the software. Ideally I'd like something that could effectively trace a bitmap into a vector format, and I know it exists, the question being at what price point.

 

Running costs hopefully wont be too bad either. Replacement cutters are not significant, and in bulk I'm not going to worry about vinyl cost either. This might be overkill but I'm not limited to PC modding, and I have some creative friends so there will likely be applications beyond this... the motor life on a low end model might be a concern, if I use it enough for it to be a problem...

[W-L]

1 minute ago, porina said:

I've been looking at what's available and at the low end they all seem much of a muchness. The differentiator could lie in the software. Ideally I'd like something that could effectively trace a bitmap into a vector format, and I know it exists, the question being at what price point.

 

Running costs hopefully wont be too bad either. Replacement cutters are not significant, and in bulk I'm not going to worry about vinyl cost either. This might be overkill but I'm not limited to PC modding, and I have some creative friends so there will likely be applications beyond this... the motor life on a low end model might be a concern, if I use it enough for it to be a problem...

For a hobby cutter it will be able to do most of the stuff you need without much issue really, they do have a more premium hobby unit that does a little more in terms of capacity and cutting ability to the other. If you are planning on doing large format stuff though I would suggest to look into signage shops locally as the cost of those machines are much much more than these small table top units. 

https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/shop/machines/cameo