Vinyl Cutter for CNC Tools

[gberscht@telusplanet.net]

Pictures on my site.
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/gberscht

Feel free to post questions on my forum.

[Jccwrks@aol.com]

Okay, let's do the math. A GREAT vinyl cutter(plotter) costs half as much as a shopbot, works at least 3 times faster, takes up 1/10th the space, and is quiet enough to run in the office. From a commercial signmaking perspective, plan on buying a plotter for vinyl lettering, AND a shopbot to handle the sign backs, engraving, and 3-D work. Unless you're one of those guys that buys a table saw to shred paper, it makes no economic sense to use a shopbot to drive an exacto-knive with 60 lbs of lateral force to cut vinyl. It might be fun if your shopbot's out in the garage, but when you start leasing floor space, it all boils down to the best machine suited for the job at hand.

[jason]

Ok, I will do the math.

Vinyl Cutter (Plotter) ---- $2500 (at least)

Attachment for ShopBot ---- $400 (total)

Shopbot Table ---- OH YEAH! I ALREADY OWN ONE!

Ummm, need brain......

Hope I made my point.

Also, can the vinyl cutter do 50" letters without tiling? And does the cutter not take up more floor space in my shop that my shopbot is sitting in? HELLO!!!

Later.

[jason]

Oh yeah, by the way, Greg told me that the router can NOT be turned on when using the Vinyl Mate attachment.

(There goes the noise problem.)

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Jason I think you said it all...lol, being able to do vinyl on a shopbot will be a plus, I think Greg's Vinyl Mate will be a great asset to any shopbot.

I do not do vinyl at this time but I will be looking into it, vinyl is big business around here and in big demand, For $400.00 doing 1 job would pay for it?.

Ron

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Mr Henderson most shopbotters use there machine at there business and at home, I can not see
buying a vinyl machine if we can do it on our shopbot?.

Again let's do the math

Costs half as much as a shopbot, works at least 3 times faster.

Ok we have a shopbot and want to do vinyl? we now need to spend another $2,500.00 to get the vinyl machine, If I bought a Vinyl Mate For $400.00 I save $2,100.00, Vinyl Machine will cut my sign in 45 minutes? Shopbot cut the same sign in 1 1/2 hours? no loss of money here, just a little more time that I can be doing something else.

Leasing floor space? I think most shopbotters have that covered before buying a machine, they know it is going to take room and be noisy.


Takes up 1/10th the space? will need more space for the Vinyl machine = more space then what we use now.


And is quiet enough to run in the office?

You got me on this 1? Me I work in the office and cut in the shop.

From a commercial signmaking perspective? I do not think anyone would buy a shopbot if they were going into business to do just vinyl.


It makes no economic sense to use a shopbot to drive an exacto-knive with 60 lbs of lateral force to cut vinyl. I guess this is the same as if you have a Ford F350 to get you to work? you need to buy a smaller truck to save on gas, big
economic loss here.

My remarks are not meant to make fun of anyone here but I just had to reply to Let do the math.

If you have a shopbot and find new ways to use it? that is great, but don't post how a waste of time it would be not to get the Vinyl Mate, we shopbotters take pride in where we are now, we have a great machine that will cut wood, do routing, drill,and many other things, adding a vinyl cutter to it will only complement the machine more.

Ron

[ssanda@nvbell.net]

I'm thinking back to when we started our sign business and how we were going to conquer the world with our laser engraver. We did quite a lot of vinyl with it, but after getting a rep as the local sign shop we needed to use the laser for awards and engraved signs and get a dedicated vinyl plotter.


We can use both at once to do the things they are most effecient at. I realize many shopbotters use their machines as a hobby or semi-hobby and aren't under a lot of pressure to make as much $ as possible every day. That's cool but there are those that need to think about being as effecient as possible in their shops.

One of the problems with vinyl is keeping your work area dust free to keep dust out from between your substrate and the vinyl during application. If I'm carving signs out of wood or HDU I'll have a mess with laying out vinyl on the shopbot and the associated static electricity and dust.

Plus, like our laser, the vinyl has to lay very flat and also be secured against the drag of the knife. In the laser we do 18x24 panels held with tape and flat with static electricity on the metal table. How will you do this on the Shopbot- expecially your 5' letters.

The setup time aalone will suck the profit from my highly competitive vinyl signs real quick.

I have the shopbot/woodshop in a seperate room and the vinyl plotter in the office next to my workstation to isolate the noise and dust.

So, if you want to come in on Saturday and cut vinyl for your friends stock car- cool! But if you have to make a profit (or else!) with your small business, and you intend to be in the carved and vinyl sign business, consider getting a plotter also (it's that old advice about the right tool for the job). IMHO.

[gberscht@telusplanet.net]

With the dust in every ones shop it may seem that set up time would be a hassle,but it doesn't take long at all.if you keep a dedicated sheet for the widest size of vinyl you use when your done routering brush off your table and throw down the sheet. As for laying the vinyl down flat ,just use a little easy tack, you can get it at most hobby stores or hardware stores.its like a contact cement in a spraybomb but is not a permanent bond.It lets you lift and reposition the vinyl and lasts along time,you don't have to spray it on your dedicated sheet every time. After you lay down your vinyl use a j roller or your hand to flatten it down.If there is any wrinkles in the vinyl they will not effect the cutters performance as long as there not to big.
I know that vinyl plotters are a lot faster but after talking with a few sign shops that use a cnc table to cut vinyl,they say they don't have time to sit and watch there tool cut the vinyl, they are to busy applying the vinyl to other sign they just cut or are designing another sign for the next customer.
There are a couple of other reasons they said they liked, that is that sometimes on a sign with a lot of detail in it ,they can put a pencil in the 1/2" collet and draw certain areas or even the hole sign it makes it a hole lot easier to find out where the vinyl is to be applied,something you cant do on a plotter machine.One other thing they like is that some times on or in the middle of a sign there is a picture of something or someone that needs to be painted so by being able to remove the vinyl mate and put a pencil in the collet they can render the picture on the sign without changing there home position all in the same file, something you can't do on a plotter.

[jccwrks@aol.com]

Whoa, I didn't mean to ruffle so many feathers here. My shopbot runs at least 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, cutting heavier materials, and it runs like a top. It just seems crazy to buy a cnc router to cut vinyl when a much less expensive plotter can do the job faster. The truth is, I hope ALL my competitors use shopbots to cut vinyl.

By the way, load time on a plotter for a 150 foot roll of vinyl is less than a minute. Pressure rollers keep the material flat. And vinyl rolls are commonly available in 60" widths specifically for plotters. Every plotter I've seen also accepts pen/pencil attachments for drawing. and finally, don't worry about tiling on larger projects, you've seen it more than you may ever know. It is the industry standard for large scale projects.

So have fun with your toys, and don't forget to clean your table; one little chunk of sawdust can ruin a perfectly good vinyl sign.

I'll see the rest of you signmakers at the ISA sign show in Las Vegas next week! I'll be the guy hanging around the shopbot booth...when I'm not gambling!

[RandyT]

Here's something you guys aren't thinking about:

If you do a lot of illuminated sign faces (and like to or HAVE to use paint), the Acrylic usually comes with some nice masking already applied to the surface. In the old days, the sign man would use an exacto to HAND CUT the masking before applying the paint.

With a Shopbot and the proper cutting head, you could automate this process quite effectively. Just slap the Acrylic sheet down on the table, cut the mask, peel it out and spray it.

With a vinyl cutter, you would need to use special masking material, weed out the letters where the paint will go and go through the pains of applying the mask to the acrylic (after you throw away the mask that was on it!)

Another nice thing that could be done for the people who insist on hand-lettered signs (and there are some that do) is put a pounce wheel in place of the blade and tack paper to the table. This would make a pattern more accurately and a lot faster than the old opaque enlarger/hand- drawn/hand-pounced method.

I have a $4000 cutter, but for these two examples, the Shopbot would be the clear winner in ease (and maybe even speed).

[papad]

Ok guys I know this is old stuff but I can't keep quiet any longer. I'm a shopboter and I feel my machine can do just about any thing------ but lets get real if you are going to compete with other signshops that do vinyl then do your home work the cutter/plotter is a cnc machine and it was designed to do just that and do it very well,with most of the new sign codes I don't think there is much of a call for 50" tall letters in fact most signs including ones on the side of simi trucks are done in what is called tiling and believe it or not it can be done with a little ol 24" plotter and you can by a very good one not for 2,400.00 but for a mere $1,500.00 for a lynex table top model and you get software two rolls of vinyl a video ect. ect. and as far as the guy above stating about painting on the acrylic the vinyl letters take the place of the paint duh!! you see you can justify anything if your mind is made up to do it. but no matter how great the shopbot is and I have to keep my running at about 6.5 to 7 hrs a day 5 days a week to keep up I can run my vinyl cutter and make upwards of $150.00 Per hour with it on top of what I make with my SB in other words use your heads to create a use for your shopbot to make money in the best way it was designed and use some other tool to make money the best way it was designed after all Rube Goldburg doesn't need any more competition.

[rgengrave@aol.com]

David your right this is old, want to do vinyl? buy a vinyl machine, want to do it on a shopbot? buy this
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/gberscht/img8.gif

You are right no one is going to cut 50" letters but it would be nice to be able to do them on a shopbot right?

Ron V

[dandjassoc]

SIGN TOOLS 3 SOFTWARE, I PURCHASED IT FOR WOOD, CAN NOT FIND A WAY TO USE ON WOOD. WILL SELL UNREGISTERED WITH CARD IN CASE $150.00

[gerald_d]

It looks like there is some interest in the Vinyl Mate at the moment, and so I just want to "bump" this thread.

[joecrumley]

Dan & Gerald,

I have some interst in a tool that will cut sandblast mask however it seems to me that this can be done with a router bit once the mask has been applied to the wood.

Has anyone done this?

Going over this in my mind, lets say you have a redwood panel 4'X6', that you have applied the mask to, and use a 1/8" or 1/16" down cut router bit for cutting. In theory this would be the quickest way to get the image ready to sandblast.

I have also toyed with the idea of routing out the majority of the background that is removed by sandblasting and to sandblast just enough to get the wood texture.

Probably no one understands this unless you have been under the hood for a half day or so.

We will start six 3X8 redwood signs next week. Perhaps some one has tried routing over sandblast mask.

Joe

Photo available on request

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

Joe I quite often sandblast the background after
pocketing, and don't bother with a mask other than
some tape to avoid scarring..especially when using
thick cedar 3in. stuff with 1in. pockets..I just
highlight the grain between raised letters some
cedar grains really stand out nice...Dan

[rgengrave@aol.com]

I bought a Vinylmate and it works nice and paid for itself in 2 orders.

They were selling for $399.00 and I got them down to $299.00 for Shopbotters.

Ron V

[gwb]

I'm not into signs or vinyl but I'm curious what makes the Vinylmate worth $300, you can buy adjustable blade holders for $60 to $125 all day long and I'm sure with a little thought you would figure out how to chuck one up in the shopbot.
Whats the life expectancy of the Vinylmate?

[joecrumley]

GaryB

Could not say as I have never seen one. I hope the photo at the end of their "How To Session" is not exeplary of what to expect.

Joe

[rgengrave@aol.com]

I bought 1 to be able to do vinyl and I make all my files in fonts, the vinyl shop down the road cut my file on there machine and there was no difference using the shopbot to cut it.

I just like the idea I can cut anything any size and in 1 piece.

I can do color scans in vinyl and do color printing in vinyl and do not need to have another machine to do it.

The vinyl shop is thinking about getting shopbot and use it for doing vinyl, not sure why but I do know they have somthing in mind.

[joecrumley]

Dear Ron,

Have you tried to cut sandblast mask? There are few ,drag knife, vinyl plotters that can cut

I would be very interested to see if A Shopbot armed with a drag knife could cut a 1/4" Times Roman letter. What is the smallest letter it will cut?
We use a Gerger HS15 Plus plotter, that is both tangential or drag knife. Cuts it all and fast too.

Notice that the Vinyl Mate demo showed cutting sandblast mask and then transferring it to the wood panel. Why transferr it. Just put it on the panel and cut it there. No need to transferr. Thats the way we did it for years. Transferring it is a wasted effort.

Joe

[jim_melton]

While I can understand why someone would want to find a cheaper way of cutting vinyl. I don't really know why someone would want to cut it in a dusty area such as a SHOPBOT work area.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my garage is filled with dust from my BOT.

The vinyl is like a dust magnet. And the dust can affect the application and adhesion of the vinyl.

I bought a VE 24" vinyl plotter with some nice software for less than $2700 USD. I actually am able to use the features of that software to help do things on my BOT.

While the VinylMate may work ok with the BOT, it can't work with anything close to the speed that you can get with a plotter.

I have my plotter slowed down, and it is still cutting @ 48IPS. Try that with the BOT. Not to mention that I don't have to fool with the ramping on the BOT.

If you are wanting to do vinyl. I would recommend a dedicated plotter.

My 2Cents

Jim

[wjutz]

Hi all,

I'd like to cut vinyl on my ShopBot. I don't have any experience cutting vinyl, and the links above don't work. I also don't want to to shell out another $2700 or even the $400, as the project would only cost $60 to have someone else do it. But, that is not why I bought the ShopBot, to have someone else do it. I bought it, so I could do the work and possibly supplement my hobby with income from others that would like someone else to do it, namely me.

So, can anyone recommend a swivel cutter that will work?
I have plenty of fonts available in Corel Draw, can I use the outline to cut letters in vinyl?
Are there any little programming tricks to get the swivel cutter to align to the cut? Or do you just cut like using a V-bit in a router?
How about the Z depth, with a router bit I just use the depth sensor, can the same be done with a swivel cutter?
Is vacuum the only way to secure the vinyl to the table?

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Bill Jutz

[kaaboom_99]

Just thought I would post here. My wife has me cutting "paper dolls" with our Bot. I use a $10 CAN swivel head knife to cut paper. I drilled a piece of 1 x 2 oak to hold the knife, mounted a spring loaded bolt for the knife to back against (my wife isn't sure that 0.001 and 0.1 is all that different.) I lay paper on top of tempered glass and tape the paper in place. I home the knife z axis by eye, to the surface of the glass and cut my files at -0.050, just so there is enough pressure on the bolt. As for getting the knife into position, I use coreldraw for designing and all cuts get a 1/4" approach.
Hope this helps.

[scott]

Gary, I thought the same thing awhile ago so I bought a holder and chucked it in my router and tried to cut some vinyl. All it did was rip and tear the vinyl so then I milled my table and it still did it .
The vinyl is so thin its like the thickness of a hair and theres know way the z will stay that accurate and even with milling my table if its out 1/2 a hair it wont cut the vinyl in some spots and it tears it in others. So I tried mounting the blade holder into a tube and then slid that into another tube with a spring in it so it would float , well it kinda worked in some spots but it would still tear the vinyl especially on corners and then would not cut it in others spots.
I don't think the spring will work because on an uneven table when the holder moves up and down it changes the presser all the time . I think theres alittle more involved in cutting vinyl than it looks like.
I was getting frustrated with all the different things I was trying so I contacted the guy that makes the vinyl cutter and told him what i tried and he chuckled , He said that he did the same thing that I tried, and it took him alot of time and money to come up with a design that worked, he uses shopbot software on his cnc table, but he built the table himself .
So now I have spent almost $150 and cant cut vinyl. I got thinking that the vinyl mate is $299 so I only need to make something out of vinyl and sell it for $150 to pay for it and with talking with another shopbotter that has one he said I can do that In abut 2 hours or less, so I know what I'm going to do.

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Jim sounds good on the cutting part but what is the time on the weeding end of it?.

Bill Jutz I am new too this vinyl thing but in the last 3 months cutting vinyl I see no big difference, sure it would be nice to have a vinyl plotter but at $2,700.00 OUCH.

Jim has a good point about the dust, all I do is clean the area where I am going to cut and blow everything out, I just lay a 3'x 3' piece of plastic down on my table and lay the vinyl on that and use a few pieces of tape in the corners to hold it in place, the cutter has a floating head so all I do is set the blade depth to the vinyl I am cutting and just run the file.

You can buy a Roland holder and a blade for under $100.00 but you will need to figure out how to mount it and keep the same pressure on the vinyl.

You just need a program that will save as a dxf to use any fonts you have and just convert it too a sbp file.

I bought the Vinyl Mate for the same reason you are looking at, why pay someone else to do it for you when you can do it your self.

I waited for about a year to see if anyone came up with a good way to do it but as you see above no post so I ordered 1 at xmas time, it was my present to me.

If I was going into the vinyl business and did it full time? then I would look into buying a vinyl machine, but then I look at the vinyl shop down the raod, they have a vinyl plotter and it cut super fast but it takes them the same amount of time to weed it as me? so if they can cut it in 10 minutes and it takes me 20 minutes we both spend the same amount of time to weed it, so is faster better?

I can live with the extra 10 minutes if it saves me $$$$$$

Ron V

[gberscht@telusplanet.net]

Jim, you are right if some one is going to start up a full blown sign shop they should spend $2700 on a 24" vinyl plotter or $3300.00 for a 30" or $5300.00 for a 48" vinyl plotter thats what they are for and thats all they do is cut vinyl

But thats not why I designed the vinyl Mate. I designed it for people who are not into sign making full time. I was thinking the same as alot of people I did not want to invest $3000 on a vinyl plotter when I new I wasn't going to be cutting vinyl 8 hours a day 7 days a week, I didnt even know if I would like cutting vinyl

If I was going to cut that much vinyl I would buy a vinyl plotter, or I am quiet capable of making one myself. as for speed, a plotter will kick a cnc tables butt, although do people who run a cnc table or plotter acually sit and watch there machine do the work, if they do they are missing the point of having a cnc machine. I run a part file then go do something else, there is always lots of things to do while the machine is doing its job. Im not in the sign buisness full time but when I am I usually have 3 or 4 jobs on the go at the same time so speed of cutting is never an problem, I cant keep up to my cnc table while its cutting part files. When its cutting a part file i'm weeding or applying vinyl for another job, and the funny thing is that it always beats me.

Before I tried to make a cutter I looked all over to see if there was anyone else that made one for a cnc table, I found a few that did but the cheapest one i found was $795.00 so I decided to make one. I thought it would be easy but it wasn't, I probably spent over $795 to get one that worked consistently.

Think of what it has to do. It has to cut all the way through material that is the thickness of a hair and not cut into the paper backing. Then it has to move in a hundred different ways over a very large area that is never level and still keep the same depth. The Vinyl mate will cut sandblast stencil and it will even cut 1/4" times roman letters but I dont know why anyone would want to cut letters that small out of vinyl, it is to hard to weed out the parts you dont need and this applies to a $299 vinyl cutter as to a $ 5300 vinyl plotter, the weeding time is the same. That small of letters should be done on a vinyl cutter/printer a 24" is $7000.00 and a 12" is $5000. As for dust I do both, I cut mdf and vinyl and never seem to have any problems with it. If you are worrying about static when working with vinyl then go to this link http://www.ijsupplies.com/stop-static.html

I am not in any way trying to tell anyone not to buy a vinyl plotter they are great if you are in the sign buisness full time but for those that what to cut vinyl on a smaller scale , $299 is a very little investment And can easely be paid for in 1 or 2 jobs.If you are interested in cutting and want to find out more about The Vinyl Mate go to this link http://www.telusplanet.net/public/gberscht/

[jim_melton]

I was reading some of the previous posts on this thread and found something interesting.

Ron V had stated something about a vinyl plotter taking 45 minutes to cut vinyl for a sign.

I curious Ron. How big of a sign is it that takes a vinyl plotter 45 minutes to cut?

I cut vinyl the size of the back windows of my Suburban for my business advertising, and each one took about a minute and a half.

If you are cutting very small letters, then yes weeding can be a problem. Are you putting weed borders around your vinyl entities prior to cutting them with the SB, or are you just converting the DXF and cutting?

I am currently working with my son's school doing vinyl license plates as a fund raiser. When I cut a plate design on my plotter, it is done cutting in about 5 seconds or so. The weeding only takes about 2 minutes if that.

How long does it take you to get your SB and vinyl ready to cut? How long do you fool with getting the vinyl straight and held down? How many times do you have to recut because your SB tore the vinyl?

My vinyl plotter is ready to cut in about 1.5 minutes.

The $2650 that I spent on my plotter went for one of the higher end 24" models that was packaged with the high end software as well.

BTW: I still work a full time job on top of doing the sign business part time.

The vinyl plotter was an investment for my business!

Time is money in business.

The longer it takes you to cut your vinyl on your SHOPBOT the longer it's going to take you to cut a real money making dimensional sign with your SB.

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Jim at the time I made that post I had no clue how fast a vinyl machine would cut, but I now know a machine will out cut a shopbot anytime.

I have no plans to start a vinyl sign business, I just like the idea I can now do vinyl now and them and make a few bucks.

Ron V

[Greg B]

I can go from cutting mdf to cutting vinyl in less than 5 min . Also the vinyl mate won't tear the vinyl. For all those who tried to get on my website , you should have no problems now
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/gberscht/