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[uncle remus]

 I currently have a copam 2500 plotter & am getting tired of having to babysit it when i do long cuts. It has been a good cutter & has paid for itself many times over, but it's tracking was never very good & seems to be getting worse, plus it's starting to make a new noise...It's time to start thinking about retiring it...

So i am looking into getting a new one with contour cutting abilities....What would you recommend?? I dont really want to spend over 2K on one

 

[charles95405]

Did you have a stand?  I have found that a stand greatly increases the accuracy of tracking of most any machine. 

For a new machine...I suggest you look at:
GCC Jaguar IV
GCC Puma III
Graptec 5000 (I think that is the one with optic eye)

Roland GX 24 has pretty good tracking and easy to do contour BUT is ..in my humble opinion (which is seldom humble)... it is over priced and under powered with only 250gm down force

[uncle remus]

Charles, yes i have a stand & my copam has been a good machine...The tracking issues have been manageable, but on long cuts I always have doubts...

How long has GCC been building cutters?? Are they just as good as the big name brands??

[roxanneupnorth]

I have never had the pleasure of owning a "brand name" cutter but I have 2 GCC cutters that do not cause me any grief.....They seem to track quite well....I think GCC built their 1st cutters in 1990 but most were sold under private labels....Sign Warehouse comes to mind...Ordway, Imprintables, US Cutter and Joto all sell GCC as their own brand....In 1997 they sold their 1st cutter under their name....

[heatpressvinyl]

Well I would say GCC is a big brand name,, I was talking the other day with the President of GCC and he told me that they have over 10 thousand cutters in operation in the USA currently and over 100 thousand globally so I would put them as a major manufacturer.

As far as tracking goes the Jag says it all,, it has a Guarantee tracking of around 32 feet and the cutting speed to boot,, another cool thing about the Expert pro, the Puma 3 and Jag is that they all have edge cutting function which allows you to cut past the pinch rollers. Roland and Graphtec neither one has this feature..

So yes GCC is a major brand.

[charles95405]

roxanne and roger said all... I think they have been making cutters just about as long or longer than any of the others

[uncle remus]

 had no idea that GCC has been around that long or had that many cutters in operation...Really a tracking guarantee of 32 ft., my copam 8ft can be pretty stressful sometimes.

i will give them a closer look on your recommendations.....   

[gprockhill]

Can one of you explain 'tracking' ?

[uncle remus]

tracking is about how the vinyl is feeding into the cutter, if it has tracking problems then the vinyl will shift to either one side or the other when cutting & can mess up your entire cut if it is off enough

[COCHISE]

My Copam will not pull sign vinyl from a fresh roll. It was a gift so I ain't gonna complain.
 It WILL begin cutting where I tell it to, as opposed to a favorite brand.

I discovered a consistent way to cause it to track to at least 10 feet.
I set the alignment with tape markers on the front panel, lock the rollers, run out 10 feet of vinyl off the roll into the basket. I do the measurement set, then using the forward arrow I run out the 10 feet. I make small adjustments as necessary and run the vinyl back into the basket. Repeat until it tracks within 1/8".

I clean the rollers with Simple Green daily. Contamination will cause the rollers to slip. I did snug the adjustment screws nearly to the max long ago. The "clamp a dollar and pull it out test" works well to get some reasonable degree of equal tension..

I just finished thirteen 10 foot banners with no hitches using WINPC, four lines of text cut to 68 inches long.

ken