Q - Do any of the cutters contain sen- sors to tell you the size of the sheet of vinyl and whether or not the vinyl is in the machine?


A - Most cutters can read the size of the vinyl, but the very inexpensive cut- ters typically can not do this. Some ma- chines even have a sensor to tell you if you have material in the cutter and if you remove the material, the cutter will automatically reset. The ability to at least read the width of the vinyl is an im- portant thing to have.


Q - What about using some of the small- er scrap pieces of vinyl? If you have a 24” cutter and a 20” wide roll of vinyl and let’s say you cut a 10” by 10” de- sign, what happens to the remaining 10” piece? Is that now scrap or is that piece usable?


A - You can definitely use that piece of scrap. In the cutters with the ability to read the width of the material, it will read the size and you can set the origin where you want the cutter to start cut- ting. Some of the very smallest pieces of scrap will probably be unusable as they will not fit between the pinch rollers, but for the most part, you can utilize the bulk of your scrap material.


Q - To connect the cutter to your com- puter, there are serial, parallel, and USB connections. Which one do you recom- mend and why?


A - If you’re able, use USB for the best connection. Serial connections are old school and you can get some errors. I get support calls quite often from cus- tomers who are using serial connec- tions. Most of the machines have both serial and USB connections, but eventu- ally I think the serial connections will be phased out.


Q - We touched upon servo vs. stepper motors used to drive a cutter. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of motor?


A - The stepper motors generally don’t last as long as a servo and they are noisier. The servos are more robust and can cut thicker material like sand blast vinyl and fabric. The machines with servo motors are typically more ex- pensive, but you will easily get ten years out of the cutter.


Q - Are there any limitations as to what we can cut in these cutters? Most of our readers will be cutting some type of vinyl paint mask material. Are there other materials that we can cut?


A - Machines with stepper motors can cut any thin material. Servo motor ma- chines can cut heavier material. You should be able to cut material such as Mylar with no problem, even with a stepper motor. I would just stay away from very thick material such as sand blast vinyl and fabrics if your cutter has stepper motors.


Q - Can you tell us something about the blades the cutters use?


A - A 45 degree blade is the standard blade. There are other blades such as 60 degree blades, which may provide some better detail capabilities. Hon- estly, I’ve gotten just as good detail with a 45 degree blade. A lot depends upon the material you are cutting and how you adjust your settings. You will need to experiment with your blade depth, pressure and cutting speed for the par- ticular vinyl you are using to get the op- timum level of detail.


Q - You’ve mentioned the GCC Expert 24 as a less expensive cutter and the Roland GX24 for a high end cutter. Are there any other cutters that you can recommend or suggest to avoid?


A - The US Cutter’s Compam is a good unit at around $750. The P-Cut is a little difficult to set up and I had some diffi- culties with it. The US Cutter’s MH721


also works well. Bottom line, if I had $1700 in my pocket, I’d go with the Ro- land GX24, but as far as a more afford- able choice, I like the GCC Expert 24 at about $450.


Since my conversation with Nick Hor- vath, I went out and purchased a GCC Expert 24 vinyl cutter from Imprinta- bles Warehouse for $450. The stand is an additional $90, which I recom- mend purchasing. You may wonder why I didn’t purchase from Stahl’s, but they only sell the GCC Expert 24 LX model with the optic eye for contour cutting. This feature adds $250 to the cost of the cutter and it’s something that I will never use. I found this cutter relatively simple to set up. When you initially plug in the USB from the cutter, the driver automatically loads, which is a great feature, as some cutters do not do this and you have to be a computer expert to try and find and load the driver. I had one or two questions about the set up and the machine settings, so I called GCC and spoke with a technical repre- sentative who helped me with these is- sues in a matter of minutes. The Great Cut software that comes with the Expert 24 is strictly a cutting program. You will need to create the vector art in a graphics program such as Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, Inscape (which is a free download) or any vector graphics program that can export the art in an “eps” format. Actually, “eps” is the for- mat I’ve been using, but Great Cut has the ability to read many other formats. I’ve been using a program called Zoner Draw, which I had already installed on my computer and it works just fine and costs about $50. I recently installed Corel Draw so I can create the artwork and cut from the same program. I’d like to thank Nick Horvath from Stahl’s Cad-Cut Direct for taking time from his busy schedule to provide this valuable information. I hope that anyone in the market for a vinyl cutter will learn something from this article and be able to make the right choice when choosing a machine.


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