Discuss the different methods of adding some bling to your designs. Rhinestone and rhinestud transfers, templates, equipment, software and supplies are inlcuded in this forum.
This is sort of like which is best...Chev or Ford...they both get you there!..and don't forget Roland. They have a system that can be used with their EGX350 as well as with their GX24 vinyl cutter. If you are looking for 'bang for the buck' and you want to do mostly rhinestones..Look at ACS w/ KNK Maxx Pro for around $1700...I consider it an entry system w/ some nice features.
DAS is around 5K for the larger GCC Jaguar or I think around 4K for the system w/GCC Puma III. These cost estimates are only estimates since I am not associated with DAS.
I think the ACS system will be from around 3.5k for the Eagle and around 2.5k for the Falcon..The Roland system is about 5K w/the engraver (you would need the extra software R-Wear Studio) or just buy the R-wear studio for about $500 and the GX24 for around $1800.
So I guess you should let your wallet to the talking...all will work and some will be able to do more than just rhinestones and hobby crafting...Don't jump on me...nothing wrong with hobby crafting! Just not my area of interest.
The ACS system can also be bought separately and works with a Graphtec CE5000-60 cutter which is what I consider to be the best for the least unless you really like working you hinny to get a cheeper graaphics program to do with a lot more work arounds. I personaly have the Graphtec and wish I had the business to use the ACS as that would be my first choice being where Im at equipment wise. If I were starting over, I might be tempted to go with the roland GX-24 and the R-Ware but not sure. I recon you can tell I'm tight since I only drool over the higher priced systems.
Last edited by DTFuqua; August 30th, 2009 at 01:36 PM.
Reason: one word missing
Terry has a good point...I had forgotten about the new release of ACS software w/a driver for the Graphtec 5000 and I think the craft robo.. that was just released about week or so ago. If I remember correctly Gary for ACS has indicated drivers for other cutters are not planned for the future
I am not looking to do hobby crafting i am looking to build a system that can do rhinestone Ts and caps but also vinyl cut designs for heat press.
I am buying everything new from the start so i do not want to buy the wrong things and then find out i still need to spent more $ for other things.
Thinking of buying the GCC Jaguar or GCC Puma III i will not be making sings only Ts, caps and bags.,
A 16x20 clamshell heat press.
I have corel all ready.
Plan on making up to 200 Ts a week myself over time lots of rhinestone Ts
Last edited by EddieM; August 30th, 2009 at 08:12 PM.
I have a GCC Puma III and it has been a workhorse...one day I will even do contour cutting on it...just been to busy and/or lazy to do it yet...I guess an order where it was needed would inspire me!
I purchased the "turn key" DAS Stone Stencils system back in early July - basically just add t-shirts. I needed everything. I am brand new to the t-shirt industry so big learning curve for me. I spent $3947 and got the following:
Smart Cutter Puma III Vinyl Cutter & Stand
Stone Stencil Package:
Smart Cut Pro (Cutting/Rhinestone Software)
Smart Cuts (Vector Designs for customization and conversion)
Single Line Fonts
Rhinestone Starter Kit (30,000 plus stones in various colors & sizes)
System Starter Kit (Stencil material, transfer tape, backer boards, trays, brushes, etc.)
Plus the July Special: Ready Art Vol 1 included free
I love the on line tutorials (I learn best this way) but have been through the two training manuals (there are tutorials on one of the CD's as well) & need to go through them again as I pick up new things every time. I do not have Corel yet so I am using the software that came with the system and am told that it works similarly to Corel but Corel is a much more powerful program and is on my wishlist.....
I would be further along but I seem to be working on everything but the actual business of making t-shirts - building my webpage, learning Quickbooks, getting incorporated and selecting board members, dealing with IRS from the business perspective, trying to get my Application for Sales & Use Tax Permit so I can get t-shirts wholesale, etc., etc., etc.
I personally like the DAS Stone Stencils System but have nothing to compare it to. The system comes with a number of designs that are ready to cut as soon as you import them which is really nice. I am really enjoying it when I get to sit down and actually use it. I have gotten much better at "brushing in" the stones but the weeding is still a tough one (but still easier than hand placing stones!).
Has anyone compared the ACS Design Studio to the DAS version they have.
How much are they both?
Is one better then the other if so in what ways?
Thanks
I can't do a detailed comparison because I don't know the DAS system. But I know the ACS System cold... so if someone asks if it can do A, B or C, then I can definitely answer that. If there are ANY design functions your interested in at all, I am happy to respond and even make quick videos showing how they work. The software is extremely powerful and doesn't require any other applications for our owners to be able to create what they need for vinyl cutting, rhinestone templates, or just any vector designing.
Re: the DAS package-there is a new material out from them to make weeding easier, apparently you can just pull the material and the "dots" stay back, essentially weeding it by pulling it all at once.
I like the system too, but sometimes talking to a human is hard to come by when you have a problem!
Non Rhinestone ?s
With the ACS software can you load in a image with three colors and have the software create for you three different color out puts to be cut in vinyl so the cutter will cut out each color one at a time ready to press?
Can the software load in T-shirt blanks and place what you designed onto the T-Shirt image so you can see what it will look like on each shirt and let you print this out to show a customer for job approval.?
Can a T-shirt design be output for a 4 color silk screen when needed so we can cut it in vinyl or set it up for a silk screen.
We will be doing some silk screen as well. Doing our own shipping boxs SS to start with.
Rhinestones
Can i create a rhinestone design and export it into another program so i can cut it with a different cutter if i only buy the software? can i send it to COCUT?
Will the software ever support other cutters like Roland, GCC and others if so when? That would be great to use the software and not be locked into using a cutter that is not supported by most other programs we would want to use.?
If they would make cutter drivers ready to use for other programs then the new cutters would look very good as i could use the ACS software and other software and cut from one of many programs.
What i am trying to compare at this point is the ACS software VS Smart Designer X3
Will i be able to do most everything in ACS as you can do in Smart designer?
What can you not do in ACS? that you can do in Smart designer.
If ACS can do most everything that Smart Designer can do for cutting vinyl designs then to buy the ACS kit with cutter would be a good deal as it includes rhinestone design and offers to cut from the program- but if it can not then for not much more the Smart designer and a different cutter like a GCC would seem like the best choice.
Thanks
Still working on getting a handle on all this before we spend $$ on everything.
Non Rhinestone ?s
With the ACS software can you load in a image with three colors and have the software create for you three different color out puts to be cut in vinyl so the cutter will cut out each color one at a time ready to press?
Yes. And there are three different ways to do it:
Double click a color in the main window and all objects of that color can then be sent to the Cut Preview window
Send all images to the Cut Preview window and then use the Sort and Cut All Colors option to check/uncheck colors to be cut
Send all images to the Cut Preview window and then use the Filter By Color option to have colors queued for cutting
Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieM
Can the software load in T-shirt blanks and place what you designed onto the T-Shirt image so you can see what it will look like on each shirt and let you print this out to show a customer for job approval.?
Yes. Just this last weekend, I designed a simulated rhinestone that can be used when designing the circle patterns and then placed onto a vector T-Shirt image (your choice of color) to show what it will look like. See attached image.
I'm still perfecting it, but you'll get the idea of where I'm headed with this. I welcome input!
Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieM
Can a T-shirt design be output for a 4 color silk screen when needed so we can cut it in vinyl or set it up for a silk screen.
Yes... no problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieM
Can i create a rhinestone design and export it into another program so i can cut it with a different cutter if i only buy the software? can i send it to COCUT?
We have found that circles can become distorted when being transferred between various vector programs. I am happy to export a design from ACS Studio into several standard formats so that you can test, if you like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieM
Will the software ever support other cutters like Roland, GCC and others if so when?
We do not have current plans to extend the available drivers beyond our own ACS machines and the Graphtec CE5000-60 and Craft Robo Pro.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieM
Will i be able to do most everything in ACS as you can do in Smart designer?
What can you not do in ACS? that you can do in Smart designer.
I don't know Smart Designer well enough to respond to that. Looking over the list of functions at the link you provided, it appears to me that we have many of the same design functions in common. But it's hard to do true side-by-side comparisons based on the differences in terminology, ease of use of various functions, and how "fancy" each function might be. That's why I always say, "Tell me what you want to be able to do and I'll tell you how it works in our software." I also regularly make quick videos to show prospective customers how we design things in ACS. So, please feel free to ask if there's something you want to see.
Meanwhile, here is a list of some of the functions in ACS Design Studio. (I assume it's okay to post this list? If not, please let me know and I will remove.)
Auto-tracing, Center Line Tracing, and Manual Tracing of bitmap images
Select and cut by color
Print and Cut functionality using Registration Mark settings
Weed and Power Weed for vinyl and stencil applications
Wide range of text functions including: Kerning, Slanting, Vertical Text, Fit Text to Path, Fit Text to Arc, Outline, Inline, 3D Shadowing, and even Spell Check
Font Detective and Character Picker for font organizing and easier use of dingbat fonts
Over 40 Transformation functions for customization of titles and distortion of images
8 Basic Shapes (circle, oval, rectangle, fan, star, monument, polygon, and arrow) which can be modified for hundreds of customized looks
Three Welding tools to merge, subtract and extract the overlap of images
Cut Preview modifications to images including Rotating, Mirroring, Filtering by Color, Nesting, Weeding, and changing Cut Order
Full range of image manipulation including Rotating, Flipping, Layering, Aligning, Slanting, Stretching, Spacing, and Fitting Object to Path
Array functions for arranging images in horizontal, vertical, staggered, grid and circular patterns
Stenciling function to apply geometric patterns to images
Hatch fill function for filling images with island and other patterns
Clipping function to fill images with bitmap patterns
Round Cornering and Mitered Cornering to apply to all corners or select individually
Banner fill for engraving or coloring images with a pen
Perforated / Dashed Line cutting
Multi-Pass cutting
Six Zooming options and ability to zoom with mouse scroll
Insertion of Guidelines including angled guides
Undo Navigator with detailed list of all steps and ability to instantly go back to any earlier step
Conversion of vector images to bitmap
Adjustable Overcut and Trailing Blade settings for different blade angles and image styles
Import and export in standard vector formats, including .ai, .eps, .dxf, .svg, .wmf, .pdf and bitmap formats, including .jpg, .bmp, .png, .pcx, .tif
Full editing functionality including node reduction, smoothing of curves, corner sharpening, line straightening, path extending, path erasing, and more.
Ginsu knife function for breaking up images
Badges feature for creating nametags, placecards, etc from a text list of names or words
Create custom color palettes and assign names to colors within a file
Assign images to layers or pages
Customizable toolbars
Over 100 hot key functions for easy execution and ability to create your own shortcut keystokes
Functions for professionals including tracking of Cutting Time and Distance, Labeling of images including Dimensions, and adding Notes.
My main problem is i am still trying to understand it all and what in the end i need.
After looking into things some more last night i think it would be better to compare the ACS Design Studio to the Smart cut pro software not smart designer. That would be more on the same line for each program
I think i could export anything from Smart designer into ACS or Smart Cut Pro if needed Software: Smart Cut Pro is your premier vinyl cutting software
Smart Cut Pro is more like ACS so i think that would be a better program to compare it to.
Smart Cut works with CorelDRAW but ACS is trying to do most of what you would do in CorelDRAW included in ACS from what i can tell.
For rhinestones Smart cut offers Rhinestone Production Features
Convert vector outlines to rhinestone patterns with circles anchored at each intersecting point.
Patterns can be distributed on an outline by distance or a specific number of stones.
Stones can be budgeted by specifying a specific number of stones.
Automatically calculate the number of stones in a design by size or color to produce cost estimates.
Control stone diameter, spacing and offset from vector outline.
Is this all included in ACS to...?? it looks like it is
What about included Rhinestone Patterns & Fonts in ACS
How many Rhinestone Patterns and rhinestone fonts are included in ACS?
With the other system you have to buy at a extra cost Stone Stencils templates that include ready made
Is ACS drag and drop compatible? if so it then should be no problem moving items from it to another program or from another program to it for cutting.
I DL the demo of Kic-N-Kut but that is not the pro version is it?(ACS Design Studio) do they have a demo of the pro version?
I have this version working but it had a problem loading in the fonts that did not work.
I DL the demo of Kic-N-Kut but that is not the pro version is it?(ACS Design Studio) do they have a demo of the pro version? I have this version working but it had a problem loading in the fonts that did not work. Thanks
Hi Eddie,
Here is a thread about the differences and I believe, hits on the demo questions, on the KNK Studio vs. the ACS Studio... that'll help answer questions between "those" two softwares:
If you are not looking at the DAS system anymore, those other threads will be a bigger help to you if you are looking at the Accugraphics line up. (KNK, ACS).
I hope no one minds putting it here but I just found a new one specifically for us graphtec owners. Its i-DesignR by/for Graphtec. I found it in my latest supplies catalogue and looked at the graphtec america website and it is there. Now we need someone to "know" and tell more about it. I think theres one more thread to place this announcment if moderators don't mind
Edit to add link to the new thread on this software:
I hope no one minds putting it here but I just found a new one specifically for us graphtec owners. Its i-DesignR by/for Graphtec. I found it in my latest supplies catalogue and looked at the graphtec america website and it is there. Now we need someone to "know" and tell more about it. I think theres one more thread to place this announcment if moderators don't mind
Thanks for sharing the news, Terry. Why not start a new thread to find out if anyone on the forum knows about it, has heard of it yet, or uses it? We can add the link to the new thread in your post, to direct the interest that way, and keep this one on topic. Thanks, again, for the info!
ACS Design Studio VS DAS system 
