Discuss the various aspects of heat pressed vinyl transfers. Popular and new types of vinyl media, suppliers, vinyl cutters /plotters, press times, quality, how to instructions and more can be found in this heat press sub forum.
Are Roland cutters the only cutters available with the software needed to cut t-shirt transfers? Also, do you need a special kind of transfer paper for the cutter or can you use any?
No Roland is not the only one,, there are a few that will do this, the us cutter laser cutter plotter is one, it uses a laser to read the cut out of the design, then there is another proven cutter on the market and that is the graphtec the Ce5000-40 which is the smaller pro-grade cutter with the optical eye to read registration marks, this cutter takes up to 19"material and cuts upwards to 15", then there is the Graphtec Ce5000-6o which is the big brother of the 40 and takes up to 24"material, both are pro-grade cutters, then for the hobby type there is the stika which is a roland product, then there is the craftrobo ce 20 which is a graphtec product. I hope this helps you.
We have a Graphtec CE5000-60 and absolutely love it!
I recommend that plotter or, as Roger mentioned, the CE5000-40 CraftROBO Pro.
Either will suite you very well.
For transfer paper, you can use any kind you'd like (I'm still having troubles with IronAll for Darks, but I'll get it eventually), but for most transfers for light fabrics you will need a carrier sheet like Magic Mask to cut them on a plotter.
I have the laserpoint (lasercut). The only purpose of the laser is to guide the user as they manually track to two registration marks during set-up. It is very basic with regards to optical registration as it's using your eyes. My intended use for this cutter is solely to cut contours for ink transfer. Once one gets the hang of the software and a few associated glitches it has that SignBlaser isn't willing to admit. It cuts pretty accurately.
I have used a CraftROBO CC200 in the past for the same purpose and it is much further along with regard to registration mark reading than the lasercut, however it too can be tempermental in reading. Note, it actually finds the reg marks on it's own by optical recogniition. But the CraftROBO has a poorly designed unique blade assembly that is costly to replace.
I agree that IronAll for darks is tougher to cut and probably not a good transfer to start out with. Check out the suppliers, many like New Milford offer sample packs for a nominal fee.
Transfers & Vinyl Cutter Help Needed 
