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.
Yes its another of the trillion threads over the big "which vinyl cutter to get" debate. I've spent way too much time pondering, and its time to make a decision. I have narrowed it down to either the GX-24 or the USCutter LaserPoint. I do want the contour cutting option. My big debating points are obviously the price difference. I am primarily an embroidery business and so far have used vinyl only for lettering, so not sure I can justify spending the extra money. I know the GX24 is a good machine, but there has really not been a lot written about the LaserPoint. Therefore, I hesitate, I know spending less money isn't going to help much if I end up just being frustrated using a machine that is harder to learn and not running as smoothly. Anyone out there using a Laser Point as their first cutter and can share their experience? I appreciate any last words of wisdom.
I've been using my GX-24 optical eye for contour cut just a few times, and all of them it worked without any problems. Some members of the forums stated that the USCutter's optical eye has to be adjusted manually, and that may make a difference, however I don't know about it personally.
But what I can tell you is that you will not regret spending your money on the GX-24.
Good luck.
It really depends on what you're going to primarily use your machine for, and how often you'll use it.
If the reason you want a vinyl cutter is contour cutting transfers, the machine you really want is the GX-24. If you won't use it very often, then I'm sure the LaserPoint will be fine for you.
But...if you primarily want to use a plotter for vinyl, then the machine you really want is the Graphtec CE5000-60, simply because of the software that comes with it, ESPECIALLY if you want to cut multi-color designs from vinyl.
Reason: You can cut-by-color with the Graphtec CE5000-60, but not with the Roland GX-24. The LaserPoint will cut vinyl, but it won't read your media size, so you really need to be careful and load enough vinyl into your machine for what you want to cut.
Also, if you want to do a lot of contour cutting, the Roland is the absolutely easiest machine for that. The Graphtec will contour cut, but it's not quite as easy. The LaserPoint is a little more involved yet, but not too much more involved than the Graphtec.
You really need to consider what you want a plotter for, and decide based on that.
This only applies to cutting vinyl, not inkjet transfers.
When you have a multi-color design that you'd like to use vinyl for, you can send your whole design to the plotter with the Graphtecs, and choose what color vinyl you'd like to cut with each pass. So, without needing to send your vinyl to the plotter again, you can load your red vinyl into your plotter, and tell the software to cut only the red portions of your design. Then when that's done, and your design is still loaded in your cutting software, you can then load your white vinyl in, and tell the software to cut only the white portions of your design.
This CAN be done with a Roland, but you need to send each color of your design to CutStudio seperately. So, while it's possible to cut multi-colored designs on a Roland, it's a lot fussier, and it also leaves a more room for human error (not selecting EVERY part of your design in each of your individual colors, etc).
That's one of the reasons I say that if your main purpose in getting a plotter is vinyl, buy a Graphtec. If your main purpose is contour cutting transfers or stickers, buy the Roland.
If you're on a budget, there are the less expensive US Cutter machines, but if you have the money, but a Graphtec or Roland (depending on what you want to do with it).
My only advice is you need to buy from a good supplier. I suggest you stay away from signwarehouse. I and many others on the forums has had a bad experience with them. I always say buy on service and not price. Sometimes it's worth a little more to get good service. I just bought a gx 24 from Imprintables and so far it's great. Good luck. .......JB
You can cut by color to the Roland GX-24, just not with the Roland Cut Studio. The Cadworx program allows you to cut by color and also offers additional functionality. There might be other softwares packaged with the GX-24 (from different suppliers) that will also allow this capability, however I am only familiar with the Cadworx.
Flexi you can cut vinyl any way you want too, multicolor, single color, this way that way. SignBlazer is supposed to be able to cut multi colors too, but have never tried it.
Remember people these machines are "dummie machines" they basically only do what the software tells them to do. It's the software that makes the difference most of the times.
Any last words of wisdom? 
