Summa D60 R vs Roland GX24

Hello theCount,

I bought the US equivalent of the Summa cutter you are evaluating a few months ago. The model I have is the Summacut D75-R and I'm very pleased! I use 36 degree blades for most heat applied materials, decal & sign vinyl. I use the 60 deg blade for material such as Flock. I only use Summa OEM knives and will not use anything else.

My D75-R can cut 30.7 inches wide, up to 30 mils in thickness and can also perform contour cuts. The Summacut model you are considering can perform contour cuts also, will cut up to 24.8 inches wide and accepts media up to 26 inches wide. The knives for the Summa work just as great as the knives for Roland (see more here).

I opted for Summa because of the overall feature set, speed & power, the metal build quality and praise it's received from other Summa users. I did not mind paying slightly more because I got a high quality product with a standard 2 year parts & labor warranty and 90-day replacement. The only thing that shipped with my cutter I did not like was the plug-in software. I use it, but want something more robust. I've tried SignCut-X2 which works well and now considering a Flexi Mac product.

I purchased directly from Summa and get my support directly from them as well. There is a special tech that has partnered with me from Summa who is extremely knowledgeable & customer-service driven. I am excited to actually meet my Summa salesperson in about 3 weeks at SGIA Atlanta who took care of me with my purchase. At SGIA, I will also evaluate the Summa thermal printer-cutter-in-one models as a potential future upgrade.

The Roland is a popular product and does well for many. I'm even going to throw in the often talked about Graphtec CE5000 which falls between the GX24 and Summacut-R D60. However, if you're truly seeking flexibility, top speed and gram/force power in a starter cutter, the Summacut-R will provide you that.

The differences you mentioned are not common for what I believe most people are looking for in a cutter. But, to touch on two of them: Both the Roland GX24 and Summacut-R can perform contour cuts with ease. I have cut tiny, and I mean tiny letters and numbers on my Summa perfectly with the 36 deg & 60 deg blades. The details of the cuts were great so there should be no worries about this. I'm not sure about small cuts with Roland blades.

The Summacut-R and Roland GX24 is not a true apples-to-apples comparison actually. See specs of both below, noting the features in red that many people look for in cutters.

Good luck with your decision and purchase!


SPEED
Up to 1131 mm/sec (44 in./sec) diagonal

ACCELERATION
Up to 3 g diagonal

KNIFE PRESSURE
0-400 grams, in 5-gram increments

RESOLUTION
0.025 mm, 0.1 mm selectable (Metric)
0.001 in., 0.005 in. selectable (English)

REPEATABILITY
Within +/- 0.1 mm (0.004 in.) on plots:
up to 8 m (26 ft.) long on rolls up to 760 mm (30 in.) wide; up to 4 m (13 ft.) long on rolls over 760 mm (30 in.) wide

TOOL COMPATIBILITY
Standard D-Series knife for vinyl, reflective and fluorescent films
Thick material D-Series knife for sandblast resist and other thick films
Pen for plotting on paper
Pounce tool (optional) for pouncing on paper

MEDIA WIDTH
Roll: 7 to 67 cm (2.8 to 26.4 in.)
Sheet: 7 to 67 cm (2.8 to 26.4 in.)

MEDIA LENGTH
50 m (164 ft.) maximum

MEDIA THICKNESS
Up to 0.25 mm (0.01 in.) with standard knife
up to 0.8 mm (0.03 in.) with thick material knife

CUTTING AREA
63 cm x 50 m (24.8 in. x 164 ft.)

MEMORY
16 MB

INTERFACE
USB 1.1 and Serial RS-232C

LANGUAGES
Summa DM/PL, HP-GL or HP-GL2 (with selectable origin HP7475 and HP 7580/7585)

OPOS X optical alignment system - The world’s most advanced optical sensor comes to the SummaCut-R. OPOS X features a more advanced optical scanner that’s capable of reading registration marks on an even wider range of output.

theCount said:

I will be ordering my plotter (cutter) next week and before I make the final decision I wanted to see if I could gather advice and info from people using either (or both) of the following models:

1. Summacut D60R

2. Roland GX24

Both are good plotters for entry level, but I would like to try and evaluate which machine is going to take me further by offering more flexibility.

Price, Support and Technical Specs for both are very similar (size, speed, accuracy etc) there are however a few differences

1. Software seems to be a difference - is OPOS (summacut) better for contour cutting or the Roland software?
2. The Summa comes with a Pen Holder (which sounds useful for testing design on paper) but I can´t seem to find anything about the Roland having this capability.
3. The biggest difference seems to be the blades: the Roland has a better selection of 6 types of replacement and special blades, with offsets down to 0.175mm. The Summa only has 2 different blade types: standard; 45° - Offset 0,50mm and Sandblast 60° with 0.9mm!! offset. How does this blade offset affect the cutting characteristics (for T-Shirt uses) will I be able to cut thicker materials with finer details on the Roland or the Summacut?

Any advice or Tips you can give me here will be most appreciated...

Click to expand...

theCount,
Summa is a great plotter manufacturer. They really know their stuff. Here's my take on your questions:
1.) Both are optical registration technologies. both are excellent for contour cutting. The feedback I receive from users of both is that the Summa plugins aren't as easy to use as CutStudio.
2.) The GX-24 doesn't have a separate pen holder, but plotter pens can be used in the cutter when the offset is 0.00
Pens can be purchased from many sources. One that we deal with regularly is Home Page
3.) Ms. Blue can chime in regarding the Summa because she knows it better. We sourced blades specifically for this application and this market. ZEC-U5025 is an excellent blade for EZ Weed, Thermoflex, Eco-Film, etc. USA-RWEAR is a blade designed specifically for Twill and Flock and has a 54 degree angle. The offset and speed should be set to the same for both blades.

Hope this helps,
-Dana