All kinna questions

[StuJohnston]

I will try to keep this brief, at least that is what I am telling myself.

I have been looking into becoming a member of SGIA. Especially for their articles that I wish that I could read! Does anyone have any complaints about the SGIA? Would you recommend it?

Not now, but sometime it the future, I would like to buy a vinyl cutter. Not a combo unit, just something with a knife. What should I be looking for? I see all manner of cheap-o printers on ebay, but none have a name I recognize. Ideally it would be 24"+ and have a way of cutting from a vector file and going off of registration marks. Basically, what would get me the best value. I will probably buy used, but the only brand I really know anything about is Roland. Also, I am not bothered by old tech, so long as it cuts decently.

Wow, that's all!

[Gilligan]

I have the Graphtec "Robo Pro" (not the "hobby" one but the one like the larger one just smaller).  It has optical registration reading and it nice.  That being said it hasn't been without it's hang ups.  Like anything it's a learning curve but in a different more technical manner.

If you want to go cheap, US Cutters aren't too bad for the money.  Ebay can get you one direct from US Cutters for a bit cheaper and all you sacrifice is warranty.  They have an LP series which has a laser that you can use for registration cutting if you think you will only do occasional CAD cut transfers.  You have to manually (via buttons) line up each of the registration marks.  Even with my $900 cutter I have to still put it close to one registration mark... it's tedious but if I wasn't doing very many transfers then it would be perfect.

[Prosperi-Tees]

I just bought a laserpoint and really dont like it. The U.S. cutter MH series is actually easier to use if you dont need an optical eye. I really should have invested in a Graphtech or Roland as I have been doing quite a bit of cutting lately.

[tpitman]

I've got a Graphtec 24" cutter I bought about 5 years ago, an earlier version of the CE5000-60 Works great. Came with an Illustrator plug-in that I use. Signwarehouse.com sells a rebadged version of mine called the VE Qe60 Plus for about what I paid for it back then. Mine has an optical mark recognition that I've never used. I really like mine. I've done signage and name and number jobs for shirt backs.

[Gilligan]

We essentially have the 15" version of that cutter.

The optical registration has been the biggest pain... that and messed up protection strips and wore out blades.  Oh, and it came setup for the wrong blade type as well as some sort of rotate enabled inside that machine that was driving us batty.

[StuJohnston]

I had checked out the uscutters a while back, but I went to their complaints and criticisms subforum and slowly backed away. Even after reading prosperitees recommendation, I took a look at their offerings again and saw that their cheapest laser registering cutter had a stipulation that they wouldn't actually support that feature. From there, it get's into used graphtec territory, at least close enough that I would rather buy the graphtec. I was hoping that the graphtec brand would be suitable actually. Does anyone have an opinion on Summa cutters?

I didn't know that there was much involved with the registration. Speaking of things that I don't know about cutters, I noticed that the Qe-60 lists a max cutting force. Can it be variable, like for kiss cuts and stuff?