Transitioning from Graphtec to Roland help

[Gilligan]

I know there will be some "growing pains" so to speak.

But everyone talked about how it would be easy and like I would be happier with the Roland.

I'm not sure about that.

So far I am just not getting it.

What I liked about the Graphtec that I don't find in the Roland:

Graphtec had a separate dialog box in Illustrator (as "Cutting Master" on the file menu), it seems with Roland you have to "print" to the gx-24?

In that box it had LOTS of options for various things as well as customizable settings that you could save as your own names "out door vinyl" "small sticker vinyl" "t-shirt vinyl" with different pressure and speed settings blah blah blah.

It also had the ability to "trace" the image (like an embroidery machine has) so you can see if it will cut on the sheet where you expect it to.

Placement on the sheet was also easier.

I haven't even begun to look at how one would do a registered contour cut around a printed item.

The GX-24 just seems to be extremely basic/dumb... compounded by the fact that I am apparently dumb when it comes to using it!  LOL


Oh, and in regards to the physical unit... the Graphtec had a "slot" that you could run your razor blade through to trim off what you cut from the roll.  Also, unless I'm ignorant here it seems that you have to set your own origin.  The graphtec would scan the media and then roll it back to the beginning of the roll and set your origin.. you could of course change that if you desired.  This made trims easy as I'd cut it off then bump the lever in the back (it was a little too sensitive for my taste) to reset the cutter and make it think I just loaded it.  It would then scan the media and reset the origin for me while I loaded up another design to be cut.

Someone point me to that magic place that will let me know all my concerns are for naught!

[cbjamel]

I have a GX-24 and it does have a place in the front for cutting, the ribbed part to silver middle is the cutting location. Do you have cut studio installed, if stalled there will be shortcut for for you I think, there is in corel once installed in corel.

Shane

[Gilligan]

Yeah, it's installed.

I am on CS5 and that MAY be the problem as I did see that the plug-in is "technically" for CS4.

[cbjamel]

I would still try it that way and see, if not save it as a file that cutstudio can read and run from there.
Shane

[Gilligan]

Ok, finally found that cut studio plug-in (it's under "windows" in illustrator).  Seems a little more straight forward now.

Still got some "growing" to do here.

Quick question though... does anyone know if it has the ability to do a "show me" type of trace?  Like an embroidery machine will do, outlining the design to make sure it fits?  I could do this in the graphtec and it was a good way to make sure it was going to do what you expected it to do.  I recently set origin about 1cm from the right margin which is opposite of what I need (used to graphtec orientation) and it cut little nicks up the vinyl (no big deal)... those things would be caught by a "show me" function.