# Can any plotter contour cut???



## MAYNEMAG (Dec 22, 2007)

I currently have a US Cutter Laserpoint 24 and its excellent, but I am going to need a larger cutter that cuts contours. It is my understanding that Flexisign will allow any plotter to contour cut. It sounds reasonable being that a cutter has to ultimately get the info from a computer to tell it what to do. But the part I can't understand is how a cutter without some type of laser or optical eye will know where the registration marks are. If anyone is using a plotter that does not have a laser or optical eye and is still able to contour cut please let me know. I need to upgrade my cutter asap and will make a sweet deal for anyone who wants to buy my LP24. Thanks in advance to everyone.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

To contour cut you will need to have a cutter with Optic eye...or a laser registration system..the fact that a software program will contour cut only means that it has the capability to recognize the registration marks


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## Nick Horvath (Feb 26, 2010)

Also, do not confuse the fact that a cutter has a material sensor (reads the width of the material when inserted), to mean that it also has an optical eye.


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## ambitious (Oct 29, 2007)

Check out this thread http://www.t-shirtforums.com/vinyl-cutters-plotters-transfers/t57922.html


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## MAYNEMAG (Dec 22, 2007)

I read the other post and it was good info, exactly as I was thinking. Ambitious I noticed you said you have a seikitech which is what I was looking into, have you ever contour cut with yours and is the machine itself any good? The price for a new one on ebay is awesome.


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## ambitious (Oct 29, 2007)

I never did contour cutting with mines, but cut lot's of vinyl with it with no problems. I bought mines as a package from sunie on ebay, the cutter and the sunie heat press with signcut x2 cutting software a couple years back. We sold it last year. We bought a roland gx 24 and the cutter head went hay wire on us after several months, so we needed a back up cutter right away, and ended up getting another seikitech and so far so good with it. 

Great cutter in my opinion, and with signcut x2 even better. I don't know anything about that flexi8 starter software that comes with it now, so make sure they give you step by step instructions on it if you do get one.

We mainly use our roland now and the seikitech just sits there staring at us, but i don't plan on selling it because i know it will get me out of a rush.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

The post that referred to contour cutting with ANY cutter is two years old and it DID NOT say how to do this. I have never seen a cutter do contour cutting without an optic eye or other registration system...period... If this were indeed true, you would have every cutter manufacturer tout their cutters' ability to do this... I just don't believe at this point...Oh yes...contour cutting is cutting around and inside an image


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## ambitious (Oct 29, 2007)

Well according to seikitech you can contour cut using flexistarter and i know the flowerboxx did it with the mh721 AND the flexi software.


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## ambitious (Oct 29, 2007)

MAYNEMAG said:


> I read the other post and it was good info, exactly as I was thinking. Ambitious I noticed you said you have a seikitech which is what I was looking into, have you ever contour cut with yours and is the machine itself any good? The price for a new one on ebay is awesome.



I forgot to mention that i had the laserpoint and mh721 too! And they didn't work for me.


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## MAYNEMAG (Dec 22, 2007)

If only flowerboxx could give us a tutorial LOL. I believe it can be done, why doubt it if he says he has accomplished it just because you haven't personally seen it done? hope flowerboxx sees this post to give us insight. Also if the the other thread is 2 years old why wouldn't it be even more possible to contour cut now, technology moves pretty fast.


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## theflowerboxx (Mar 26, 2007)

Oh it can be done very easily. No tuts from me though. I no longer use the Refine for anything other than magnets. But it can be done very easily with Flexi Pro. 

Read the help in Flexi it explains it in there. Again you can contour cut something very easily using the Refine with Flexi Pro.


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## theflowerboxx (Mar 26, 2007)

charles95405 said:


> The post that referred to contour cutting with ANY cutter is two years old and it DID NOT say how to do this. I have never seen a cutter do contour cutting without an optic eye or other registration system...period... If this were indeed true, you would have every cutter manufacturer tout their cutters' ability to do this... I just don't believe at this point...Oh yes...contour cutting is cutting around and inside an image


 LOL......Yes you never seen it done so it must NOT be true.


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## tlzimmerman (Mar 7, 2010)

Woo hoo first post,

I don't know about "any" cutter being able to cut, but alot of these chinese cutters use the roland pnc1000 driver I believe, and that particular cutter had the ability to contour cut using a "bomb sight" type deal you put into the blad holder to look through and line it up.....and these cutters can do it but you have to line it up manually. I am just getting into shirts after doing vinyl for some time now, and I have successfully contour cut with my refine and flexi 8.1 several times when I needed it. If I am not mistken the seiketech cutter uses the same roland driver, and if it does it should have this ability as well using the right software.

Here is a tutorial on how to do it, I think fivestar over on the uscutter forums might even be flowerboxx.....I forget but I know flower is on both sites under different names***edit....or at least I think he is***. This is how I do it as well, I am working on a laser pointer I can put where my blade holder goes to make lining it up easier....but have yet to get it finished

How to contour cut with Flexi Pro and Refine


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

Do you mean this will not only contour cut around the outside...not a big deal...but will also cut the interior bits out...like cutting out the center of the letter 'O' ...which is a bigger deal...to cut out the unwanted parts inside the image...such as done with the Roland GX24


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## tlzimmerman (Mar 7, 2010)

Either or...depending on how you want it.

When in flexi, you create a contour cut for the graphic before you rip and print....in this box when you create the contour cut you can choose to do the internals as well as external, or just the external contour.


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## tlzimmerman (Mar 7, 2010)

Also I have found that when creating the contour cut in flexi...you can set it to a negative value.....meaning you can outset your design, and then make the contour cut inset by like a -.05 inches...that way if you don't get it perfectly lined up no biggie, kinda like setting up a bleed.


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## MAYNEMAG (Dec 22, 2007)

Thanks everybody, I have been getting answers like "it can't be done" from other forums. Fortunate enough I rarely understand the word "can't" LOL! The Seikitech maybe my next move. thanks.


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## theflowerboxx (Mar 26, 2007)

tlzimmerman said:


> How to contour cut with Flexi Pro and Refine


 That would be the tutorial I did. I told everyone it could be done easily.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

Okay...I give up..


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## theflowerboxx (Mar 26, 2007)

Charles if you put a cut line around anything and have a way of lining it up perfectly than any cutter will cut it out. Fortunately for Refine owners they use the Roland PNC-1000 driver in Flexi Pro and you're able to line it up perfectly and cut the contour line.


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