How does plotter cutter work

You can even use your vinyl cutter to customize your t-shirts with your desired artwork, graphics, quotes, etc. Simply put, a vinyl cutting machine will help you accomplish all your home or small business art and craft projects. A vinyl plotter, also referred to as a vinyl cutter or vinyl printer cutter combo, refers to a piece of computer gear that uses a pen to draw your design or artwork on a paper.

It enables you to turn your product prototype into a workable template or pattern. You can rely on them to cut out vinyl sign lettering as well as other images—enabling you to make a wide range of things, including billboards, bumper stickers, and others. Some more streamlined vinyl plotter models let you connect them to the computer. Such models are usually affordable and are ideal for making displays, signs, posters, wall lettering, etc.

You can also easily find commercial grade vinyl cutter plotters. As you can easily guess, these models are pretty BIG and can be used to cut lettering soo big that it letters the entire wall of a big building or a huge billboard.

Commercial plotters usually cut immediately and accurately and let you make simple adjustments to improve spacing. The cost of these machines varies from model to model, depending on the size as well as the features it comes with.

Just as we said in the case of cutters, a plotter with more advanced features such as an integrated scanner will cost you more. Vinyl plotters are better suited for projects such as blueprints, advertisement billboards, banners, and the like; these are best used when printing is involved. A plotter is a more cost-effective alternative in projects like these because it paints directly on the vinyl.

If you were to get different colored pieces of vinyl and cut them to your requirements, it would be quite costly.

Apparel companies, car manufacturers all use plotters for printing on vinyl. On the other hand, if the job demands working primarily with a single color, vinyl cutters are more commonly used. This is why you would see people using cutters for logos, car decals, signs, and so on. Moreover, you can use the cutters to work on an array of materials such as cardboards and trimming papers.

You do not have to restrict yourself to using it on just vinyl. It is widely known that a pen is mightier than a sword. However, when it comes to plotters and cutters, we have to say that pens and knives are equally functional.

A major difference between a cutter and a plotter is the use of knives and pens. Regular vinyl cutters use knives to cut and shape the vinyl, whereas plotters use pens to design and print on them.

The knife allows the cutters to print a design on the vinyl or any other material it is working on. Instead of just designing on the material, it cuts the vinyl in real-time. If you plan to put a logo on your shop window, a vinyl cutter will cut the logo to the perfect size needed. On the other hand, the vinyl plotter uses the mighty pen to print more intricate and detailed designs.

To design a prototype of a car, or for apparel designing, vinyl plotters can become your best friend! These give you a perfectly detailed replica of the things that you want to design eventually. Anyone deciding to play around with colors when designing should totally make use of the pens that plotters come with. And with that, we have reached the end of our comprehensive and detailed comparison between vinyl plotters and cutters.

After reading this, we hope you are more enriched and have a better idea about how to pick between the two. Before bidding adieu, we would like to reiterate one thing: to know what is the best device for you, it is necessary that you understand your requirements well. Depending on whether you are planning to make a logo or designing a building prototype, you will have to determine the kind of device that would work the best! The weeding process is quite complicated. During weeding, if the positive side is released, the resultant effect a negative sticker but when the negative side is released, it will be a positive sticker.

The transfer tape sheet that has an adhesive back and is placed on the Vinyl already weeded. When a roller is placed on the tape, the Vinyl will stick properly. Then the vinyl and transfer tape is pulled off from what is called a release liner and put onto a substrate like aluminum sheets.

The result will be aluminum signs that have Vinyl figures. Most of the known and unknown sign houses use the Vinyl cutter machine to create their designs and signs on their custom garments. The decoration businesses have been known to make use of the Vinyl cutter to do their decoration business. They use the vector design when it is turned into a mirror image, reversed or weeded and then apply a heat press so as to get the professional result.

If you have not known about the vinyl cutter machine, we have used this article to break it down so that you can understand what it is, how it works and what you can use it to do. I read everything there is to be read about most of these machines. Your knowledge never ceases to amaze me. This has been extremely helpful in terms of me learning everything I need to get started. Thanks for sharing. When I am done printing on transfer paper I use the scissor to cut the image will a vinyl cutter do the cutting for me.

Hi Alex , I will like to learn how to operate and purchase a screen print machine like the video you shared and other products too, How do I go about that please. Thank you.

Skip to content. Written by: Alex John Published on: April 22, They are as follows; The Vinyl cutter is specifically designed to receive and work on material that has the width of 2 — The cutting frequency of the Vinyl machine is built to work at 20 inches for every second.