theishkid

About to buy new CE6000-60

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So I'm about to buy the new CE6000 sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I'm currently using a PCut with my Mac and Flexistarter for cutting.

 

I know it comes with the new Cutting Master plugin for Illustrator but I would also like to keep Flexi going while I learn the new software, plus I have a lot of repeat business and keep all my Flexi files.

 

So the question is... Will Flexi be able to recognize the new CE6000? The build I have doesn't have the CE6000 settings in it yet (obviously). Do you think I need to wait a while till they come out with a new build of the software? Or do you think I can just set it to the CE5000 cutter?

 

Thanks,

Brad

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Ask Graphtec America....They have all the drivers for their machines.  And it has been shown before, that there are Flexi driver packs. available.  Uscutter, may even have the CE6000 in their Flexi driver pack now....or possibly get it from them.

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Oh sweet! I thought it was a new build I would need from Flexi... and they aren't the quickest to come out with stuff like that. 

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It is even possible, that it can be ran on the CE5000- in Flexi.    Just make sure you have the cutter command on HP-GL.      There are people who run the CE-5000 on the old Signblazer  Graphtec 50, and it works fine...

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Awesome! As long as I don't have to worry about it then I should be good to go. Just waiting for my business check card to get here. I was also checking out Cutting Master on Graphtecs website and it looks pretty awesome. Might be kind of nice to not leave Illustrator and have to load Flexi all the time. I literally only use the cut button in Flexi.

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I'm dying to know more about the machine! How's the cut quality? Can you post any pics?

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There is no comparison. It's so much less noise first of all. If my p-cut is on just sitting not cutting the fan which does not go off on the p-cut I can't hear the ce6000 even when it is cutting. And it's only about 4ft further away from me then the p-cut. The fan on my copam and the ce6000 goes off when cutting is not being done. My p-cut is about 5 years old and has been a work horse. It has done so much more then my copam at double the price.about a year in the copam wouldn't even cut a foot long with out going so off kilter I couldn't use it. I have nothing bad to say about the p-cut being for $400 bucks it went 5 years and is still going less the the lcd has went out I'm gonna order and new lcd for it. It still cuts but I can't see to change settings on it.I take the p-cut on the road with me to shows. However I would not do that with the new graphtec.

 

Any way I've only cut a few small items on the ce6000 so far. However first impressions I can see on my p-cut where the blade lifts and drops and doesn't fully cut it and you have to tug on it to pull the little peices out. I don't see this at all on the ce6000. Also the blade is much thinner on the ce6000 and cuts so much cleaner. I only ran 2 tests of setting blade and pressure I have some fine tuning to do yet. But it weeds so easy me and the wife couldn't belive how much of a difference there was in weeding between the 2 machines.. I also like that the ce6000 has presets you can set up for different types of media I think it's like 1 thru 8 and each holds in memory so I just hit number 1 and it has my pressure and speed setting for say Sign Vinyl. and present 2 has my settings for shirt vinyl. I really like that feature. There is alot I still need to learn about it features wise. Being 2 small cuts really impressed me that should tell you some thing. lol

 

I'm trying to do the mod on the copam of adding longer screws on the pinch rollers to get it fixed and use able again. I really feel I was ripped off on the copam for what I paid for it and the work I got out of it. It's been sitting in a corner 2 years now collecting dust. I've got the new longer screws in the rollers now. I just need to run some tests and get the adjustment right and I think it will be good to go again. I hope lol crossing fingers. But for around $400 the p-cut is a beast! I'd buy another if I needed it. I would never buy another copam!!!! I have a friend that has a 11 year old ce1000-120 with a little tlc and it's still going strong. And he uses it every day at a busy Signs by tommorow and has no plans to replace it.

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This is an awesome write-up on the new plotter! I'm really excited about getting one! Keep us updated with anything else you come up with!

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Well I just purchased the CE6000-60! Should be here Wednesday! I too will give a brief overview of my experience going from a PCut to a Graphtec over the weekend after I've had some time to play.

 

In other news... Graphtec America finally went live on their page this morning about the new cutters.

http://www.graphtecamerica.com/ce6000series.html

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I guess I need to change the thread to... Bought new CE6000-60!

 

Anyway... I thought I would share a few images for those of you who enjoy unboxing shots and didn't figure I should start another thread. 

 

01 - The Box

FedEx actually delivered to my neighbors house by mistake. It's okay though, they put it right in front of his garage instead of on the porch out of sight for the world. And they didn't ring his doorbell to tell him... I thought that was good of them. This is a shot of the bottom of the box. Graphtec needs to spring for an extra strip of tape on the bottom as this was held together by the tape inside the box holding down the accessories.
 

02 - Open Box

 

03 - Out of Box

Everything was taped down pretty well... I was surprised that all the (I don't know the actual name of it) black tray was plastic, I thought it was rubber. I don't think it makes a big deal, just surprised. The PCut almost feels a little more solid in this regard. 
 

04 - All Taped Up

 

05 - Control Panel Covered

 

06 - Control Panel

 

07 - Rear Top

I love the little shelf on top. Finally a place to store the pen attachment or a little media cutter.
 

08 - Rear Bottom

More of the plastic I was talking about. Isn't it rubber on the CE5000? This piece was actually out of alignment... I just had to lightly snap it back down into place. Probably happened during shipping.
 

09 - Accessories

Here's all the accessories that came with it.
 

10 - Stand

The box with all the stand parts.
 

11 - New Media Brake System

Here's a shot of the new media brake system. It's not just a simple sliding back and forth... it's more of a lift and slide, might be a little more cumbersome than it's worth. I doubt I'll use it much anyway since I've used different plotters for over three years and never had a problem with unrolling.
 

12 - CE6000-60

And finally a shot of the new machine.
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I actually just ran home real quick from work when I saw that it had been delivered and had to come back to work before I could get any further. I'll post more shots later for anyone else interested when I get back home and finish the stand and setup.

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Well I got home and I finished up the install and setup and will go over a few of my first reactions.

 

13 - Stand

Here is the completed stand. It took about 20 minutes to setup.
 

14 - Completed Front

And here's the completed cutter on the stand! You can see the PCut in the background. It doesn't matter at all but the Graphtec is two or three inches shorter than the PCut. I'm 6'4" so I wish it was taller, but this is probably a perfect size for everyone else.
 

15 - Completed Back

And here the back of the completed cutter and the one true "flaw" that I have found. The roller bars are not perfectly straight. Spinning vinyl on them is not very smooth. It's like a natural braking mechanism... I don't know if this is a flaw or standard but I know the PCut is more smooth than the graphtec due to its thicker bars. Everything feeds fine and straight, it's just an annoyance that this $1700 machines rollers don't beat a $400 dollar machines.  

 

 

So here are some very VERY initial assessments of the cutter. I'm only up to about page 70 of the manual so I have a lot to go over and learn.

Setup with my Mac was ridiculously simple. I plugged it in via USB! No more keyspan!

I haven't started using Cutting Master, I didn't like it when I started it up for 2 minutes this afternoon, but in fairness I haven't looked at the instruction manual so I'll leave thoughts on that later. It would be nice not to leave Illustrator just to jump into Flexi so I'm excited about the potential.

 

Starting FlexiStarter, I set up the plotter using the CE-5000 driver (there wasn't any kind of driver on the disc that came), It worked like a champ. I love the poll size and the show me feature! It's going to be so nice to take out all the guess work of how much area you can work with and how much vinyl you're going to use so you can pre-unroll the material.

 

I did some initial cuts... very small stuff. I cut a little biohazard decal that used to take around 1:30 to cut on the PCut, with default Condition 1 on the Graphtec it cut 3 in 1:05.

 

Because of the poor cut and poor closing of gaps on the PCut it used to take me about 2 - 3 minutes to weed each biohazard. With the Graphtec it literally took about 5 - 10 seconds. I might be in heaven. 

 

So the only things I don't care for so far and I know it probably doesn't matter... but I was somewhat shocked by the amount of plastic used on the machine. It's good quality hard plastic, but I thought it would be more rubber and metal. I guess it will make parts easier to swap out if ever needed. 

Then the roller bars wobbling and not being straight. I might call Graphtec about it. It really seems like a mistake.

 

The quietness of this thing is remarkable compared to the PCut when cutting! It's about as loud as a desktop printer (my wife says). The Graphtec fan is about as loud as the PCut fan... maybe a few decibles lower.

I love that the fan doesn't stay on all the time on the Graphtec just making it even more quiet!

 

Loading material also goes in way smoother than on the PCut.

 

So far I'm really happy. I think condition 1 is perfect for Oracal 651 but I need to read more and play around to get the right conditions for 631. I'm also going to go get some casters for it. I don't move it often but I think it will be nicer than the plain legs.

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I am glad you were happy with it.  They are great machines, Cut smooth, track nice and  run quiet. Even my bigger machine  has plastic end caps.  There is no rubber any where on the machine. But my machine stands a lot higher.  Congrats. ;D

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You definitely helped! The cut quality is pretty amazing. I was able to weed a design in about 10 seconds that used to take 2 - 3 minutes because it never fully finished cuts on the PCut. 

 

Really the only thing I like more about the PCut... and this might even be a setting I just haven't got to yet... Is right now the Graphtec only cuts as wide as the media rollers. So on a 24" roll I'm only getting to cut about 22.75" instead of getting to cut about 23.75 on the PCut. It's not a deal breaker but I definitely want that extra inch back. 

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the graphec steel blades are incredible, but when it is time to replace a blade try the cleancut 60 degree - it is all I use in my graphtec and roland - on the graphtec i got a second cheap blade holder off ebay i just just for reflective and metallics with a slightly used cleancut in it- I usually get about a year on a blade 

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You definitely helped! The cut quality is pretty amazing. I was able to weed a design in about 10 seconds that used to take 2 - 3 minutes because it never fully finished cuts on the PCut. 

 

Really the only thing I like more about the PCut... and this might even be a setting I just haven't got to yet... Is right now the Graphtec only cuts as wide as the media rollers. So on a 24" roll I'm only getting to cut about 22.75" instead of getting to cut about 23.75 on the PCut. It's not a deal breaker but I definitely want that extra inch back. 

I don't know if you have the option on that machine, but in my menu background settings, I can disable the pinch rollers  (where they are locating, so it doesn't say realign rollers)  I can also disable measuring the media width across.

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I think I read some where max cut width is 23.25" or 23.50" so it may just be a setting. At this point you have used yours more them me. lol I've still only made 2 small cuts so far. I'll be using it next week some. The other thing the pcut does better is cutting scrap. Since the pcut rollers and be set any where.

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I think I read some where max cut width is 23.25" or 23.50" so it may just be a setting. At this point you have used yours more them me. lol I've still only made 2 small cuts so far. I'll be using it next week some. The other thing the pcut does better is cutting scrap. Since the pcut rollers and be set any where.

On those cutters can you turn off the pinch roller align? Mine is in menu> background settings.   I  keep mine off all the time.  That, and measure media.width   I can put both pinch rollers in the far right area . even an inch  apart and cut. Cutting scrap is never a problem.  I can cut to the very edge of each side of the vinyl roll..

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theishkid...i am in the same boat, thanks for the posts on the machine.  I just got mine 2 days ago, got it setup and now...the learning curve.  Coming from Signcut Pro/USCutter SC 24" machine.  JUST got those figured out the last few months.  Seems this is really different (BETTER, but different).  Did you just basically start page 1 of the User Manual on the DVD and go from there?  I need to dive into it, but am trying to get the basic settings and possibly setup the CE5000 machine in SCP. for now to keep working.

 

Also, what did you think of the Cutting Master software?  I am at a crossroads...do I learn it or is there something better for me? (thats another post :) ).  Great unboxing pic :thumbsup: hope its working well for you! 

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Oh, and I too noticed all the plastic.  Even the blade holder is plastic...hoping it lives up to all the great reviews.  Wondering, like OP why not more metal?

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