MrJoel

New computer suggestions

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Ok, business is growing as is the need for a new PC... I’m a Mac guy and have no idea what I need but hope y’all can point me in the right direction. This will be a desktop setup to run the plotters, design software and doing some video editing.  

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to run the plotter and design software a 10 or 15 year old computer would work just fine so in today's standards anything off the shelf will do the job.

As for video editing, the better the graphics card you can afford the better. The largest and fastest disk you can afford would also be good. A large SDD would be great. An array of SDDs might even be better but if you're not very computer savvy dealing with raided drives can be a bit to undertake.

They're getting harder to find, but if you can find a computer with a serial port that'd be nice to have for the low to mid range plotters.

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I would highly suggest a cheap older laptop or something similar to cut from. Being a mac guy myself I would never want to design on a pc let alone an old one so for design I'd go with what you know whichever that be. I don't know what design program you currently work in but most are not cross platform compatible, however you can usually design in one and cut from another. That is exactly what I do. I design in AI on a mac desktop and then cut over at another spot in my workspace with a windows laptop. I actually have cutting software that IS cross platform compatible BUT I often have things cutting while I work on other things and that usually won't work for most cutting software so this has shaped my workflow. I have a windows 7 laptop that I do my quickbooks on and the rest of the time it sits around so it became my dedicated cutter control. I transfer my files on a thumb drive too and from. works for me. 

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cheap laptop would be great ... but then the wrench in the works is that he also needs it to do video editing.

you get what you pay for. SSD for storage, a good amount of fast RAM, and a decent processor will be the key to video editing.

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Well I guess my main point got lost in all my pontification. Spend very little on the cuter laptop so you can get what you want to do design work and keep them separated is my suggestion.

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I ran my entire business off a laptop for 4 years.  I eventually moved to a larger space where I could have a proper desk instead of working off my 4'x8' cutting mat table.  I ended up buying a used Dell Optiplex from Craigslist (Intel i5, 8gb RAM, lots of USB ports, 1TB HDD).  I stuck a used video card (GTX 750ti) in it, and a 250GB SSD to boot Windows from and install programs on.  The last piece of the puzzle was two 27" 1080p Dell monitors I got for $90 each on Black Friday.  I have about $450 wrapped up in it, and it's worth every penny.  This is everything I have hooked up to it:

- Brother monochrome laser printer

- Dell Color Laser printer

-Zebra Thermal label priner

- Sublimation printer

- Laser engraver

- Vinyl cutter

- 3d Printer

- External backup drive

I was worried that the various drivers would conflict with one another, but I haven't had any problems at all.  I use Google Drive to move files from my laptop, which I do some light designing on while watching TV at night on the couch.  Having dual monitors was probably the best upgrade from the laptop.  Being able to have Corel and VinylMaster open at the same time saves so much time, as well as being able to have Chrome and my shipping label program open at the same time.  If I can find a 3rd matching monitor for a decent price, I'm going for it since there is a lonely empty output on my video card.  My point is that if you are willing to piece together a desktop with parts that are a generation or two old, you can get a very competent computer that can run your entire business pretty cheap.  Just something to think about.

 

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On 10/16/2018 at 2:32 PM, Vitaman said:

I ran my entire business off a laptop for 4 years.  I eventually moved to a larger space where I could have a proper desk instead of working off my 4'x8' cutting mat table.  I ended up buying a used Dell Optiplex from Craigslist (Intel i5, 8gb RAM, lots of USB ports, 1TB HDD).  I stuck a used video card (GTX 750ti) in it, and a 250GB SSD to boot Windows from and install programs on.  The last piece of the puzzle was two 27" 1080p Dell monitors I got for $90 each on Black Friday.  I have about $450 wrapped up in it, and it's worth every penny.  This is everything I have hooked up to it:

- Brother monochrome laser printer

- Dell Color Laser printer

-Zebra Thermal label priner

- Sublimation printer

- Laser engraver

- Vinyl cutter

- 3d Printer

- External backup drive

I was worried that the various drivers would conflict with one another, but I haven't had any problems at all.  I use Google Drive to move files from my laptop, which I do some light designing on while watching TV at night on the couch.  Having dual monitors was probably the best upgrade from the laptop.  Being able to have Corel and VinylMaster open at the same time saves so much time, as well as being able to have Chrome and my shipping label program open at the same time.  If I can find a 3rd matching monitor for a decent price, I'm going for it since there is a lonely empty output on my video card.  My point is that if you are willing to piece together a desktop with parts that are a generation or two old, you can get a very competent computer that can run your entire business pretty cheap.  Just something to think about.

 

I kinda went this route with my brothers help (he owns a computer repair store and built one for me).  I now have a dell optiplex running an i7 with 16gb ram and as 250 ssd and a 1tb drive along with a nice graphics card.  Should be arriving this week.  I picked up a couple 28” 1080 monitors as well.  Total cost is just under $500.

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my design computer is a bit bigger but for the dedicated cutter computer I got a HP Compaq 8200 Elite USDT i5-2400S Quad Core 25G/ 8GB RAM /Win7pro and put a small ssd in it this summer to play with (main cutter computer is now back up and been in service around 6 years ).    The new one is performing flawlessly and by my estimations uses 1/3 the power of the old one - it remains on except for vacations and is always ready to rock and roll.
now for the printing side I went a big bigger ryzen7x with 64gb ram and around 8tb of storage -- - 2 tb is dedicated to the customer files from as far back as I can recall.  but that would be crazy overkill for a dedicated cutter computer as they don't need very much processing power at all with working with the vector files

think I paid like $65 for the compaq before the ssd 

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