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GaltsGarage

I won a Summa Sign D1010 at auction, I don't know anything about it.

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I recently bought a A US Cutter MH871-MK2 and I love it.  It's my first foray into vinyl plotting.  I saw an auction from a County Highway Department in Wisconsin that was auctioning off a lot that had a Summa Sign D1010 and a pallet of 50 yard 3M high intensity prismatic vinyl  ranging from 12" to 36".  I was bidding on the vinyl, it was thousands of dollars of vinyl for a fraction of the price and I'd like to do street sign stuff for mancaves and garages.  The Summa Sign D1010 wasn't an item of interest really in the bid for me but I won the auction and now I have it.  I have a few questions here, first is this a good plotter?  It was working when they disconnected it, they just bought a newer model.  Second, will the MH871-MK2 cut the high intensity prismatic vinyl I won in the auction or do I need to keep the Summa Sign plotter?  What is a reasonable price for the Summa Plotter if I don't need to keep it?  If I should keep it is the US Cutter Software I got with the MH871 compatible with the Summa plotter?  I do like that the Summa is 48" but I'm not married to the idea of keeping it I just don't know much about it at all and I've been having difficulty finding any good information beyond technical specs on it.  Thanks in advance for any help!

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The vinyl has a 2 year shelf life from manufactured date to be applied.  (All vinyl has a shelf life). The vinyl could be old vinyl.   There are specs online for all vinyl. The MH may cut it with a couple passes. You can find the user manual for your Summa online.  Summa is hands down a much better cutter than the MH as long as it operates correctly. Sold for much more, not hundreds like the MH. Like anything, you would have to look up what a Summa of that age and model is selling for, After checking whether it is operating correctly. Check Ebay or Craigslist. There is a couple Summa owners on here, but  probably not your model.

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Summa D series are old & reliable machines.  What I remember from the top of my head are these are one of the few machines along with Creation and Graphtec which have 0.6 inch blades to fit in their holders, rest all have 0.8 largely to suit Roland type Blades and holders.  Great in reliability but you need to remember they might have stepper motors for the blade carriage and rollers which are very likely to develop positioning errors over the time.  The extent of the errors depends on how roughly the machine has been handled in the past. Give it a shot and it would tell you itself. You need to go slower with these machines and they will look after you. I have a imitation of Creation PCUT CT630 for the last 8 years. Never had an issue except a few positioning errors which are pretty much obviuous keeping in mind the age and the usage of the machine

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Galt, I used to do reflective with my MH unit, the pressure needs to be set way up, and the blade should be the 65* type (yellow tip cover), not the standard 45* (red tip cover) that regular vinyl uses.

You can run the SUMMA with SignBlazer, it's listed in the setup.

Selling it would be a challenge, because it's such an old unit. Anyone thinking of getting into this game would likely prefer a current model, for under $1000, instead of an ancient machine. If you have enough room to utilize it, just keep it.

By the way, with that much reflective, you might wish to approach local contractors who are building large parking structures or apartments/condos with parking lots, and see if they'll throw work your way.

setup.jpg

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If for some reason the reflective isn't cutting quite like it should, then you might need to cut it twice. I have not cut reflective on my Graphtec, because I don't want to abuse my new CleanCut Blade that way :P, but when I do cut reflective on my LaserPoint, I find that it needs to be cut twice. The trick to that, is cut and paste the graphic so that one sits directly over the other, and the machine will typically cut the first pass, then cut the second.

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Thank you very much for all the helpful responses and good information.  Sounds like I'll be keeping it.  As I said I have VERY little experience and cutting at slower speeds is honestly how I prefer to do it.  I do CNC plasma cutting so slower speeds I'm familiar with.  I'm planning on cutting aluminum sign blanks on the plasma table and then cutting the reflective vinyl on the plotter.  I'll look into sign blazer, I knew it was an older model because it doesn't even have a USB port, just the parallel and serial ports.  That shouldn't be an issue though, I heard you can get a USB to serial connector.  I hope that's true, I don't think my laptop has a serial port and I know my desktop doesn't.  Again thank you everyone very much for the very helpful and quick replies!  I don't know how old the vinyl is, I'll have to try looking up lot numbers or something but I believe it's probably well within spec still.  The highway department is moving from Engineer grade and high intensity prismatic to diamond grade so I think they were just getting rid of their legacy inventory.

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For USB to serial, a Tripplite Keyspan Adapter is the way to go.  That is the brand name and the one that works with vinyl cutters...You will need a null modem cable also.  Tripp lite connects to USB on computer, then null modem connects to Tripp lite, then other end to you cutter.  Tripp lite has it's own driver.  Find the best price.  Showing as example only

https://www.amazon.com/TRIPP-Keyspan-Serial-Adapter-USA-19HS-C/dp/B07GXBVDNM/ref=sr_1_3?crid=21BJRUN45FW7U&keywords=tripp+lite+keyspan+high-speed+usb+to+serial+adapter%2F+pc&qid=1676573442&sprefix=tripp+lite+keyspan%2Caps%2C313&sr=8-3

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Regarding the double-cut method ("The trick to that, is cut and paste the graphic so that one sits directly over the other, and the machine will typically cut the first pass, then cut the second.")  I would more likely just DUPLICATE the design, and indicate a Zero/Zero offset.

 

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Regarding the double-cut method ("The trick to that, is cut and paste the graphic so that one sits directly over the other, and the machine will typically cut the first pass, then cut the second.")  I would more likely just DUPLICATE the design, and indicate a Zero/Zero offset.

I do the cut & paste method, because I want the cutting carriage to stay in the area and cut twice before moving to the next section, minimizing the material from going back and forth. It's a LaserPoint, no where near as precise as a Graphtec. It was either Dakota or BannerJohn who advised me to go that route.

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I run a Summa. One cool thing about them is they have live tech support for any machine regardless of whether it was an original purchase or not. When I get a moment I'll try to remember how to contact them. 

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Hi Galts,

Like everyone is saying the Summa is a great plotter.  It's made in Belgium and it's a workhorse.  I have a D60  24" plotter that I bought used in 2008 and it's going strong.  I only had to replace the power supply and the pinch rollers.  I was able to find a power supply on eBay.  The brand they use is "Mean Well" and there is a decal on a capacitor with the model number.  Here's a link to the service manual https://www.manualslib.com/products/Summa-Summasign-D1010-5542345.html 

I will admit that Summa is proud of their parts.  

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