I haven’t been at this all that long, but I’m considering removing the ‘Print phase’ from the “Creation-to-Sewing” cycle - going the ‘Whole-Hog’ as it were , so I have been looking at cutter-plotters for this purpose.
So my queries:
Can Seamly2D output directly to a plotter?
Who amongst you / us is using a plotter?
Who can recommend a plotter for cutting (off paper roll, not sheet)?
Are there affordable (a ‘relative’ concept, I know) plotters with LAN connection?
I was until… I lost my costume business in a massive fire.
In my case though, at the time the plotter we had did not have a windows 11 driver, and I couldn’t get Seamly installed on the old XP machine we used to drive the plotter… So I would just export as DXF to a USB drive, and load the patterns from the USB drive into the plotter driver. Actually the plotter was a dual use vinyl cutter / plotter. Mainly we used it to cut various heat press vinyl products or Rhinstone stencil.
There’s tons of inexpensive plotter / cutter out there, I assume you’re just look to cut paper patterns and not the actual fabric? To be honest I’ve never tried that… I don’t know how well paper alone would cut, based on the fact the paper will feed back and forth as it cuts, and would most likely jam. Vinyl’s have a paper back, and you’re only cutting the vinyl.
Try googling “Signwarehouse”.
Wifi enabled plotter / cutters are out there. Everything these days either has Wifi or Bluetooth.
Hi @Douglas ,
sorry to learn of your business loss.
I am currently ‘refusing’ to go Win11 and will stay with Win10 until the bitter end. After that Linux!
Your remarks about having to backtrack on the paper (roll / sheet) was what made me a little concerned, the cutters will cause snarl-ups if there is any blade dullness or imperfections in the paper … thus my query on that.
I have no experience on these, however, you can look at laser or something that only does the drawing, like a hanging plotter, which I see is quite available now days.
I don’t think my cheap (~$350) Vevor plotter has either of those, certainly not Ethernet. It did come with a decently long USB cable though & I have plotted on it from a Linux computer using inkcut. Setup was certainly… stimulating, but at least it didn’t involve giving HD alteration rights to a server in China, which is what the native Windows install wants to do. It might be perfectly innocent, but the “Engrish” uses sinister terminology.
Well that end is coming soon. Things is, it’s not like a computer just stops working. It just means there’s no more support. I still have 2 desktops I use for video and audio editing… one is running XP Pro, the other Windows 7, and they work perfectly fine for what I use them for. The only Windows ver I don’t like is Windows 8 on my other laptop (without a touch screen). It’s just klunky as they tried to move to mobile design.
Even when cutting vinyl you can have issues with the blade dragging and messing up the cut. Not only does the sharpness of the blade matter, the blade angle (45 or 60), the dwell at corners, the size of the pieces you’re cutting, etc can all affect the cut.
We also had a flat bed cutter that we used for cutting fabrics for appliques, which was even more picky about all the variables and driver settings.
The issue I can see with trying to cut out pattern pieces is that material being cut is only held down by a couple pinch rollers on top. So while you can easily use the cutter to make paper stencils for example, I can see issues with the rollers holding down the paper once area are cut away. Basically I can’t see trying to cut out a “nested” layout as there’s noting to act as a “carrier” such as the paper backing on vinyl products.
Excellent thoughts … Maybe I’ll just stay with pen-plotting on the roll, and cutting the pattern by hand. That will still be quicker in the long-run methinks!
That’s what I did for the last major project our shop worked on - we did the men’s costumes for the National Tour of Annie - and I used Seamly to draft and plot all the men’s vests. Printing and taping together 8 1/2 x 11’s from the printer is a PITA. I’ve been cutting patterns out for so long it’s second nature. A utlity knife and an Olfa rotary cutter were like extensions to my hands.
If I had more time at the time, I could have gotten Seamly to install on the XP machine we used for the plotter / cutters… and I would have able to answer with certainty as to whether you can plot directly from Seamly.
You cannot control commercially available plotters directly with Seamly. And you don’t need to! I have already plotted out a few Seamly patterns on my plotter via SVG. But in order to cut them out directly from the paper with the plotter, you need a cutting mat for the plotter - as is usual with Silhouette Cameo. You then also have the lettering on it have to be a different color to the outer line. In terms of the process - first you have the labeling (registration marks, text, grain etc.) applied to your paper (already on the cutting mat). When that is done, insert the blade and cut out the outer edge of the cut pieces. Theoretically, you could also use the SVG file for a laser cutter and laser the pieces directly out of the fabric.
Or a flatbed plotter / cutter such as those used for cutting out tackle twill lettering. We had one at my shop that we used for cutting all kinds of appliques, tackle twill, gemstone stencils, heat press vinyl, etc. It had a 24x36 inch tray that had a tacky mat to stick the cutting material down in place.
We also had picked up a used 4x6 foot flatbed cutter, but it needed a new stepper motor, and we just never got it working.
Yes… and that’s why I added colors for seamline, cutline, internals, cutouts, grainlines, labels, and notches so you can set in an SVG what to cut / not cut, or as in the case of lazer cutters - what to also engrave / emboss.
, so I have been looking at cutter-plotters for this purpose.
Things is, it’s not like a computer just stops working. It just means there’s no more support. I still have 2 desktops I use for video and audio editing… one is running XP Pro, the other Windows 7, and they work perfectly fine for what I use them for. The only Windows ver I don’t like is Windows 8 on my other laptop (without a touch screen). It’s just klunky as they tried to move to mobile design.
… Maybe I’ll just stay with pen-plotting on the roll, and cutting the pattern by hand. That will still be quicker in the long-run methinks!