The Roland Camm-1 GS-24 is a commercially available vinyl cutter, which can cut vinyls, rubber, paper and thin card. The vinyl cutter can cut adhesive, certain conductive materials, and even heat transfer/heat wrapping materials. Maximum material width: 584 mm.
| Individual | Up to 30 mins |
|---|---|
| SAUL Student | €0 |
| Student | €6 |
| Non Profit | €8 |
| Commercial | €12 |
* Excludes Vinyl Material and Transfer Tape, for €4/m
| Max Cutting Width | 584 mm |
| Max Length (of a roll) | 25 m |
| Max Thickness | 1 mm |
| Blade Force | 30 to 350 gf |
Many drafting softwares can be used to create the files for the Vinyl Cutter, such as Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator. You can export drawing files from DraftSight, AutoCAD or SolidWorks - but they may need additional changes to correspond with the various profiles. While the maximum cutting width may be as much as 584 mm, depending on your set-up, this may be less in reality.
Make a new file of 584*1000mm (Width x Height). For cutting, use lines/polylines, of 0.001 pts width, and RGB stroke colour. Don’t forget to include a surrounding rectangle if your cuts are to be used as a stencil or mask, and don’t forget to mirror your drawing if necessary. Save your drawing as an .SVG or .AI file.
The Vinyl Cutter is quite safe. Be aware of moving parts, which may catch loose hair or clothing, and of moving parts when the machine is in operation.
Release the lever at the left-hand side of the machine. A roll can be placed on the stand at the back of the machine and fed through. There are two fixing wheels, which can slide left or right, and need to be placed over the material, and over one of the gnarled sections underneath (marked above with a white sticker). Pull the lever to fix the material.
Hold the power button, and set your material as “Roll”. The machine head moves across, and stops at the origin point - then display on screen the maximum available width. To change the starting point use the directional arrows and hold the “Origin” button. The origin corresponds to the bottom left in CutStudio
With new materials some testing may be required. Use the menu on the machine to adjust Force, Feed rate etc. Adhesive vinyl usually just takes low force, around 40-50 gf.
Roland CutStudio is available as a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator, or as a stand-alone program (Windows only). It is used to send your designs to the machine.
Open your drawing on the Vinyl Cutter PC in Adobe Illustrator. If you are using a newer version, or a different software, the drawing may have Clipping Masks which you should remove first. Open the CutStudio plug-in, by going to the Menu bar and going to: Window > Extensions > CutStudio Plug-in. Select your artwork; press the large R symbol, to send your drawing across.
Roland CutStudio will open automatically. Adjust the position if necessary. Press “Cutting”. Unless you need to override them, set the cut speed and pen force to “use settings from machine”. Press “OK” to start the machine.
Once the Vinyl Cutter is finished cutting, you can remove the material from the machine - cut around your piece to make it easier to work with. Unwanted vinyl is typically removed at the end of the transfer process. Take some transfer tape, and attach carefully to the front of your vinyl, and spread evenly. Turn the cut piece upside-down, remove the paper from the adhesive side, and carefully affix to the intended surface, spreading from the middle outwards. Use the Squeegee tool to remove any air trapped underneath, and slowly separate and remove the transfer tape, leaving the vinyl. Using a sharp instrument, pick the corners of any parts that need to be removed and lift these away from the rest.