Buying a Plotter
When starting a sign business, how do you know which plotter to buy? There are literally hundreds of choices. There are many brands, with each brand offering different model lines, then sizes within those lines. There are many sign suppliers that sell quality plotters. A good place to buy a plotter is eBay. eBay always has listing for plotters.
You can easily get started with a plotter and software for under $1,000. But do your research. Becareful of buying a vinyl plotter that only costs a few hundred dollars. Some of those “cheap” vinyl plotters come with directions in Chinese only. So good luck if that's what you end up purchasing. The plotter I bought was just under $2,000 and that included the software. I am happy with it, but the only thing I don't like is that it doesn't have an LCD screen on it. Other than that, it works great.
What size plotter should you buy? This depends on what you are going to use it for. If you are plannnig on running your sign business from home and just doing small jobs, then I would reccommend a 24″ plotter. This size plotter can use 24″ wide rolls of vinyl, and can normally cut your material up to around 23.5″ wide. This size plotter should be fine for making yard signs, lettering for cars and trucks. Now just because the plotter can only cut 23.5″ wide, doesn't mean that you are limited to lettering and graphics of that size. Most sign software will do what is called “panels.” It's where, for example, you have a word that you want to cut out of vinyl and you need the letters to be 36″ tall. The software cut the letters in panels, with an overlap. So the first part of the job the letters are cut off at the 23.5″ mark. Then second part of the job cuts the remaining 12.5″ of the letters with an overlap, let's say 1/4″. When you go to make your sign or whatever you are putting the lettering on, you simply apply the first section of vinyl, then apply the second section above it, overlapping the cut by 1/4″ and when you step back….you've got 36″ tall letters.
Plotters also come in larger sizes such as 30″, 36″, 48″, 54″, 72″ and so on. Then larger sizes are mainly for cutting vinyl that has been digitally printed on a digital printer. With a sign shop at home, you won't have a need for a larger size printer, unless you are going to get into digilal printing, which requires a startup of at least $10,000.
So search on the internet for some sign suppliers and look at the equipment they have to sell, and don't forget you can buy a new plotter, with the software on eBay as well.