I’ve tried to figure some of this stuff out but I really don’t know what I’m doing. Most documentation is written with a vocabulary I don’t understand. Tutorials assume a high-level understanding of coding, software, CLI and a bunch of other stuff.
So far I’ve got an old gaming PC with a R7 2700x + 2060 Super and I think maybe it’s overkill. I’ve got TrueNAS running on it but that’s about as far as I got…
Thinking maybe we can have an open Jitsi meeting and just anyone who needs help can get it (myself included 🙂)?
Would anyone be interested in something like that?
E: some people have imagined up some things that I said so let me be clear about what I did not say:
At no time did I insist, beg, or demand that anyone help me.
I did NOT ask anyone to help with a specific issue, nor should I be required to.
I asked if anyone would be willing to help myself and possibly others to get some services running, and I asked to do it in a videoconference setting where we can have a discussion and where you can see what I’m doing as I’m doing it, out of respect for both of our time.
If you are not interested, you do not need to come in here and announce it, and you sure as shit do not need to speak for anyone else on whether they will want to. Just keep scrolling.
E2: special thanks to those who actually reached out and offered to help!
Hey can you suggest a good vinyl cutter/sticker printer/plotter/whatever for making small batches of high quality stickers for under $300? $500?
Not gonna happen, you need a vinyl printer my suggestion is buy a broken one and find the service manual and fix it. My printer is worth about $5000-$8000, I bought it for parts, $1000 and changed the parts out to make mine work 100% check out marketplace and dial that distance up, I rented a uhaul, mines huge.
I really doubt there are smaller vinyl capable printers for $500, but if you find one lemme know and I’ll buy one, I hate doing singles on my giant machine, so I usually give the purchaser a 24/42/60 inch line of them, unless I’m running multiple jobs.
Also hp latex requires a flexi subscription, and my printer doesn’t contour cut, so you need a cutter as well, mine was about $4000, it’s a uscutter titan 3 68 inch.
If you want to do wraps I use vinyl master dsr, it’s excellent also has masking of images and other cool features.
Plus you’ll need adobe or some other editing software.
Honestly, the only reason I purchased the printer is because I sponsor two race cars where I was spending thousands of dollars on decals to a company here in town, I ended up purchasing a printer so that I could print decals for the guy that I sponsor and some of his friends. So far it’s worked out well, but finding people for custom decals is a chore most of the time.
I’m just kind of saying if you’re having a problem with the $500 cost, you’re going to have way bigger problems with the cost of all the software subscriptions to run the printer. Maybe some of the other solvent printers and stuff don’t require flexi and that might be best. I’m not sure. I haven’t used eco solvent or solvent printers since I did my research. Latex printers are amazing. They don’t smell it all and they’re dry immediately.
My prints can be powerwashed and usually do not require any protection at all from sun and rain, race decals I do overwrap for scratches, overwrap laminate vinyl is extremely expensive for good quality rolls and the race drivers are the only ones I do it for, and some don’t even want that for cost savings, a wreck can ruin a whole side of a car.
Rolls of material are expensive and so are inks. But it’s fun and you meet all kinds of interesting people.
Edit oops accidentally cut some text before submitting pasted in edit
Edit 2 forgot to say my printer is an older HP latex 260, also known as the HP Designer 26500. I get aftermarket inks, and print heads , you can buy lots of them on eBay, bought about 12 cartridges of most of the colors I need all genuine but expired, works perfectly for me and I’m not worried about warranty as I service it myself.
Cricut?