roland cx24 - buying advice please?

[gavtheoldskater]

i did a quick search for info on the cx24 and saw that a few people rated them, so wondered if anyone could give me any advice about what to look for when buying one and also info on looking after them and indeed software options?

i'm asking because i'm hopefully buying a used one in a few weeks, after much deliberating about what cutter to buy, and will be going to see it working.

from what i can gather i will not be able to run it on my main PC, 64bit windows 7, but i have an old laptop on vista or a PC on XP. ideally i'd like to cut direct from illustrator but am open to suggestions on that if there is a better way.

cheers

[Ask_Alan]

There are no USB drivers for the 64bit versions of windows for this model, it will though run on a 64bit PC using a serial cable. It is probable the XP/Vista driver will work in 32bit windows 7, not tried, maybe a Roland dealer can answer that?

For a Serial connection you will need suitable software to handle the communication with the cutter. One of the sign cutting softwares will do (flexi signlab signgo easysign etc) Its possible Roland's cutstudio and illustrator plugin will work driving this over a serial cable.

alan

[Ask_Alan]

the CX is Serial and Parallel connections only, this suggests a possibility. I suspect if you install the GX series driver on a Windows 7 machine set to LPTx (or COMx) depending on the USB to port adapter you have the cutter will work. the two machines take the same commands ;)

[gavtheoldskater]

thanks alan, i had heard that it may be possible to do that. i'd also been reading about running xp with virtual pc or something on my machine.

i do have an old pc running 32bit XP that i'm probably going to use as a stand alone unit, i'm thinking that may be easier.

[gavtheoldskater]

oh well, still looking, the seller decided not to sell. but think now i'm goingf to be patient and wait for a used graphtec ce5000/60 at a sensible price.