If you’re considering inkjet transfer Tshirt printing, or CYMK laser transfer printing, and/or contour cut heat transfer vinyl, then you’ll probably be wondering which is the best cutter plotter to go for.
You may have heard about the Silhouette Cameo, in which case you may be wondering whether the Cameo is the best contour cutter for you, or whether there’s another cutter you should be looking at?
Do I actually need a vinyl cutter?
I’d recommend starting out asking this question, and this comes down to understanding which Tshirt printing method or methods you are going to be employing.
If you’re planning on only printing via dye sublimation printing for example, then you won’t need a vinyl cutter potter – just a dye sublimation printing set up and a heat press.
If you’re going to be using bought in transfers, or bought in embroidered heat transfer appliques, all you’ll need is a heat press.
You don’t need a cutter plotter for Tshirt screen printing, or DTG printing, or for self weed laser transfer printing with a white toner laser printer.
If you’re going to be using either CMYK laser transfer printing or inkjet transfer printing, you’ll need a cutter, especially when it comes to printing on dark garments. You’ll need the contour cutter for cutting out the unwanted background.
You can get away without doing this for white or light coloured Tshirts if you prefer, although if there is a lot of white background in a design, cutting and then weeding it out will enhance the handle of the garment once the transfer has been applied.
You’ll also need a cutter plotter of course, for Tshirt transfer vinyl.
You’ll buy the vinyl either on the roll, or in sheets, then cut it using a cutter plotter such as the Silhouette Cameo, before finally weeding out the background, and heat pressing onto the Tshirt, hoodie or sweatshirt.
There is also self weeding Tshirt transfer vinyl or flex, for which you don’t need a cutter. You print the text or design in black, using a CMYK laser printer, and then heat press the media to create the transfer, and during this process, the text or image automatically becomes separate from the background, which is known as “self weed”.
Is the Silhouette Cameo machine, the best vinyl cutter plotter for Tshirts?
If you’ve decided you’re going to be using a Tshirt printing method which does require a cutter plotter, the next question would be, what is the best vinyl cutter plotter for Tshirts, and is it the Silhouette Cameo?
The first thing I would say, is that in my opinion, whether you’re going to be using Tshirt vinyl, or cutting out the background on laser or inkjet transfers, the Silhouette Cameo will do the job fine.
However, whether you should go for small desktop cutter, would depend on the width of the media you want to use.
If you’re mainly going to be using Tshirt vinyl on the roll – a desktop cutter probably isn’t the best choice.
On the face of it, it would seem that when it comes to Tshirts, a small desktop cutter plotter like the Silhouette Cameo, would be fine – with a max cutting width of 12″, and a max length of 10 feet, without a cutting mat.
Surely this is more than enough for Tshirt printing?
It is, but the issue comes when you want to buy Tshirt vinyl on the roll, as a lot of the suppliers of vinyl sell it on rolls at 15″ or above, meaning they’re too large for the Cameo, and other small desktop cutter plotters.
It’s not that you can’t get 12″ rolls of vinyl, you can – it’s just that you’re restricted to who you can buy from, if you want to buy on 12″ rolls, and it’s likely to cost you more.
The most cost effective way to buy vinyl, is usually on the roll at 15″ wide or above. You can cut the rolls down to 12″, or have them cut down, but then you’re losing 3″ or more of the roll width, which means your vinyl cost increases as a result.
You can buy Tshirt vinyl in smaller rolls and sheet form, you’ll usually find the cost is higher, although, you’ll need to compare the cost to the cost of vinyl on the roll once it’s cut down, to know whether you’re better off buying rolls or sheets.
If you know that you’re going to be mainly focusing on Tshirt vinyl – for this reason, you may be better advised to look at a 15″ or 24″ vinyl cutter, such as the popular Graphtec CE600 15″, or the same 24″ version of the CE600.
In terms of which is best 15″ or 24″, again it mainly comes down to the roll width of the Tshirt vinyl you’re going to be purchasing. If you find that some of the vinyl you want to work with is sold on rolls wider than 15″, then going for a 24″ cutter would make sense.
Decent 15″ cutters such as the Graphtec, will set you back around $1,200 new, and 24″ around $2,000.
If you don’t have the budget, then I’d consider looking for a used top brand cutter plotter, vs going for a brand new no brand cutter, the same advice I offer when it comes to heat presses.
Don’t have the budget for a bigger cutter?
If you don’t have the budget, and you don’t want to go for a used cutter, then starting out with a desktop cutter such as the Silhouette Cameo and being restricted on roll width, isn’t the end of the world.
It may make your costs a bit higher when using Tshirt vinyl, but when it comes to the overall impact it will have on your profit margins, it’s unlikely to make much of a difference, especially when you take into account the monthly depreciation value of the more expensive bigger cutter into the equation when doing your profit and loss.
So whether the Silhouette Cameo is the best cutter for you, it really depends on your intended use, your budget, and whether or not it will cause you much of an issue to not be able to load the larger rolls of vinyl.
The Cameo has a max width of 12″, meaning that you could create maximum text or image height of just under 12 inches (realistically probably about 11.5), with a max width of 10 feet (without a cutting mat).
So it’s plenty big enough for most transfers for Tshirts and other garments.
If you’re planning on creating larger stickers, or using the cutter for other applications, then just pay close attention to the maximum cutting size & work out whether the cutting size of a smaller desktop cutter plotter such as the Cameo is going to restrict you from doing what you were planning to do.
The best desktop vinyl cutter under $300
I think it’s fair to say that the Silhouette Cameo is one of the most popular, best selling desktop cutter plotters, for home use, for crafting, for t shirts, particularly for startup businesses or anyone with an entry level budget.
The Cameo is very popular for the craft market, it’s a very well known machine within the crafting community, the current version at the time of writing, is the Silhoutte Cameo 3.
If we’re talking about the best cutter for vinyl period, or for Tshirts period, without taking into account budget or size, then it’s probably not a fair contest given that many of the other cutters we would need to take into consideration, would be much bigger, more industrial cutters with much higher price tags.
But if we’re asking whether or not the Cameo is the best vinyl cutter at this price range, then I do think it’s very fair to say that the Silhouette Cameo is a contender for title of the best desktop vinyl cutter under $300.
Dual Carriages
The Silhouette Cameo has two carriages, which means it is able to both sketch and cut at the same time, meaning you don’t need to stop and change from pen to blade if you’re cutting and drawing at the same time.
This isn’t going to be of much use for Tshirt vinyl, or inkjet or laser transfers, but if you’re using the cutter for other kinds of products, such as tags and labels for example, being able to sketch and cut at the same time is a great feature.
Autoblade
One of the really clever things about the Silhouette Cameo, is the autoblade, which means that the blade automatically changes it’s length depending on what you’re cutting.
This is such a great feature, oh and by the way, if you do go for the Silhouette Cameo and you seem to be having cutting problems, usually with the blade cutting to deep, just make sure you have the auto blade pushed all the way in, if you look at the blade and notice there’s maybe a 1mm gap around the ridge, that’s not right, there shouldn’t be any gap. You need to push it down so it’s properly locked in. This seems to be an error many people make. See the video below for more info.
Silhouette Studio
One of the designs available at the Silhouette Design Store.
One of the great things about the Cameo, is the software, Silhouette Studio. As with the Sawgrass Virtuoso dye sublimation printers with VPM and creative studio, Silhouette Studio is a tool which is designed to make life as simple and easy as possible for the operator, so it’s a great thing for beginners.
While you can bring in text and images from other programs including Photoshop, Silhouette Studio has plenty of fonts to choose from, and if you want to buy templates & designs rather than making your own, there are masses available at the Silhouette Design Store, and they’re really not expensive (at about $0.50 each).
It’s really straight forward to create your own designs including text, using Silhouette Studio.
Cheaper Vinyl Cutters?
You can get cheaper, non branded cutters, but as with other machines including printers and heat presses, it’s not necessarily the best idea to buy based purely on price, especially when the difference is fairly insignificant.
The Cameo has a lot going for it, including Silhouette Studio, IMO this alone is worth the $50-$100 that you could save on going for a cheaper small desktop cutter.
What about Cricut?
There’s another small desktop vinyl cutter brand on the market which is also very popular, called Cricut. Cricut do a few models, but the one which is closest in terms of price and features to Cameo, is the Cricut Explore Air 2.
Wins for Cricut Explore Air 2
- Capable of faster cutting (although you probably wouldn’t use the fast mode for Tshirt vinyl).
- Slightly more precise when cutting more intricate designs.
- Much more cutting power, 4Kg vs 210g (wouldn’t make much difference for Tshirt vinyl or transfers)
Wins for Silhouette Cameo 3
- Bigger max cut when cutting out printed media.
- Bigger max cut length, of 10 feet (without a cutting mat) vs 23.5 inches
- Silhouette Studio, from what I can gather, is a design space which is easier to use.
Just to explain the bigger max cut with printed media. This is probably one of the most important wins for Cameo 3 Vs Cricut Explore Air 2 when it comes to Tshirt printing.
If you’re cutting vinyl, then the max cut size with the Cricut explore Air 2 is 12 x 23.5″, Vs 12″ x 10 feet with the Silhouette Cameo 3. I doubt this would be an issue for you for Tshirt printing, it’s doubtful many Tshirt printers would need to produce transfers larger than 12×23.5″.
For me, though, the potential issue with the max cut with printed transfers, which restricts the size of printed transfers that the Cricut Explore Air 2 will cut, which depends on which browser you’re using.
- Google Chrome: 5.5 x 8 inches
- Mozilla Firefox/Safari/Internet Explorer/Edge: 6 x 8.5 inches
- iOS apps: 6.5 x 9 inches
For more on this, read this post on the non crafty crafter.
