For more than 35 years, SIGNWarehouse and Vinyl Express have offered brand name quality at warehouse prices. The Vinyl Express Q Series Gen3 vinyl cutters continue this tradition and take it to the next level. The Q Series is a full line of professional-grade vinyl cutters built exclusively for SIGNWarehouse by one of the industry's most respected manufacturers. The Q Series has always delivered outstanding performance, exquisite precision, amazing versatility, and bullet-proof reliability. That’s never been truer than now with the advent of the third generation Q Series cutters. What makes the Vinyl Express Q Series Gen3 vinyl cutters so special?

Q Series Gen3 Overview

The Vinyl Express Q Series Gen3 vinyl cutters are engineered for sign and graphics businesses that need a top of the line machine that can handle any job. These cutters are designed to handle big jobs, to cut all kinds of adhesive backed films with unmatched speed and force, all day every day, year after year. The Q Series Gen3 product line includes four models ranging from 30" to 64" wide. The numerical designation corresponds to maximum cutting width, so these are cutters than can output jobs from three to more than five feet wide.

 

What’s New?

The Gen3 Q Series cutters are more productive, efficient, and capable than ever. The Gen3 Q series has been upgraded with more force, speed, and precision. Plus, we’ve added some popular new features. To keep up with demand in the busiest of sign and enterprise environments, Q Series vinyl cutters now cut at speeds up to 55 inches per second. Force has been increased by 25% to a maximum of 500 grams.

Many Q Series customers use their cutters in tandem with a large-format digital printer. Savvy sign makers know that running a printer and cutter in tandem boosts productivity. To make decal production even easier, the ARMS firmware has been updated. The new Q supports printing registration marks right on the media edge to reduce material cost. And the ARMS 8.0 firmware supports printing and contour-cutting on a wider variety of media including reflective vinyl, glossy laminate film, prismatic metallic film and other non-traditional print media. And segmented registration marks enable continuous scanning and alignment of longer print jobs than ever. To help keep your vinyl clean and pristine during those long production runs, each Q Series cutter now comes with a canvas media catch basket.

Other Features

The rest of what makes the Q Series cutters so popular isn’t new but is still noteworthy. Space would fail us here to tell you all about every feature on these outstanding machines. Here's a summary of the most popular features.

  • Digital servo motor: The Q Series cutters are built around an advanced digital servo drive motor system. The drive motors control the movement of the cutting head across the platen, and the movement of the grit rollers that advance and retract the vinyl. They do so with quiet precision that supports fine detail on fonts as small as 0.25" tall and accurate tracking on jobs up to 50 feet long. Which brings us to the next feature…
  • Fifty Foot True-Track Guarantee: The machined grit rollers work in tandem with the advanced digital servo drive to give you precise control of your vinyl from beginning to end. Say goodbye to aggravating, time-wasting re-cuts due to tracking misalignment. With a Q Series cutter, big jobs are routine. Read more about how to optimize tracking.
  • Perf-Cutting: As noted above, ARMS 8.0 makes contour-cutting printed decals easier than ever. What If you want to pop them out of a sheet of vinyl to hand to customers? No problem. The Q Series has a unique dual-position tool carriage and grooved cutting platen. These features, along with advanced job control menu, allow you to add a perforated cut path or 'perf cut'. The perf cut cuts all the way through the release liner without scoring or damaging the platen. You can pop your decals right out of the sheet of vinyl for the end user to peel and stick at their convenience.
  • Tangential emulation: The standard drag & swivel method of cutting allows the plotter blade to rotate freely in the blade holder as the holder travels across the vinyl. At corners, the blade swivels while cutting. This is fine for most jobs, but when cutting thick media like sandblast stencil, the blade's rotation can be hindered by the thickness of the material. This can cause incompletely cut corners or damage to the blade holder. Tangential emulation solves this problem by over-cutting the corner so that each segment of the path is completely and cleanly cut all the way through the film and adhesive. This produces perfectly cut and easily weeded stencils even in the thickest materials. More about tangential emulation.
  • SmartBlade Landing: The Q Series even allows you to moderate the amount of initial cutting force. You can increase it to power through denser films like 35-mil sandblast stencil, or reduce it to precisely cut thinner media like window tint film. These features are just a sample of the advanced engineering that make the Q Series vinyl cutters so versatile.

Q Series Gen3 Vinyl Cutter Applications

Speaking of versatility, you may be wondering what you can do with a new Q Series vinyl cutter. The answer is, just about everything. Virtually anything you can think of for vinyl graphics can be done with a Q Series Gen3 cutter, from novelty decals to sandblast stencils for monuments and dimensional signs. Again, we don't have enough space here to present them all. Here's a bakers' dozen of popular vinyl graphics applications for which our customers use their Qs.

Commercial and promotional banners, fleet and custom vehicle graphics, contour-cutting printed decals, commercial storefront signage, industrial labeling, real estate signs, municipal street signs, police and emergency vehicle marking, cutting automotive window tint and paint protection film, T-shirt vinyl transfers, interior wall décor, paint mask, sandblasting stencils, and about a hundred other exciting and profitable applications.

Q Series Product Range: Sizes & Starter Bundles

The Vinyl Express Q Series Gen3 product line consists of the Q30, Q42, Q54, and Q64. Because we know that making a sign business work takes more than excellent equipment, we offer each model with a starter package of software and supplies designed to help you succeed. Vinyl Express Q Series cutters are backed by a two-year warranty. Setup and installation is simplified by our easy-to-follow setup video and supplemented by a full year of complimentary Gold support, plus unlimited access to our product support knowledge base

Q30: The Q30 is where the Gen3 Q Series begins. It has a maximum cut width of 30 inches, and a maximum media width of three feet. It’s a great choice if you’re producing standard vinyl graphics and just want a faster, more versatile, more durable machine. It’s also a great companion for a 24 or 30-inch digital printer. Shop Q30 Gen3 starter bundles.

Q42: The Q42 has a maximum cut width of 42 inches and a maximum media width of four feet. The 42-inch metric, coupled with all the smart features listed above makes it a popular choice for cutting automotive window tint film and paint protection film, aka PPF. The 42” width is perfect for cutting window tint templates that can be applied to rear windows in one piece. Shop Q42 Gen3 vinyl and window tint starter bundles.

Q54: You’ve probably already figured out that the Q54 has a maximum cut width of 54 inches. That makes it a perfect companion cutter for a 54-inch digital printer like our best-selling PrismJET VJ54. By the way, the Q54’s 60” maximum media width makes loading pre-printed graphics for contour-cutting quick and easy. This dynamic duo is an excellent choice for production of just about any printed decals, including custom automotive, motor sports and fleet graphics, storefront signage, and more. Shop Q54 Gen3 vinyl starter bundles. If you’re looking for the dynamic duo, you’ll find our PrismJET VJ54 printer – cutter bundles here.

Q64: The Q64 is the big kahuna of the Q Series. The 64” maximum cutting width and 72” maximum material width make it a capable companion for a 64” large format printer. It can do everything the smaller models can do, including cut automotive window tint and paint protection film, create perf-cut decals, commercial storefront graphics and more. If you need a no-excuses cutter, the Q64 Gen3 is the optimal solution. Shop Q64 Gen3 vinyl starter bundles.

If you're still not sure a Q Series is the right cutter for you, check out our Basic Guide to Choosing a Vinyl Cutter article. If you're more of a venn diagram person, the visual Compare Cutters Guide might be more helpful. If you've already decided that a new Q is the cutter for you, just click here to choose your model and select the best starter package for your needs. There's a Q Series cutter package for everyone from the entrepreneur who wants to create cool vinyl decals to the seasoned sign maker who needs something better and faster. It's the ultimate value, delivering brand name quality at the SIGNWarehouse price. Whether you're looking for your first vinyl cutter or your last vinyl cutter, the Gen3 Vinyl Express Q Series cutters can't be beat.

As is the case with most things we need these days, the pandemic has impacted production and shipping. The new Gen3 Q Series cutters aren’t here just yet. But you can reserve yours now and get one of the first ones out the door.