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Add to SafariWhen comparing Roland Stika SV-12 vs Silhouette Portrait, the Slant community recommends Roland Stika SV-12 for most people. In the question“What are the best vinyl cutters?” Roland Stika SV-12 is ranked 2nd while Silhouette Portrait is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Roland Stika SV-12 is:
This simple-to-use vinyl cutter can work with various materials, such as standard vinyl, twill, paint mask, heat transfer, reflective vinyl, and etching materials, which makes it perfectly suitable for domestic DIY applications.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Good for domestic use
This simple-to-use vinyl cutter can work with various materials, such as standard vinyl, twill, paint mask, heat transfer, reflective vinyl, and etching materials, which makes it perfectly suitable for domestic DIY applications.
Pro Rigid and durable
The body of this vinyl cutter is made from very durable high-quality, injection-molded plastics. Overall, it feels very rigid, with no loose parts.
Pro Portable
Due to its small dimensions (17-⅜” x 8-⅛” x 4-½” ) and lightweight design (only 6 pounds), you can take this machine anywhere you want.
Pro Simple, straightforward software
This machine comes with a simple, clean, and reliable software: Roland CutStudio. With it, you can either create new vector designs or import existing ones from the BMP, JPG, STX, AI, or EPS files. After the design was created, just adjust the outline options and press the start button. The machine will do the cutting automatically.
Pro Capable of cutting custom designs
This machine can cut custom printed designs. The process is implemented by the aid of registration marks and a camera. This is a must-have feature for those who want to cut custom stickers or do multi-color heat transfers.
Pro Can export a design directly
With this cutter, using the provided Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw plug-in, users can export and cut specific design files straight from those editors. Step files are not required.
Pro Great value for money
For a price tag below $140, you're getting a fully functional vinyl cutter. Even though this machine does not have the ‘fancy’ features more premium cutters have, such as tangential emulation or overcut, it still can cut any standard vinyl sheet.
Pro Ideal for sign cutting
The maximum cutting length of this machine is quite impressive: 120” in total. Therefore, the effective cutting area of this vinyl cutter is 8” x 120”. You can easily cut medium-sized signs with this amount of workspace available.
Pro Clear and simple software
Silhouette Studio is the software this machine works with. No special skills are required to work with it. Even a new user will easily produce his/her first cut within 10-30 minutes. All the buttons and tabs are easy to find and use.
Pro Capable of contour cutting
This machine has got a registration mark system, being able to detect printed registration marks with the aid of a camera, mounted near the toolhead. This feature allows you to cut multi-colored stickers and heat transfers.
Pro Affordable blades
Silhouette offers very affordable blade replacement options. For under $8, you can buy a new replacement blade with a cartridge. The blade (and its cartridge) is a consumable part that needs to be frequently replaced.
Pro Multiple designs are available online
You do not have to be an artist to work with this machine. You can easily buy artwork from the Silhouette design store. The prices are more than affordable: the majority of the shapes are priced between 50 cents and 3 dollars and several free shapes are also available. All the purchased forms are imported to your shape library automatically.
Pro Very portable
Due to its compact size (16.25” x 5.6” x 4.5”) and light weight (3.5 lbs), this machine is a perfect solution for those who need a portable vinyl cutter.
Cons
Con Unsuitable for commercial use
Even though Roland Stika SV-12 is a decent machine, it is not the right option to use in commercial applications. First of all, the cutting speed is slow when compared with more professional competitors. Secondly, its cutting quality is suitable only for cutting standard thickness vinyl: since the blade is actuated by a stepper motor, the machine struggles to adjust the cutting depth with enough precision to cut thin vinyl. Furthermore, thick vinyl cannot be cut, as the downforce of the blade is too weak.
Con Can't cut fast
Regarding cutting speed, this machine is on the lower end of the market. The speed of almost 2 inches per second seems like a joke when compared to the speeds of larger Graphtec, Roland, and USCutter machines (more than 30 inches/s).
Con Imprecise height control
The manufacturer did not use a digital servo driver to control the Z axis of the machine. Instead, a cheaper and less reliable solution was implemented: a stepper motor.
Con Small cutting area
The cutting area of this vinyl cutter is minimal, only 9-13/16” x 39.47”.
Con Hard to find spares
The manufacturer does not sell spare parts for this machine (apart from blades). If a mechanical part (a motor, a pulley, a belt or a gear) fails, you will have to find an alternative part yourself.
Con Can only handle standard vinyl
Attempt to cut extra thick or extra thin vinyl will jam this cutter. It has neither the precision nor the power required to handle these thicknesses.
Con Works only with bitmap files
The Silhouette Studio can only import bitmap files (.gif, .tif, .jpg, .png and a few others). Unfortunately, there is no way of importing proprietary files from Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw.
Con Spare mechanical parts are hard to find
Silhouette does not provide spare mechanical parts (like rollers, belts, motors, or gears) via their online store. Therefore, it is very complicated to find any functional spare parts for this machine.
Con Not the most reliable option
If you need a cutter for a business, maybe it's not the best idea to rely completely on this machine, since it is not a professional grade unit. Cheap vinyl cutters are well known for sudden breakages.
Con Poorly built
This vinyl cutter feels very cheap, it is very noticeable that the manufacturer sacrificed build quality to lower the machine's price. The body of the machine is very fragile, users need to be very careful not to drop it.
