Signforums Product review
Reviewed by:
Reviewed on
The Copam CP-2500 is the newest product being offered by US
Cutters. It is another in the line of import cutters that have been sold by
this company. It is manufactured by a different manufacturer than the Refine
line of plotters also sold by USCutters. While this plotter is directed at
entry level sign makers the features and performance make it at home in the
most professional of environments. Unlike the plotters we have seen in the past
this machine seems to match the quality we have come to expect from the major
manufacturers. The Copam line of plotters offered by US Cutters in both online
and ebay sales. Their current product line ranges from
Specifications (from UScuttersdirect.com)
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Our Review |
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Fit, Finish and Design
of Copam CP-2500
The
Copam CP-2500 is fairly compact, for a home office-sign shop it can be placed
on a desk or the included roller stand. The plotter has 2 connections allowing connection
to most modern computers and some legacy machines. One Parallel connection, one
serial connection but also comes with a serial to
Our
plotter arrived in one box via 
competitive
with the major manufacturer’s machines.
Loading the media
Our test machine did not include any vinyl for testing so we loaded a roll of Avery intermediate vinyl. The plotter has two pinch rollers controlled by a separate lever. When using the supplied stand there are attached media rollers located directly below the plotter so loading the vinyl is easy. With two sets of hash marks on the front of the plotter alignment is easy.
The
control panel is mounted on top of the plotter. A two-line text LCD lets you
navigate the various menus.
Dedicated function buttons let you jog the carriage left right forward or reverse. To access the menu for each task, first press the button, then Left, right, back, and forward buttons let you drill up and down through the menus. The control panel offers the standard controls Pause, Setup, Test, Enter, along with 4 arrow keys for selecting features and adjusting the vinyl and carriage. Additionally it has a measure button which reads the vinyl and sets the origin. There are additional sub features that allow you to access additional features but are not accessed through the menu panel but through holding down a combination of keys that are outlined in the manual. One thing I did not care for, maybe this will change it in a firmware update in the future but until then it is workable.
Once the media is loaded its time to load the blade and adjust the cutting force. The blade holder is a sturdy well constructed holder and uses a simple keeper ring to lock down the adjustment. Nice because it will hold the holder in adjustment even when you are changing blades. The blade is inserted into the tip much like the Rolands and Graphtecs we have in the shop. The blade holder is inserted into the plotter and tightened down with a single knurled knob just like our Roland and our Graphtec.
Now for a few test
cuts.
Unlike other plotters there is no online indicator led.
Once the blade is mounted and adjusted pushing test on the
control panel sends the test dialog to the plotter and a 3/8 inch square and a
circle are cut just like the Roland Camm series. After inspecting the test cut
and readjusting the down force we are ready to load the software. 
Our model was not shipped with instructions for loading the drivers so we went straight to the parallel connection. I see from USCutters site they have recently changed this and you should now be able to get complete instructions.
Other Software tested for compatibility –
Flexi 7.6 works with virtually no setup other than selecting lpt port and plotter driver
Signcut x2 worked flawlessly after configuring the plotter and port
Signgo another easy installation and configuration
Tracking –
We were able to do test cuts and almost flawless repeatability when the vinyl was loaded very carefully up to 15’ test cut was achieved with very little slippage or tracking error. Being a Friction feed machine with no hardware self adjusting compensation there was a slight amount of shift but it was in an acceptable range. Test Cut was 6 stars, two parallel bars 15’ long and a circle (to check offset) and some small text. The bars and stars and 1” text were rip weeded without losing parts or pieces. The small text was carefully weeded and lost one dot on an I. The small text test was times roman a serifed and difficult font to cut at ¼”
Noise – Unlike the Refine series of plotters this machine is as quieter than our Roland’s and noisier than our Graphtec.
Cutting accuracy – the OEM blades in our opinion were good and did a fine job on our test cuts...
Service and support of Copam CP-2500
Overall Rating of this equipment.
- Fit and finish and design– Very Good 5
- Ease
of setup – Good 4 (
- Bundled
Software – 3 (Still Lacking
- Software
Compatibility – Very Good 4 (
- Performance – Very Good 4
- Price – Excellent 5
- Warranty – Good 4 (We would like the warranty to be a full year from delivery date)
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29 Points
Possible Points 35 Points
Scale for review
Excellent – 33 - 35
Very Good – 28 -32
Good – 21-27
Poor – 8-14
Unacceptable – 7 and below
Recommendations
This machine as tested rated very good. I believe it is an
excellent machine for the money; I would place it in a category above the
Roland and