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Just bought an Encad Novajet pro 50 / advice please
hi all,
yesterday I managed to get one of these machines for a very good price 2nd hand, hopefully this will allow to move into digital in a small way, does anyone have any advice as who the best suppliers are for digital media ie: papers (matt and gloss) inks etc. also any reports good or bad on the machine. I had to take the plunge as I got it for what I think was a very good price.
I already have an Omega 80 cutter which serves me just fine however I though this was too good a deal to turn down.
cheers
graeme -
6 Replies
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Firstly, have fun with your new toy. I’ve never owned a pro 50 but back in the day they were well regarded and considered quite the work-horse. I’ve had some Encad experience so I can suggest that this printer will be a bit more maintenance intensive than others of the same era. You will have to deal with weird print head issues, ink priming, and learning which preheat settings work for each media. I’m pretty sure like all Encads this printer will work better if you try to keep it fairly busy. Any Encad I’ve ever owned seems to become quite hateful the longer it sits. Try to get some training from the previous owner on the ins and outs and any little tricks he might have to keep the printer running.
Anyhoo… the Encad printers of that type should be able to run GS (water based dye) or GO (water based pigmented) inks (if I recall). The GS inks are higher gamut inks for indoor applications whereas the GO inks are designed to provide a moderate amount of UV stability and Encad will tell you some outdoor durability on the correct media when laminated. There is a 3rd party ink called Dicojet out there that some will tell you last longer than the Encad GO product. I’m not a firm beliver in water based outdoor inks like the GO or Dicojet but your mileage may vary (I’m trying to politely say that I don’t think you should make any promises to your clients on print life outdoors if you chose GO).
The Encad inks should be available from any supplier that handles Kodak professional graphic products. At least that is the case in North America.
One of the first things you should do is go to Encad’s website and look for their media compatibility chart. Sure this chart will really only talk about Encad/Kodak media but it will illustrate to you that certain types of media work well with certain inks. This way once you’ve made your ink choice you will understand what you should be asking your supplier for … “I’m running pigmented inks, not dye, so this media had better be compatible” for example.
As for actual media, you certainly don’t have to stick with Kodak. It’s nice enough stuff but there are lots of vendors selling the same stuff (there are not that many firms actually converting paper for water based ink jets out there) or something very similar. Many media suppliers will be willing to toss some small sample rolls at you to test. This is a great resource to tap into if you are new as you will not only want to see what media seems to work well for you when printing, you’ll want to test that media out with whichever lamination films you (or your lamination guy) happens to use. Not all lamination films work well with all medias especially if you are (or your lamination house) using thermal activated films. Pressure sensitive/activated films will no doubt work much better but they will cost more.
You didn’t mention if you had a PostScript RIP. If you don’t have one, sooner rather than later you’re going to have to take that plunge… These aren’t cheap and there are lots of great ones out there. I like those from Wasatch and Onyx and they will provide a nice path to add an additional printer to your setup as you grow. There are other vendors out there for RIP’s but those or the two big players.
Anyway, those are my current ramblings. Hope you found some of it close to being useful. If not, at the very least remember that you should never wear your good clothes when changing your ink on an Encad 😉
Rob
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rob
many thanks for all that info, most helpful.
Basically I picked up the machine from a certain auction site for a very good price so it forced my hand!
It was sold as seen with no inks etc. I had read about the types of inks from the encad website and have also read about compatibility issues also, my hope is that the machine would be used for printing small tyvek banners, and also vinyl stickers for short term banners as this is my main area of business.
Then if it gets up and running I can hopefully push some other business. i have managed to downnload the manual (250 pages) so am reading this just now.
As I say I would like to spend some money to get the machine fully serviced and cleaned up as Im sure it has been sitting around for a while. Ideally I would like to run the outdoor GOinks on the machine so i reckon the whole thing needs cleaned up/serviced.
Ive taken a slight gamble here but the machine cost only £400 so I figure spending money to get it serviced etc will be worth it. Do you think this is a good price for a 2nd hand machine?
ps: I know what you mean about messy inks already!!!!
again thanks for all your advice.
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Doing a quick conversion it sounds like about $850 Canadian for that machine. That price isn’t bad but I certainly wouldn’t say wonderful. I know that I actually sold an HP2500 with a internal RIP for about the same price.
That being said, if you are going to do the GO ink thing for really short term outdoor applications you should at least do a search for Dicojet inks. The people who have chosen to run Dicojet seem to really prefer them to GO for their life span. That’s not a personal endorsement… just commenting on posts which I have read on various message boards.
What I honestly think is that there will be times when you will be really thrilled with your machine and times when you absolutely hate it. What you have done is given yourself a small step into the world of digital where through hands-on you can learn the advantages and disadvantages of one type of system and gain an appreciation of all of the other types. I think that with the small amount of money you’ve invested you will find that by this time next year you will know exactly which direction you would like to go in and will be able to make a very informed decision. Long and short, a small price to pay for some real word knowledge.
I hope it all works out well.
Rob
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rob thats the way Im thinking about it , first step without spending too much.
(hopefully!!!) again cheers for your input.graeme
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You didn’t mention if this came with some RIP software… Do you have a RIP?
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not at the moment but having read much more I will need one I believe, I have an engineer coming next week to give the machine the once over, after that I will adress exactly what I need.
thanks
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