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3 months of HP L25500 ownership
Just wondering how other people are getting on with their HP L25500 machines?
We have had this machine together with a Summa S160 D series for just over 3 months now, and our experiences are not very good at all.
I must say that the print quality of the HP L25500 is stunning, I’ve never seen anything come close to it’s quality of print and vibrancy of colours….buts that’s where the positives stop. 😥
We have had nothing but trouble right from the start with both the HP and the Summa.
Firstly the service we have received from the supplier we chose has been appalling. Right from the moment we took delivery we have struggled with No support, No customer service, No product knowledge. (the supplier is a very well known long established company, which we have a long trading history with, all the years good trading is very quickly being forgotten).
Firstly the Flex cut option on the Summa didn’t work – after 4-5 weeks of investigation this was due to the incompetence of the supplying company not knowing how to set this option up. We discovered the correct setting from trial and error.
Next was a cutting accuracy issue with either flex cutting or kiss cutting printed graphics – This is still to be resolved as HP blame the Summa..Summa Blame the HP L25500’s known problem of Bowing print output!!
Then by far the most frustrating is various Error codes appearing on the printer panel which we have to report to HP call center help lines as there is no support offered by the company that supplied the machines.
These call centers are off shore based and clearly have a crib sheet they have to work to as they ask the same questions – even tell you to "Turn it off, and then back on!!!"
Today we had a new error message, which we had to contact the HP call center to report, upon looking in the machine there are fragments of broken metal on top of the print media inside the machine….. The call center worker has refused to send an engineer out to look at the machine because he cannot determine where they have come from! 😮
This is getting very close to the final straw of returning the machines for refund and looking at other machines.
We have run Roland print machines for over 10 years and an engineer has always been available to talk to and if need be has been here within 8 hours to look at the machine! I’m thinking we should never have moved to a different brand!
Has any one got any good experiences of the HP L25500, or more importantly as we like the output so much, has any one bought one from a UK supplier that actually offers a good level of support and after sales service on the machine – rather than taking the money and hiding behind HP! which is what our suppliers are doing.
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36 Replies
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fascinating, i had heard of the bowing issue
i am currently looking at them to purchase, i had spied the international call centre issue in ArtSystems (HP Distributors) responses -
I have very little knowledge of the L25500 but have wanted to get involved with it more for a while. From a suppliers point of view, HP Designjets have always been a delight to work with but it sounds like this one is prooving to be far from that. What sort of error message are you getting?
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Most common error message is half way through print runs, large or small:
61:09 – unexpected end of job, followed immediately by
63:05 – Job canceled due to lack of date from Rip.HP blamed the network, accused us of not having a Gb network – we had to allow them access to our network to prove this!
Then made us re-install RIP software and Anti-virus software.
still no answers as to why this occurs.
next is 79:04 – all we’ve been told that this is relating to the print heads and they are 50ml out of warranty so need changing before they will look into this problem!
now the new re-occurring problem is Error 81:03 which is unresolved
Also the machine doesn’t power off 3 times out of 5 from the front screen so you have to switch the mains.
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I’ve seen 2 L25500’s running in a big site in Basildon, Essex on from what I can see is a fairly flakey network and Shiraz was driving it like stink!! Have you tried a different RIP? The first error message you mention definitely sounds comms or RIP related, although the printhead stuff sounds a bit more sinister.
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on other printers…
http://www.hpplotter.co.uk/designjet_errors.htmDesignjet 4500 81:03 error It was impossible to correctly stop the servo before setting the encoder position
Designjet Z series SE 79:04 error Generic firmware error
Sounds like dirty encoder? but how?
Are you sure your machine is on the latest firmware? -
That’s a good point actually Dave, the firmware must be updated quite frequently on a printer as new as this. Be prepared for a massive download though, I downloaded he latest firmware for a customers Z6200 the other week and it was about 700MB!!! 😮 😮
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Thanks for the replies
Yes just checked for firmware we’re currently on the latest firmware 4.0.0.4
the 79.04 error occurred overnight when I left the machine powering down, came in the next morning and it was a black screen with the error on it.
is it realistic that we should have to replace the print heads only 50ml out of warranty before they will look into the problem? (when we have been told print heads will last over 3 times this)
The fragments of metal found in the machine worry me the most – the fact that they won’t send some one to investigate, these can only of come off of something inside the machine.
Oh and and to add to my frustrations I should have had a return call from HP Support this afternoon and didn’t receive one!!
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Sorry to hear of your problems Steve, hope they resolve.
We were/are thinking seriously of getting the HP latex, this is the first time we’ve heard negative about it apart from some believing that print costs are higher than mild solvent machines.
The known ‘bowing’ problems that are mentioned, could someone please enlarge on this, is it that prints come out distorted and so contour cutting can be affected, how can bowing occur, surely material is simply fed through and printed straight .
John
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There has been little to read about these machines either good or bad, I know a few people on the forum were looking for info on them so sure there will now be a few people looking else where for a machine if that’s how HP treat their customers.
What’s the deal with the print heads ?? If I were spending serious money on a printer I would expect the print heads to last a bit longer than 3 months. Could be that problems with the heads has been caused by other problems with the machine.
Might be that you have been unlucky and ended up with a friday afternoon machine but the lack of support you seem to be getting would put me off buying one.
Hopefully someone from HP will see this post and sort the problems out for you, after all just look at the number of signmakers who read the forums. -
Martin
heads on HP printers are different to solvent machines, they are a consumable. Basically they are normally changed i think every 3 ink cartsKev
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I may be wrong but are print heads not regarded as a consumable item able to be replaced by the operator on this printer?
john
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Snap John
how is it going?Kev
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Good thanks Kevin….you?
HP make a big thing of the fact that they can control the printer/profiles etc via the net.
not something I would like…. big brother watching what you are doing…again just my opinion.john
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Kevin, fair enough, I honestly don’t know that much about them so thanks for the heads up. Steve did say that he was told they would last longer but he doesn’t say if he should have changed them to keep within the warranty or not.
Doesn’t alter the fact that the support seems to be lacking though & when you have a business to run you need to know that when equipment goes wrong you can get it sorted pretty quickly.
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Martin, yes the print heads are a consumable item, and in HP’s book they should be changed every ltr of ink that goes through them – this was a concern to us when looking at the running costs of the machine as it’s not just a case of looking at approx. £90 per 775ml of ink you also have to consider approx. £90.00 per head and there’s 6 heads that according to HP should be changed every 1 1/2 cartridges of ink – we was assured by the company that sold us the machine that the heads although only warrantied up to 1ltr will last on average 3-4 ltrs before they require changing.
Running the heads past the warranty period does not effect the warranty of the machine, it seems to be just a way HP can continue to extract money from owners of these machines..
I should mention that with past machines from Roland they have never been without there quirks and errors (we always buy the newest technology a little too soon 😳 ) BUT the main difference is support Roland stand by their products and have always been incredibly good at supporting their customers.
I would love to keep the HP as I mentioned before the output is very good, but we need to find UK based engineer support. Does any one know who supports these machines when they are out of HP warranty?
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Hi Steve.
With HP being a big name you would expect back up mate after spending the amount of money you have. without back up and support when things go wrong your as good as stuffed. Personally I would send the machine back and demand a refund. Sounds like a big headache to me and when running a business one you could do without. just my look on it anyway. All the best mate. -
A replacement head per litre of ink seems to negate the environmental benefits of the waterbased ink?
john
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Yeah its an amazing machine, currently studying it…. it is designed to be used in offices without any real experiences, its supposed to be simple.
interesting comments…. the replacement print head to me is a sensible move but adds to the running costs but fresh heads is nice to have.
The quality of output is simply amazing, best i have seen and colour accurate.
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Dave – yes it’s output is amazing, this is why the lack support is so frustrating.
you mentioned it’s designed to be run in offices…..we do currently run it in the office (a room 8m x 4m), but it will soon be going into a room on it’s own! Two big factors that we overlooked when deciding where to put it were:
This printer puts out some serious heat when running it all day, it will be great for the winter, but it’s been pretty uncomfortable on the few hot days we had!
The noise of all the fans make when its running make it very difficult to have a telephone conversation in the same room.
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To me it would suggest that HP have deliberately designed the machine to make it more difficult for users.
Why didn’t they make 1 ltr ink cartridges so that when you fitted a new cartridge you also had to replace the printhead?? Would that not be the easiest way to do it or am I missing something??What I don’t understand is if exceeding the ink limit on the printheads doesn’t affect the warranty on the machine itself why aren’t they prepared to look at it until the heads have been replaced, surely the particles you have found have nothing to do with the printheads.
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It gets more complicated than that Martin, as I understand it the ink heads are shared, you have yellow/black together. cyan/lt cyan together and magenta/lt magenta together two of each in the machine !!
It seems jumping up and down in anger on emails and the phone does work!! Had an email from our suppliers this morning and a phone call from the UK engineers (still not from HP mind you) but I do have an engineer here and the machine is in a lot of pieces while they investigate whats wrong!!
Shame it had to reach such high boiling point levels before we got what’s required.
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pleased for you that they are doing some thing shame you had to get stroppy
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as i am very close to ordering and doing a trade in… im slightly concerned about a back up machine as if i have another solvent, its unlikely to get used and block
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Hopefully they fix it for you. Got an order in for one of these machines myself. Just had the sparky here to do the wiring.
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Had mine for 11 months now, couple of hiccups on the way but all solved over the phone with HP (one issue was a defective cyan head which leaked inside the printer, and one required changing the cleaning kit at 86% usage).
Other little problems solved again over the phone but with William Smith, I got fantastic support from them.
Bowing of printing on materials, I get it on some materials but not on all. Funnily enough, the worst one for me is HP’s own poster paper.
If I had to go back in time, I would still choose this printer. I’ve had the various rolands/grenadiers/ecojets, with all the problems you get with them (and in my case the lack of support from the original suppliers).
Regards,
George -
George, for those people who are considering buying one of these machines could you expand on the bowing a bit more, some people may be looking to buy with a particular function in mind and if this bowing is going to cause a problem for them then they may have to look at a different machine.
Nice to hear from someone who has had a good experience with the printer.
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Martin,
Basically when printing certain materials a bowing effect will happen, best way to describe this is when you finish printing, lay the material on your bench and grab your nice straight ruler to trim up the graphics, you’ll notice that a perfectly horizontal line (which is printed across the media along it’s width) is not so perfectly horizontal. I’ve noticed a defect of up to 2mm on some materials, whilst others are perfectly fine.
Up to now I’ve not been able to work out exactly what is happening, one theory is that due to the high temperatures the carriage itself is the one that bows rather than the material, how true this theory is I’m not too sure.
If I’m perfectly honest, to me this does not really cause me concerns, as most of the time you don’t even notice it. Most graphics are printed with bleed, so the defect is not a problem. On certain materials when you go to print and cut is the time you’ll find out that a couple of millimetres does indeed cause a problem, in my case if I know a certain vinyl will do this I will not use it, as there is usually an alternative material that will fit the bill.
Hope this explains it a bit better,
George
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Didn’t they release a firmware upgrade that allowed you to adjust and compensate for this?
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Actually the agfa anapurna does this but due lack of dancer bar on the feeder side, so the roll is bent.
Cant see how that happens but as jason says, you do have a compensation system now in the L25500 which has had good reports from some of the users. Make sure latest firmware is INSTALLED.
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As far as I’m aware, the upgrade to compensate for this is in Onyx Postershop version 10.1, and I think it’s a paid for update (will check tomorrow). This allows to compensate in cutting after printing, but it does not rectify the printing, so if the print is bowed it will remain bowed, it’s the cutting shape that is changed. I personally don’t want to have curved stickers when I’ve designed them straight, so as I mentioned in my previous post I make sure I use a material that won’t bow in the first place.
In the printer’s firmware (4.0.0.4), there is a new parameter under ink settings called "straightness optimization", this is where you enter the bowing distance. I’ve not tried it yet, as I think it’s an global parameter rather than a "for each type of material" parameter, and seen that 99% of the time it’s fine, for me it’s best left as is.
I will in future have a play with it, just need to find some time to test it properly. -
About to demo this machine. Interesting to read the reports on aftercare.
Do the resellers not provide the care on this machine? I don’t fancy ringing a call centre.After buying a mutoh and having no aftercare, I vowed to only buy roland again.
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well mines ordered will be here on wednesday… jason got his…
very popular machine… the bowing is compensated by a crazy non-straight line… im hoping it is so minor that it isn’t a problem.. jason told me its not bothering him… some other users from another forum are okay with it. print and cut worries me a little.
anyway… i love everything about it so far on paper, the closest i seen to the latex is the JV33… but decided that instant drying will make it an ideal companion to the uv printer.
also, last 3 days for the interest free deal and trade in program… u can get these bloody cheap… william smith got my order.
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Happy to let you lot iron out all the first generation niggles and we’ll upgrade when the next generation comes out 🙂
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Yes I have arranged a demo with William Smith. It does look superb.
I like the idea of the constant new heads, and it looks so easy to maintain.My mutoh is a hour job every morning.8 years of solvents is getting to me, and after a lot of demos never really won over by UV. The fact that this is ‘green’ could be a useful selling point
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well side by side its hard to tell uv vs latex… it is still a surface ink so it is similar but suitable for vehicles. i looked at Roland VS range… considered them a good for one man but not for production. I looked at everything but the seiko.
as expected, no oddur with the ink.
the new model is expected, but no signs yet of it… we been looking but going with this as the new model is expected to have a high price tag… hp have been reducing the price over the year and its very low now and two year interest free deals if u can get them.
the quality IS the best I have seen, it is better then the AGFA… thats very hard to acheive!!!
the machine is self looking after, you do have to factor in replacing heads every 3-4 litres of ink.
It is Call centre based in india… thats the downside but art systems do monitor the database of calls and we will see their HP trained engineers, there is a lot of them so i understand. Latex is now quite mature, the firmware has had many updates and is an auto-install from the web side to it.
i wouldn’t be ordering this machine if i wasn’t convinced.. i am
Dave
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Thanks for that reply Dave, very insightful.
I suppose another plus point is that there are users of this machine on this forum. Which as I have found previously can be an alternative aftercare.
Its quite frightening when you have ‘the only one in the country’ printer and when it goes belly up, you end up spending hours contacting foreign language companies that youve found via the internet.
Cheers Stephen
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