-
Advice for which printer Roland BN-20 or Mimaki CJV30 60
I wonder could you guy’s advice on which you would to choose for a beginner or should I just go back to my original idea and get a Roland GX-24 and cut normal vinyl for decals. I am just thinking of starting out in this area as an add on to an existing business.
Some points that put me off the BN-20
Waste tank cost to renew.
Daily Ink wastage which I do understand is to clean the heads.
Having to keep the printer in standby mode and according to Roland’s brochure a noisy standby machine.
The Mimaki seems to have some nice features
The extra Ink cartridges for less downtime, but I know very little more about this printer although I notice there is a slightly lower price offered on it at the moment.
Looks also like it takes a full 24" width also.
For what I want to do I was thinking of going with the Roland cutter route only, but am conscious that I would probably regret this decision later. Having said that the expense for starting out not knowing my market and having ready customers holds me back a lot.
Would I be better leasing the GX-24 from someone like expres, and then later upgrading when and if these printers drop a little further? -
6 Replies
-
Unless you specifically want to print white or metallic, then the Mimaki is hands down
the better machine. It will be faster and more productive, as it comes with a take-up for long print runs. Quality wise, Mimaki machine are very good too. -
My advice would be not to purchase a printer at the moment, if a plotter is sufficient for what you want to do then buy a plotter to start with & then start to grow your business, if you are asked for digital print there are plenty of trade suppliers you can buy in from. If the print side of the business starts to grow then you can then look at the cost of buying a machine but by then you should have the business to keep the machine busy & pay for itself.
Any solvent based machine needs to be run to prevent the inks drying & clogging the heads, if you don’t have a lot of print to do then they will run in maintenance mode which as you know wastes the ink. The mimaki will be the same as the roland for that sort of thing. Something else to consider is if you buy a BN20 or mimaki now & start getting print work you will obviously be limited in what you can do yourself size wise. Might be that by the time you get round to buying your own machine you are looking at a much wider machine even if you can’t see the need for it now.
-
Hi Martin
I am also beginning to think this way also as it seems the most logical step for my entering an industry that I do not know much about.
I know roughly which cutter I want, but please what else would you purchase for doing this kind of work? I require everything, and I would like to purchase most things in one go. Any recommendations would help in my purchase.
Application Tape.
Vinyl probably 651 oracale
Swipe type Cutter for trimming
Weeding tools
Would it be wise to also get a scanner and an inkjet?
I have some vectors I have been messing around with in Illustrator am I correct that roughly I add another layer, compound path it, and then create an offset path. Is this then the cut path?
I can do this successfully and tidy up a lot of the anchors as there seems a lot of the time to be more than required which seem to distort some lines.
If you had to make a list what items please would you purchase? -
Depends what cutter you use. I use illustrator too. It isn’t a designed solely for our industry unlike some applications.
Ofseting the path will expand or contract the path from where it was originally drawn, I use this feature more when cutting digital print, to create a bleed area.
Cutting master will cut by line colour so no need to put each colour on a separate layer.
Thing that will be handy to understand are the pathfinder tools.
-
OK firstly you said you want to add this to an existing business, what is it that you are doing at the moment & how do you see the signmaking side fitting in?
Reason I ask is because it could make a big difference to how you set yourself up & what sort of equipment you buy especially if you are looking to target a particular market.
Software well I don’t really use illustrator for sign work but know there are quite a few people that do so it should be OK. Sure someone else could help more on that.
-
quote David Hammond:Depends what cutter you use. I use illustrator too. It isn’t a designed solely for our industry unlike some applications.
Ofseting the path will expand or contract the path from where it was originally drawn, I use this feature more when cutting digital print, to create a bleed area.
Cutting master will cut by line colour so no need to put each colour on a separate layer.
Thing that will be handy to understand are the pathfinder tools.
I have just thought the offset I was looking at was really for the printer I was thinking of buying I was trying to work out where and how I set the cut. If I am just cutting then the offset isn’t required unless I am layering correct?
@ Martin
My main business has been selling online computer related items software and hardware also selling locally to businesses. I want to use some of the skills I think I have as a sideline to add revenue in my quiet times. I am probably going down the route of starting small designing decals which I am selling well at the moment, and then hopefully moving into other areas. I May even think about putting a website to sell and maybe have people design their own t-shirts online on the website and then I supply, but this is for much later.
So I have no equipment to start with except apart from computers and such. I have illustrator as part of a package I bought years ago although I have really only used Photoshop mainly. If you can suggest anything better here I have looked at Signlab9, but I would rather keep costs down at the start.I do not want to run before I can walk. The printer idea was that I could see that would be where the industry is at the moment moving more towards full colour everything, and also I could see the potential time saving having a printer cutter all in one solution.
Please think of everything you would purchase Martin in my situation and I appreciate your advice.
Log in to reply.