Advice on Roland Soljet pro II 740Ex

[Brian Hays]

Hi an welcome Sunil.

I am sure somebody here can help. Unfortunately not me though!

Is this the first visitor from India to post folks?

[Robert Lambie]

hi Sunil.
thanks for stopping by.. im sure there will be some folk here that can help you. but like brian, i cant. sorry.

india? excellent.. your the first from your country to post. i think we may have 1 or 2 registered also.. great to have you on board mate. 😉

[John Singh]

Hi Sunil

Can’t answer your question but sure someone can

Just like to welcome you to the site

Keep the questions coming

John

[Phill Fenton]

Hi Sunil and a very warm welcome to this site. 😀
Like the others that have already responded to your question , I’m afraid I cannot offer any advice or experience on this machine either 😥

[Mark Candlin]

Sunil,

Welcome to the site, I love India, Ive visited 3 times over the years and each time was a totaly different experience
I cant help on your machine either Iam afraid
I recon Rodney Gold is your man for questions on your machine.

[Lorraine Buchan]

Welcome to the site sunil

[Martin Pearson]

Welcome to the site Sunil, like all the others above I’m afraid I can’t help with the printer question. The people who sold you the machine should be able to point you in the right direction though and you might also try looking for a forum for printers as a lot of printing companys are buying these sorts of machine (oops I hope Robert doesn’t read that last part, I’ll get banned from the site!!)

[Robert Lambie]

not at all martin, i dont mind.. we arent giving him much help regarding advice are we 😆 😆 😆 if its not the edge printing forum it will be another. good luck with getting your info Sunil. 😀

p.s. martin. your off my christmas card list now mate.. 👿
😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

have a good one mate.. hope thing pick up soon for you 😉

[bluefresco]

Hi!

Thanks for the warm welcome to these boards…

Regards

Sunil.

[Mike Antrum]

Hi Sunil,

There are a wide range of materials available for your machine.

If you go to http://www.rolanddg.com there is a list of profiles for download. There are about 50 materials listed there for you to choose from.

They include favourites such as Graphityp, MacTac, Multifix, Metamark etc.

I don’t know what materials are available in India, but I’m sure you will find some your suppliers have.

There is also a downloadable update for your Roland Colorip which updates it to v 2.0b, which improves the handling of gradient fills, making them smoother.

Best of luck with you new machine,

Best Regards,
Mike Antrum.

[Rodney Gold]

Hiya , welcome
Mike , how do you find the profiles supplied on the Japanese site? I find em not good , but most of the the materials specified there are , you have to reprofile most and a good place to start is to limit inks to no more than 150% and use the colour separation rule to limit total black cut off point to 90% , anything other will lay down way too much ink – I have no idea where those profiles came from but dont really bother with them much.
Just about anything goes thru the machine and can be printed on , vinyls , fabrics , meshes , banners , papers , frontlits , backlits , blockouts, clear films etc – more and more mnfgrs are making inkjet specific media at the same price as generic stuff and sometimes even cheaper. the best is to call your local distributors and ask them to bring samples of their ranges around and try em!!!
Rigids are a little more problematic , you cannot use the heater with stuff like styrene , abs and lexan as the heat tends to buckle the material and cause a head strike. Print with heads high , strong vacuum and no heater – the prints will NOT come out dry but will dry in a few minutes to a pretty resilient finish , the quality is not as good as with the heaters on good materials and is a little grainy if you really get up close , but for 2 or more foot viewing they are superb , brright , vibrant etc.
Thinner stuff can be scored by the cutter blade to break out , thus *can* be die cut , we use a laser to die cut thicker stuff. We vacuum form printed stuff just fine tho you can’t deform the stuff radically.
There are some wonderful papers out there as well as some excellent back and frontlit (vibrancy without a light behind and as good with a light , no washed out images etc) – thing is , if you DONT come from a digital print background , the choices of media can be confusing so keep a book of what you try and the settings and build up some sort of portfolio of samples. always do extras when doing a run.

[bluefresco]

Rodney,

Thanks for the help. What is the max. thickness of media that you have run through the machine? Have you tried any 3rd party inks on your machine? Most of the people I have asked seem to be using them here.

Thanks in advance

Sunil.

[Rodney Gold]

0.9mm- 1mm , any more and you are looking for trouble.
I dont know about any 3rd party inks yet , at least not EX inks.
You can convert these machines to solvents and use Lyson inks etc , but it requires new pumps , tubes , capping stations etc etc and your warrantee will be void if you do use other inks and mess the heads, the epson DX3 heads werent designed for agressive solvents. Go to http://www.splashofcolor.com and look under support to see what parts are needed if you want to do this , and I dont think its a DIY thing either!!.
There will be 3rd party EX or light solvent inks available in the new year no doubt , one of the biggest ink mnfgrs here is working on it and a bulk system , costs will be round $125 a litre compared to the $400 per litre currently.
Depending on area coverage resolution etc , you generally use about 0.8 to 1.5ml per sq ft.