advice on wide format printer for canvas, posters etc

[Hugh Potter]

I have a Z2100, does all you want it to do but no good for anything but very short term exteriorr work.

only recently bought it & still learning so can’t give any real advice, sorry!

Hugh

[Jamie Laird]

For outdoor banner you really are better with a solvent. We’ve had epson, Roland’s and now an HP design jet…but this is for indoor work only. With a UV laminate it may last a few weeks / months but I wouldn’t fancy it’s chances. I appreciate you are on a budget, and bargains are there to be had if you look around. We bought our first solvent second hand for 4 grand and built up our business on it. I regularly see older model soljet pro 2 and Mimaki jv3s for sale on well known auction sites. If you can travel to inspect before buying you may get lucky.

[Martin Pearson]

Canvases & posters should be fine but I would really forget about the banners. No experience with HP at all but they have sold plenty of machines so can’t be that bad. What do you mean when you say they claim to do the job Eddie?
If your looking to do exterior stuff then it’s really not the way to go. Anything exterior is short term, even with a quality uv laminate your only really talking about a year to 18 months tops
Only banner material I’ve seen is quite light weight & really needs a liquid laminate over the top as it will rub off reasonably easily.
You can only use media that is coated which reduces the amount of choice you have & is generally more expensive than the uncoated media that a solvent machine uses.
There is still a place for them but bearing in mind the limitations I’m not sure it’s the best way to test the water if you want to get into digital printing.
I still think the best way is to use a trade printer & get them to do all your printing when you first start, build the business up & then make a decision about buying your own machine at some point further down the road once you start getting a certain volume of work on a regular basis.

[Eddie Cotton]

thanks for the replys, what i meant by them claiming is that a lot of the printers state that they can print banners which may be the case but i was wondering about the durability of the standard ink instead of solvent. i would rather spend the bit extra on something that will do a good job rather then having to deal with a failed product after a month, id also rather go for something that will be a straight print onto the media and job done aswell, so im guessing im after a solvent printer then.
i imagine its one of those situations where companys say that they will print onto it, but not how long it lasts after
would the designjets be any good converted to solenvt inks?
sorry for all the q’s
thanks

[Jamie Laird]

I’m no expert on convertions but I would doubt it. The tubing, pumps, heads would probably all need to be changed, I’m not sure how the heads seal when not in use to prevent them drying up. Also there’s no heaters to warm the media and help cure the ink. Again I’m no expert but I feel a second hand solvent from a reputable manufacturer where you have good engineering support, parts etc would be the best way to go. Perhaps some members on here have one surplus to requirements?

[Martin Pearson]

Here’s the problem you have when first starting out Eddie, solvent machines need to be run to prevent the ink drying & clogging the head so you need a volume of work for them to do, some if not all of the newer ones have a maintenance cycle where they run ink through the head into the waste ink tank when not being used but this is still costing you money as the machine has to be left on & also some ink will be wasted.
Aqueous inkjets like desktop printers can be left for long periods without use & are fine when you go to use them, downside is that the prints don’t last the same way as solvent plus the ink doesn’t bite into the media as it does with solvent so ink is always easier to rub off. The media that your printing to has to have a coating for the inks to stick at all which also limits the available media you can get to print onto & often makes it more expensive to buy.
That’s why I always suggest to people that they look at using a trade only supplier to begin with & wait until that side of the business starts to grow before buying their own machine. I am a bit different from most on here in that for health reasons I can’t work full time anymore so don’t push digital printing & if I need any exterior printing done I get someone to do it for me. I do own an aqueous machine but it doesn’t get a lot of use now.

Converting any machine regardless of manufacturer is going to depend on your skill level as it’s not as straight forward as it may seem, firstly as Jamie has said you will need to replace tubing, pomps, dampers, heads, capping station to solvent resist. You then need to look at fitting heaters & controling the heater temperature.
Once you have the machine fully converted it’s still not complete because you are now running using different inks so all the colour profiles you had were now of no use to you. Colour management is a huge topic & you may well struggle to get decent profiles for the media you want to print with your new machine which means looking at producing your own which also isn’t straight forward lol.

[Eddie Cotton]

thanks for the advice martin. im trying to push myself into more directions as i do have a market for certain things and find it a lot easier to learn new software and how to use new machinery then the hassle of subbing out, especially as there aren’t many people to do it round my area so those that do arent very cheap,
i do understand the inks clogging up now you have mentioned it so will probably go towards a laser printer instead and aim at number plates, health and safety signs etc.
im just one of those eager to learn and take the next jump

[Martin Pearson]

Nothing wrong with being eager or wanting to take the next step Eddie, I would encourage it. I would probably have a machine myself if it weren’t for the part time working restrictions.
Don’t write off buying an aqueous machine if you think you can make money selling posters & canvas prints & you can pick one up at a reasonable price, just remember that you may also need rip software for it which is expensive so a bargain price might not be so much of a bargain. Other thing is not to try & do things that the machine shouldn’t really be used for. Customers don’t remember that you sold it to them for very short term use & when their banner or what ever starts fading after a few weeks they will be straight back to you. OK from a legal point of view there is no come back on you but it won’t stop the customer bad mouthing you which is something we can all do without.
Laser might be just as restrictive if not more so. Is there a market for number plates round your way, I know some people seem to do OK with it but location seems to play a big part. Don’t forget if you are a registered supplier then you are not suppose to do show plates as far as I am aware & it’s a big fine if you get caught.
Health & safety signs done by laser will be short term I would have thought, don’t know how long laser lasts outside, plus it probably isn’t the cheapest way to produce them from a media & tonner point of view.

[Eddie Cotton]

very helpful you are 🙂
there is a company not to far from me not mentioning names) that sell all the printers modified to deal with different media, as far as i can see they print onto number plates which i have been making at work for years and ye all registered to do so, signs, business cards etc. again the only trouble is as ive never used these machines i dont know their full capabilities or limits
they are modified konika minolta 5670
i also want to use it for laser prints for shirts and making screens if i wanted togo down that route later
have you got any recomendations on aqueos machines? ive got space for a 50-60" printer as its home will be 10 foot wide