Anyone using an HP 9000s Printer?

[Pauly]

They are an amazing bit of gear, I have had experience from both a production side and the sales/install/service side.

Almost identical in almost every way, ink included (depending on who you ask, but even the profiles are EXACTLY the same) to a Seiko 64s colour painter.

Fast, massive colour Gamut, dead easy to get the hang of for anyone who knows a little about digital printing and come with usb/networking capabilties instead of a scsi connection, as did the Seiko.
Take up system can be a little temperamental but is easily sorted once you get the knack.
Possibly a little more challenging for someone who has been using a roland or similar bit of gear as they are not quite as user friendly. But in my opinion are a FAR superior piece of gear.

Though you can easily save quite a few bucks picking up a second hand 64s that will do every bit as good a job if your on a tight budget?

Hope that helps.

[Justin Mann]

Cheers Pauly,

We’ve had the printer for a couple of years, certainly is a very good piece of kit. I started with the company a year back and the guy working with it before never set the profiles up properly so I’m about to get on with that. Print quality has always been excellent but I expect it will improve further as we tweak the calibration.

Just interested to hear comments such as your own as to how versatile it is, print quality etc.

Many thanks,
Justin 🙂

[Pauly]

Setting up your machine profiles a can work wonders to your quality too! (You know the profiles on the machine with the IPOS settings etc etc blah blah, check your manual)

Glad to hear someone else like this machine as much as I do!

The new Seikos are out and HOLY MOLY!! What an amazing bit of kit! Can print so fast your media does not have time to dry (totaly design issue, but still, if they sort the drying it will be amazing) Quality is fantastic and they can be supplied as either 4 colour or 8 colour with gray. Check one out if you get the chance, vrrroooommm!!!

[Justin Mann]

I’ve dug out my notes from a days training session I had a while back, downloaded the user manual so next stage is to put some time aside to calibrate a couple of medias, hoping to see a big difference.

Do you print onto self adhesive vinyl? We do a lot of this, usually looks good but sometimes there appears to be a little blow-out around the graphic, almost like overspray. Is this normal?

We get the best results printing onto canvas material, banner material can look banded which is where the calibration should help.

I think if we were to buy another it would need to print directly to the hard material, foamex etc. but they seem to be mega bucks as well. We’ve been looking at the Gerber Edge recently, quite fancy a play with one of those.

Cheers,
Justin

[Pauly]

I print quite a bit of SAV and yeah, the overspray/ghosting is possibly one of a few things

– Head alignment needs adjusting
– Horizontal alignment needs adjusting to the media thickness
– Head height is a little too high

You should be able to fairly easily print quite small readable text from this machine.

Banding is also fairly easily solved on this machine as it will allow you to do it on the fly, unlike some equipment I have used in the past……. grrrrrr

As for a direct to substrate priner, there is a heap of different options depending on your needs, just be aware, that they are a lot more labour intensive and often you will needs to look at your staffing requirements for trimming and packing etc, even if your doing relativly small volumes. Plus you can do quite big volumes with a solvent printer and an ezy-taper or similar machine if your process is fairly streamlined. You’ll save a fortune if you can keep your solvent machine running full time rather than 2 machines half time.

GOOD LUCK!!