banner graphics: & co. encompagnie

[Nicola McIntosh]

nice banner dennis 😀

nik

[Carrie Brown]

It is nice … and certainly eye catching with the colours. 😀

[Dennis Van Der Lingen]

the colors are really good i know, i’ts printed on the summa dc3 with digital white from multifix, 6005 series, i didn(t expect the summa to make the colors this vivid but i was pleasantly surprised.

nice to hear that orher proffesionals like it to.

[Robert Lambie]

looks great mate… nice one dennis.

summa dc3? is that not a thermal machine mate?

[Dennis Van Der Lingen]

yes it’s a thermal transfer printer like the gerber edge or roland pc 60 i think. it prints great and up to 600 “apparent” dpi

i’m very pleased with the printer it’s a real money maker
it can do all kind of things, a truck wrap is coming up by the end of the week and i’m going to do it with the summa, (pics will folow of course)

i would recomend the summa dc3 to everyone, it’s a great machine and i must say that summa has the best tech-support i’ve ever seen.

just mail them with your question and they will answer it within 24 hours free of charge (unlike spandex, who have a paying helpdesk witch i find really annoying, i mean come one: their junk malfunctions and they charge you for the phone call at a rate witch is close to theft: 75 euro per hour)

summa’s tech-support is for me the nr1 reason why when i buy a new plotter it will be a summa.

[Robert Lambie]

how does the thermal prints compare to the like of sokvent inks mate?
ide have thought a banner that size would have cost you a fortune in ribbon?

[Dennis Van Der Lingen]

the ribbon is the highest cost but it’s the customer that pays the bill in the end. in a big job like this and because it’s a job that keeps coming back (about 6 times a year) i give the guy a special price, this paticular job was sold for 930 euro’s plus tax, half of that is the cost of making it of witch 90 percent is ribbon cost.

because we do this one often it’s a “routine job witch does not take up a lot of time.

12 hours of printing: set up at 19:00 and when we came in the next morning at 7:00 it was finished,
1 hour of cutting the panels
3 hours applying (2 fitters took 90 minutes)
20 minutes of hanging it up
and 15 minutes of taking it down the day before

all things taken into consideration the job costed 5 hours of my time.
pretty small profit margin but for this client i do much more than this one job witch in the end makes it a good client witch brings in a good profit.

[Dennis Van Der Lingen]

the print compares quit good to a inkjet altough it has to be said that when it comes to photographic images and high resolution the inkjet shines and the thermals are in the shadow,

but in the most jobs the pixels of the image are bigger then the raster of witch the printer prints so resolution doesn’t matter an image of 50 dpi does not look better printed in 1440 dpi than it does with 720 or even 360
it also helps when the image is way up on a building :lol1:

the great thing about thermal is that it is instant dry (really really dry) it requires no lamination (up to 5 years garuanteed unlaminated by summa)
so it works fast: you printed it and can imidiatly take it of the takeup roll and cutt it to shape and applie it, that’s where the benifit is: time saving, maintenace free, ready when you are(can stand still for a week and print perfect after that week), no head clogging, etc…

[Robert Lambie]

thanks for the reply mate.. i used to run an old roland pc60 a while back, it was thermal too but .5 inch wide ribbon. i beleive the summa is 4 or 5 inches wide?
is the vinyl sprocket fed?

[Dennis Van Der Lingen]

it’s traction feed
ribbon width is 10 cm, i guess it is about 4 or 5 inches
never had a roland pc60 is it any good? like an edge or a dc3 or 2?

[Dennis Van Der Lingen]

a new pic of the banner with the proper lighting, has a much nicer effect on photo

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[Nicola McIntosh]

that looks really good dennis…brilliant results and with thermal too 😉

nik

[Russ]

not only is the job brilliant in every aspect, in my opinion the price to your customer is even better.

I also believe it never pays to cut off the hand that feeds you, it’s a great job WELL DONE

Regards Russ

[Stephen Sill]

Dennis that is a fabulous piece. Hearty congratulations. I’m thinking I need to come visit you the next time I come to the UK. I am always looking to hook up with people who are learning the DC3. I love mine, but I haven’t yet begun to scratch the surface of what can be done. I think someone asked about the cost of coverage. the specs say the ribbons cover 350 SF at full saturation and the ribbons cost (in the US) $135. from most suppliers. The basic ribbonset is 4 ribbons and my experience is that they last about the same length of time. the 1m premium opaque white vinyl that Summa recommends is $449 per roll. As You’ve pointed out, it’s silly to pay that when you can do the job as well for much less.

Thanks again for sharing!

[Dennis Van Der Lingen]

hey stephen, thanks for the reply,
the summa is a great machine, it prints really nice,

ribbon cost is about the same here as it is there,

about the vinyl i would reccomend to run away as fast as you can when someone is offering you that price, use a digital white you like not one that’s recommended,

the vinyl i use (including this job) costs 150 euro (about 190dollars) per roll, it’s a soft calendred digital white that costs less than half and preformes just as good, both in print quality as in application, (off course you have to test it to see if it works as good as the recomended one)

cheers

Dennis