Can anyone recommend a supplier for a cadet please?

[David Rowland]

All I can say is that it is a B&P / Uniform product, it is something they made from a Roland Versacamm product and re-badged it for sale under their own names.

Please look over this link while you are deciding what to do as they are available via this website.

https://www.uksignboards.com/index.php?nav_0=10

However I am big fan of the Mimaki JV3 products, one of the ones I operate is the JV3-75SP with AIT’s Shiraz RIP with a CG-FX cutter running out of Illustrator/Corel with Fine Cut, cracking products and cannot fault them. However if your just a little sign shop doing bits and peices you may find the Cadet is the answer, we would have bought the Grenadier but thought it couldn’t handle continous over night printing very well, the JV3 has good grip and take up systems.

More importantly, choosing between support contracts, prices of inks, eco-solvent vs solvent. Lots of advise here in the Printing Forum.

[Jon Stephens]

Thank Dave.

We are looking to have the print and cut machine doing all the work. Mainly 150mm x 200mm digital prints as stickers or onto Dibond. We will only be Digital printing (and cutting). Is the JV3 products suitable for this ? Our main product line will be similar to safety signs for external use. We will be working from Corel Draw with mainly Vector graphics. Any issues with the cutting ? We will probably be printing 100 or so at a time, laminating, and then cutting to produce stickers or put onto Dibond.

[David Rowland]

The JV3 is a good small production printer… the cutter will kiss-cut and cut-through the vinyl (but we don’t bother as it can be a headache sometimes with cutting right through the vinyl), the cutter will also Sheet cut so the whole operation works like this:-

1:Prep your Corel artwork with Fine Cut registration marks.
2: Print say 10mtrs of stickers which are taken up on the roll.. each set of stickers will have 4 registration corner marks on them
3: Take the roll and place into the Cutter.
4: Continue printing on the JV3 (if u need more)
5: Use the cutters control panel to find the first registration mark (easy)
6: Select artwork in corel and use fine cut and tell it how many to cut and how many registration marks. Select cutting type and if you want to Auto-Cut the sheets.
7: Away it goes, find all the registration marks… kiss cuts the vinyl and then cuts them off in a tidy pile.. Registration is almost perfect.

If it is print quality, then I suspect the Cadet/Grenadier/JV3 and Versacamm to be all in the same league, they all use the same print head.
It is down to RIP, INK and support.

Can’t speak about Lamination, not really tried it with that cutter yet but don’t see too much of an issue… but if it didn’t work then I would consider the top dog in cutting, the Big Summa cutters!

ALternativly. Look at board printing for DiBond… UV is making good strides in board printing.

[Jon Stephens]

Thanks for the info, Dave … very interesting … 😀

mmm … sounds like a option …. the JV3 … price seems about the same with ink and warranty …

Do you set the cut lines in Corel draw as another colour ? or something different ?

Cheers

[David Rowland]

in Fine Cut it will allow you to cut by Layer or Colour. I actually put a coloured contour line under the sticker so it wont print on the printer, then cut with the line.. many ways of doing it but found this to be a good way.

The cadet with Troop has similar features but not used it. Some one should post here.

Fine cut from Mimaki

[Jon Stephens]

Thanks Dave !

I’ll look into the best solution for us … many thanks for your time and advise !

Jon

[David Rowland]

Hi again… just to add… if you print indoor based stickers, you may want to consider an Eco Solvent or a JV22/JV4/JV2… solvent is a beast as you got to look after them and they look after you. You get good range, the machine we got is the JV3-160S with hifi colour and that is run by Shiraz, it really does do good work with pantone colours and matching.. any way… i hope you find what u are looking for.
But if you got a few hundred grand available then have a look at the Solara and the other flatbeds like this but this is the new deal of our printer here which competes with Uniform products.

[Gordon Forbes]

The cadet is good for labels though I find in the likes of labels you have to slow down the head pass speed to get crisp lines on small text (it may be my inexperience I havent tweaked the rip at all to limit ink.

They specify Troop when you buy it but I already had Signlab and use it no issues with it. So I insisted in getting the Roland software (which apparently doesn’t work now with a new one so I heard Roland did something to it so it doesn’t work on a modified machine I may be wrong.)

The registration can wonder if you need to cut a close border to your labels. The best way I have found before any print do an environment check same for laminatin. If doing a 100 labels do them in batches of 20 5 times this stops the wandering Prints 20 then cuts them leves a space of 10mm between the next 20 and so on

Prints well with some other vinyls other than digital print ones some it just won’t burn into them.
Instead of printing colours you can just use black etc on red or whatever.

What I find a problem is getting a vinyl that will stick to cold steel well from the off. I am still looking at different types of material for this or even a glue laminate for it to resolve this.
Any of the suppliers will sell you one but don’t get one from the Pepsi Max people
My reason for this I won’t explain at the moment but I can assure you DO NOT BUY ONE FROM THEM.

Goop.

[Peter Shaw]

The Pepsi Max fan club rears its head again!

Selecting a digital print supplier is like choosing between constipation and diarrhea.

Whichever you choose you’ll need something to fix the problem!!

Peter

[David Rowland]

After my recent research into all this… this is why I am trying to figure out alternative ways of keeping solvent printers working well

[cw products]

A question for Dave, do you have to use an air purifiers with your machine, I was going to plunge for a Cadet + but don’t no weather to bother as all I seem to read on here are problems with something going wrong with there machines.
chalk

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote cw products:

as all I seem to read on here are problems with something going wrong with there machines.
chalk

nothing wrong with the machines……its certain companys who supply them 😕 😉

nik

[Robert Lambie]

cw, you want get many folk posting here or anywhere unless their is a problem or question with their machine. the reason you will see lots of mentions on this machine in particular is probably because of how popular they are. 😀

ive had my grenedier about 18 months now i think and only one little niggle and it was sorted pronto.

if you want a printer, there is always issues, eco-sol or solvent. they all have their ups and downs, finding the one that best suits you is what you have to do.

[Phill Fenton]

What’s the chicken blaster thing then – Is that the syringe you get with the maintenance kit? (I wasn’t shown how to remove air). If so – Do you fit the syringe to the tubes before or after the pump?

[Nicola McIntosh]

sorry phil its not a chicken baster….it is the syringe 😳 😀

you take the tubes apart from the front and insert it in and pull the syringe towards you…taking the air out 😀

thats what the guy showed me 😀

nik

[Phill Fenton]

I’ll try that tommorrow – It might not do any good but sounds like fun anyway 😉

[Peter Shaw]

Christ!!! No wonder my chicken went a funny colour!!!

[David Rowland]

sounds like ink has gone up the pipes with Phill