edge tiles, do they match?

[J. Hulme]

Don’t know about the first problem but I’m sure the Edge 2 is a ‘little’ better resolution and slightly faster.

Still hugely overpriced and about to become obsolete in my opinion of course 😉
Never rated the edge anyway………….. 👿

[Bob Gilliland]

Kev,

Although not exclusive, that behavior is often the result of a fatigued or fatiguing print head. Printing a standard field test may reveal to what extent this to be the case.

If you are an Omega user, there is an option inside GSPPlot, in the Panel Options dialog, that allows you to “flip” panels to overcome this to some capacity. Imagine a three panel job. The first and third panels will print “normal” while the second or middle panel will print 180deg out of phase. Theory goes that the “top” of the first panel will be printed from the same area of the head as the “bottom” of the second panel thereby masking, to some capacity, the fact that the head has different energy across the entire head width.

While this is more common on ageing heads, new heads are not always exempt from this behaviour.

As to the differences between an Edge model (any three version of it) and the Edge2, there are many. The two that probably get the most attention is the fact it can print up to 300% faster on certain substrates and foil combinations. Please make sure you read that correctly; “up to”. Not all sales agents point that out and not all consumers ask more detail about that fact. Not all foils, not all substrates, and not all combinations will print at the increased 60 IPM. The second most talked about item is probably the increased resolution of 600dpi. While this is nice for really small text, and to a lesser degree continues tone images and gradients, it’s not 600 on both axis. The print head is still 300dpi, so the true resolution is 600dpi on the “X” axis and 300dpi on the “Y”. Lot’s of other differences, but these are the two most often talked about.

You can download a print head plt test file from my Free Stuff page. Version there for Omega and the older Graphix Advantage program. If you are using SignLab, I can respond back with how to do a panel swap inside that program.

Edge technology is “old” by today’s standards, however, in my opinion, contrary to Outline’s, it has a lot of leg left. I’ve been hearing the “doom” of thermal, and the Edge in particular, for years now. Same as I heard about how “paint” was dead and gone. Maybe someday my overpriced piece of kit will be obsolete, but in the mean time I need to make a trip to the bank to deposit all this wonderful money it’s making me.

[Colin Crow]

I’m with Bob on this one. Only had my Edge 1 for a couple of months and already picked up jobs not possible on other equipment. 1,700 “expensive” white and gold mirror foil on window cling decals was very nice indeed! Lets see the ink brigade do that one. Horses for courses I think.

Colin