Encad Novajet 850

[Ian Hatfield]

You can print on to coated media with this machine I would guess that it comes with the Dye inks installed which are not for external use, you would need to swap to the Pigment inks to get external durability. You wont compete on price with the solvent machines as the coated media is far more expensive. The best thing you can print on this machine is internal lightboxs, they are fantastic. This is all I used to use the one I had for. Printing posters you will get about 5-6m2 per hour out of the 850 at a good saleable quality.

[RobGF]

Hi there…

I have an 880 (same machine but will do coated rigid) and it’s just taking up space in my office.

Here’s what I can tell you; this machine can run either dye or pigmented inks on coated (treated) media. In fact, it can have both sets of ink installed at the same time. The dye inks offering a wider colour gamut and are only suitable for indoor application; the pigmented inks having a reduced colour gamut and being sold by Encad for outdoor application. It is possible for you to use the pigmented inks on specialty coated media to produce short term outdoor graphics (with lamination). This is a big thing to note as the coated media is really a lot more expensive than the uncoated media that eco-solvent, solvent, and UV curable printers use. As an example, I have an uncoated banner material here that costs me about 0.30cdn per square ft. I also have a coated banner here of a similar quality that I could use for the Encad that costs almost 2.00cdn per square. It’s an extreme example but not an insane example.

As a side comment, there are third party inks for the 850 by Dicojet which are supposed to offer better life than those of Encad but you’ll still need to print to the more expensive coated media.

Other things I can tell you about the printer would be that it has a pretty funky ink delivery system that is problematic. The printer requires a fair amount of prep and maintenance. It’s not especially fast and the print quality really isn’t any better than that of a HP 2000 series plotter which preceeded the 850/880 design by a few years.

I’m not suggesting that the printer is junk and perhaps you’ll get a really good deal on it. The model has been discontinued by Encad and the dealers here can’t give them away fast enough.

Of course, now that I have rambled on and on, some other forum user will chime in and give you a bunch of reasons why Encad’s are wonderful and that’s cool… just be careful and do your research.

Good luck

[Chris Hooper]

Llike RobGF – but with a 750 – 42″

My comments against the encad:

For outdoor use – you have to use pigment inks (Kodak GO+) – you have to laminate – the coated media is expensive – the inks don’t give you the “pop” and “vibrancy” of solvent. ( a non starter on outdoor stuff really)

My comments for the encad – if you do a lot of popups, roller banners , posters, indoor stuff and the like its OK – use the GX inks with the right media and it produces good results. But media is expensive compared to uncoated.

I use it for just this and have built the volume up on the above items that allows the machine to just pay its way. Never found to many problems with the machine – so for outdoor stuff I buy in the solvent prints at around £16 – £18 per square metre on vinyl (How much do others pay if buying in)

For your question banners and vinyls – probably not the right machine for you – save your money and go for a solvent printer.

Chris

[Iain Gordon]

Thanks for the replies.

I have now put the chequebook away for another day.

Once again UKSignboards have helped the unhelpable

Cheers
Iain