Flatbed printers – recommendations / advice?

[David Rowland]

i am afriad have not played with these yet, although I am not going to name suppliers publically, I have seen some ‘cheap’ UV Flatbeds and they do not give good results… so I would save your pennies up or wait for the market to adjust as I suspect the big expensive ones will drop in price.

Good luck in your findings

[Robert Lambie]

this might be a daft question but what sorta price are you looking to pay mate?
is it to add to your kit for your own customers or to maybe go into trade supplies?

[Andrew John Sawyer]

Thanks guys – pricewise I expect to pay between 60-100k (not that I want to!) to get the quality. It’s mainly for in-house use for clients but if we found we could provide a service in the Dorset area then we would consider it. We would print mainly onto 5mm foamex and perspex/opal. 😎

[David Rowland]

I would certainly spend some time with Sericol reviewing theres, I have heard good things about them and they are the no1 ink guys. But I am convinced that you got to earn your money quickly on these, depreciation on this equipment will be fast an outdated within 2-3 years.

Did you go to Sign UK last year?, well worth it to see the flatbeds. We also would like a Flatbed, but have been in the position of owning an early and expensive solvent inkjet and they were superceeded within 3 years. I think UV Inkjet will get very cheap and replace solvents, its only a matter of time.

[Shane Drew]

I’ve been looking at flatbeads too. It think the prices will come down in the next 18 months as machines and markets become more competative.

Right now I am not convinced, here at least, that the local market can support too many flat beds. The bigger co’s can justify them, but will screw anyone small who has a huge lease.

Plus the running costs are so high in terms of maintenance. Some of the larger flat beds cost a fortune just to turn off.

I have a sign shop near me that must run his flatbed unit 24 hrs a day just to make it pay. Admittedly he paid $1m for the unit, but it is all relative. If I pay $300k for a flat bed, and he is working around the clock desperate for work, he is always going to make it hard for me to get some decent contracts.

When they come down to a more realistic figure, I’ll probably consider it closer. The Octopus is cheap, but heard some bad reports on quality @360 dpi

[Robert Lambie]

Andrew,
You may want to look at the Graphtec flatbed solvent printer mate.
It is called the Duojet 2-in-1 & prints directly to rigid substrates, or can print onto rolls… it prints at 720dpi up to 63inches wide, costs about £50k

This is a picture i took of it at signuk last year…

[Shane Drew]

quote Robert Lambie:

Andrew,
You may want to look at the Graphtec flatbed solvent printer mate.
It is called the Duojet 2-in-1 & prints directly to rigid substrates, or can print onto rolls… it prints at 720dpi up to 63inches wide, costs about £50k

This is a picture i took of it at signuk last year…

looks good. they don’t sell them here yet from what I know…. 🙁

[Andrew John Sawyer]

Thanks Rob – I’ll look at them this morning – I’m currently favouring the Uniform Commander as we already have a Grenadier and it’s a bit of a known factor scenario. Cheers.

[David Rowland]

Andrew, for this purchase, I would seriously “Shop around”… speak to users, sadly, I do not know any member of the boards who has something like this. Another company I work for who does 1000s of foamex boards via silk screen route, looked at one machine but found that it was too slow.

[Andrew John Sawyer]

Def a shop around situation! Speeds and substrate thickness differs. Thanks for all your input.

[drogers4]

I was told that the solvent flatbeds can only print on semi-rigid substrates that can soak up the ink, like ultraboard. But cannot print on corrugated plastic, alumalite, or many other hard surfaces because the ink just “pools” and does not cure right.

I have also been looking into flatbeds and was attracted to the Colorspan display maker 72s but learned that in order to print on everything, you need UV inks. Colorspan sells the DisplayMaker 72UVX but carries a $90,000 price tag compared to the solvent flatbed at $50,000. Thats too much dough for me. I’m gonna have to wait until every sign shop has one before I can afford it. Good luck!

Doyle

[Andrew John Sawyer]

Hi Doyle – I’ve looked at the Displaymaker too. It’s got to be UV inks for us but the printheads are an amazing £1500.00 EACH! And the moving carriage hasn’t got a cover which concerns me regarding dust, etc., but the results are pretty good.

Andrew

[Cammy – Europoint Display]

HI Guys,

I think Durst are market leaders in this field , maybe not in the UK but certainly Worldwide.
http://www.durst-online.com

Flat bed and reel to reel combined

[Dr Mohab Fahmi]

hi

flatbeds are still a fairly tricky proposition. the good ones still cost as much as a house and the average ones are too average and problematic for non-experienced users.

my suggestions is to wait a bit…

[Andrew John Sawyer]

What are you getting Ashley? We originally purchased a Gerber Solara UV which was great but our main customer upped their required output so we bit the bullet and are getting an Inca Spyder 320 8 colour with the white option, which is a lot quicker (We have a Solara for sale – great price – see Sales). Good Luck!

[Andre Woodcock]

Hi Andrew,

Mutoh has recently release its New Valuejet 1608-64, List Price at US$44,995 (£23k). Pls check it out.
http://www.mutoh.com/products/ValueJet/ … 08-64.html

Andre,

[geomet]

mod-edit see board rules

Regards
Fergus

[jim G]

quote Cammy – Europoint Display:

HI Guys,

I think Durst are market leaders in this field , maybe not in the UK but certainly Worldwide.
http://www.durst-online.com

Flat bed and reel to reel combined

From i know yes they are the market leader, A flat was purchased last year but mind you he has a government contract so the machine will pay itself off

[KevinGaffney]

We have been using one of the Graphtec machines shown by Rob for almost two and a half years now. Through much experimenting, I can say conclusively the most efficient way of working is to print to vinyl and mount to sheets using laminator. In the long run this proves much quicker and cost effective than printing direct to substrate. As a roll to roll printer, this machine is excellent especially since we had a bulk ink system fitted

[MBourne]

Hi Andrew

What work do you intend to do on your flatbed (volume/type/substrate)?

regards
Matthew

[Mark Dempsey]

(mod-edit) please read board rules advertising is not allowed