how much does it cost to print a metre of digital vinyl?

[John Cornfield]

Depending on your what you pay for your ink, 14ml of ink is layed down on 100% coverage registration black per square metre. So this is a worst case scenario and is what i use for costing materials.

So i am sure you can do the maths to work out your ink costs per square metre. Obviously you should average less but factoring in wastage of paper, banner, vinyl etc it will even out.

As for the cheapest consumable Print Max you can shag them on the price providing you are prepared to hold some stock 3 sets of one colour. They will beat B&P cause B&P are not allowed to drop their pricing. Truth be told B&P can’t and don’t want to deal with everyone on their consumables they don’t have the structure and prefer to have some distributors moving consumables.

Cheers

John

[Ian Higgins]

Hi,
I have had a Cadett for a couple of months now and was told Ink worked out at about £6 per meter. On top of that you have the cost of material design etc but that is what I have been working as a cost for inks and then have been costing accordingly..
After a few teething problems with the machine I have found it a great piece of kit and have now paid my deposit to have the new 54″ one when it arrives in the UK next year.
Cheers
Ian

[Rodney Gold]

12-20 ml per sq meter (20 if doing an overprint) + cost of media. Printing a page of text uses a lot less.
As to carts , the ratio the carts are used in will depend on the rip etc , suffice it to say that cart usage is not constant. You will probably use far more magenta then cyan etc – obviously depends on what you print.
Essentially with it’s solvent conversion , one could probably use most aftermarket types of inks with the machine barring the most agressive solvent type. However I would imagine this would void all warrantees and none of your exisiting profiles will work and the savings are not worth the potential cost of new heads or pumps or tubing or increased maintenance. This is apart from the fact that an aftermarket ink might contain very hazardous solvents.
The carts are not refillable , actually they ARE , but not easily and you incur some risk. When the machine indicates a cart is empty , there is probably still 15-25ml in it. The ink is in a sealed bladder in the cart , the opening of the bladder where the cart goes into the machine is much like the rubber seal of a vial of stuff to be injected. You can insert a syringe with a tough needle in it and suck out the ink and transfer it to another cart. Its VERY messy ,you risk puncturing the bladder and worst of all , you can get air into it. We do it only if there is an emergency. If a cart indicates empty , and you dont have another and you need to finish a job , have a look at the tab that protrudes from the cart. As the cart empties , it protrudes more and activates a microswitch. You can take the cart out and snip off some of the tab , this will “fool” the machine that a new cart is inserted and you will be able to complete the print as there is still a fair amount of ink left. dont run the cart till its empty , this will cause a LOT of problems.

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