HP L2550 printer advice needed please?.

[Jason Xuereb]

quote Phillip Patterson:

Hi all,

Im considering buying an hp latex printer. thinking may be the hpl2550. Can anyone recommend if they are any good?

1)I have heard that most people who by them already have an eco solvent printer. is this true??

2)also is it true that they are limited with the amount of media you can print.

3)why is is that you can only print short runs on them??

4)also what is it with regards to the high power consumption, does it take too much power? and are the inks expensive??

Thanx again.

1. No.

2. No. There haven’t been any media’s I could run through our eco solvents I couldn’t run through latex. Yes there is a learning curve and that is why alot of people who went from solvent to latex struggled.

3. I print full rolls all day every day.

4. if uses two 15A supplies. One for the print and one for the heating unit. Yes they suck alot more power then an eco solvent machine.

[Phillip Patterson]

Thanx Jason,

What is the learning curve? is it difficult with the rip or is the printer more awkward to use?

Would you recommend the hp l2250?

also how do you find it with regards to ink economy?? are the carts expensive or the same as eco sol??

are there any know issues?

Is the ink longetivity the same as eco sol?

thinking of buying at the end of the week

Thanx again

😀

[George Zerbino]

Hi Phillip,

I second everything that Jason has stated.

Here are the other answers:

What is the learning curve? is it difficult with the rip or is the printer more awkward to use?
The rips are usually reasonably easy to use (I use mine with Onyx postershop), the printer is dead easy to use, the learning curve is getting the right settings for the various materials you want to use which might need a bit of experimenting – but once the settings are right it’s spot on.

Would you recommend the hp l25500?
Yes!

also how do you find it with regards to ink economy?? are the carts expensive or the same as eco sol??
I spend more with the latex than I did with the ecosol, but then again I used to use bulk inks and always had problems, also I print a lot more now so I cannot give a fair comparison

are there any know issues?
not as far as I’m aware, I’ve had mine for over two years and will never go back to a eco sol or full solvent again

Is the ink longetivity the same as eco sol?
Yup!

thinking of buying at the end of the week
go for it, you won’t regret it

Cheers
George Zerbino

[Nicola McIntosh]

agree with everyone’s comments and have to say the hp latex L28500 one of the best (cant find a fault with it) and easiest printers i have run on all media, it just churns the work out so yeah go for it Philip you wont look back 😀

[Phillip Patterson]

Thanx alot guys really appreciate all your help and comments.

So I assume the fundamental difference with the newer hp latex machines is just the resolution and the fact that it prints darker blacks. is that right??

I was initially thinking of getting a vs640 but you guys have really made me change my opinion! 😀

Thanx for all your help. I feel so much better, Im gonna love the fact that i can print something and work with it straight away!!

Thanx again!!

[Robert Lambie]

you should actually allow about a minimum of 30 minutes before laminating it mate. whether that applies for using it too, im not sure.

[Peter Munday]

Interesting comment Rob, I have always laminated prints straight from the printer. Is there a reason for your comment? Also I have found the blacks to be weaker than solvent and have to change my black setting to 100% of all colours at the artwork stage.

Peter

[Robert Lambie]

I was told by the people hosting the HP road show a few weeks ago, that for the likes of vehicle wraps that best practice is to allow about 30 minutes before laminating. You CAN laminate right after printing but its advised to give it 30 minutes for the likes of wrapping films.

As i said above, I am not sure if the same applies to just using unlaminated prints once it comes out the machine.

[Jonathan Dray]

We were very very close to buying one of the latex machines but after getting lots and lots of samples done by many different resellers, we concluded that the prints just aren’t durable enough when not laminated, particularly on dark colours. Simply running a finger nail across the surface, not even with much force, would cause the ink to come away. This is fine for stuff that’s going to be laminated like vehicle wraps etc but things like PVC banners for instance where lamination isn’t possible we could see being a real problem.

Also, there are many materials that are printable with solvent / eco solvent / UV that are not printable with latex. Roller banner material seems to be a particular issue. Yeah there are some films that may work but the options are far fewer.

Another problem with the latex machines is the size being 60 or 61 inches rather than 63 or 64 inch like most eco solvent machines. This means you can’t print a 1.5M wide banner with hems using these machines because they’re about 2 inches too small. Also a lot of PVC scrim material comes in 1600mm widths which is too wide for these machines and the next size down is normally in the 1300mm region. I’m sure there are 1520mm rolls around but again the options are far less.

Anyway, rant over. We really wanted to like these machines but just couldn’t convince ourselves. I’m sure for laminated vinyl they’re great but for what we wanted they just didn’t stack up.

[Kevin Flowers]

Jonathon
not sure what samples you have been given but have tried test prints off a l25500 & the l26000 and the durability scratch resistance was excellant including a banner print. These where done by owners of machines so may be the dealers don’t know it all.

Kev

[Phillip Patterson]

Hi Guys,

Just a few concerns Iv had with regards to purchasing the machine

1) Ive been told it uses way tooo much electric how bad is this. Do people who have the l25500 find this a major issue?

2) Ive been told by a dealer (not hp latex) that you have to wait an hour to heat up. Is that right?? (Doesnt sound right to me)

3) Due to the high heating in the printer it causes the machine to breakdown alot. Is that right??

thanx

[David Rowland]

Jason has both printers and can comment but the durability on banner is something to be closely monitored.

I dont use it for banner only vinyl and that is fine both unlaminated and laminated.

The curing time is right but we just laminate straight away… basically the printer ‘cures’ the ink at high temp.

We just moved our printer from a cold environment to a hot environment, makes a lot of difference to curing especially solid black colours…

The machine is amazing.

[Jonathan Dray]

A couple of the dealers we got the samples from have commercial printing departments using these printers day in day out for commercial projects and the samples we got from them had exactly the same problem.

To be honest even the official swatch book we got from the HP road show had the same problem on most of the materials.

I should add that these samples were produced on the newer L26500 not the L25500. If you take a look on the latex user group there are a few people over there complaining about this issue who moved from the older machine to the new machine. One guy in particular saying when he had the L25500 he didn’t laminate anything at all, now he’s moved to the new machine he has to laminate almost everything he produces. My guess is it’s something to do with the new glossier inks.