I’ve just ordered two VS-640’s

[Jason Xuereb]

Hey Shane,

I’ve only ever used Versaworks but its pretty easy to use.

With your WS machine your going to have to get used to using the correct profile option when using those swatches. The preview comes up with a highlighted pink area for those modes.

If you get stuck with anything especially after hours buzz me on my mobile.

[Shane Drew]

Thanks mate, I was going to ring you when I got the machines…. you could still get a call.

I sat down with the lady who demo’d it, and she had my mind spinning in the end, but I suspect I might be OK if I can have a play on my own.

cheers Jason

[Andrew Blackett]

Versaworks is a breeze Shane – theres not much you cant do with it.

Its just a series of about 8 tabs which contain your job options – you’ll be fine I’m sure 😉

Andy

[Shane Drew]

thanks Andy…

[Nicola McIntosh]

good luck with your new toys shane 😉

[Gert du Preez]

The Namibian Roland distributors has a demo machine at the Erongo Trade show. I went there on Thursday, and was left somewhat underwhelmed by the VS……

I took a sample I printed on my RS with to compare my "gold" with the real deal. Mine looked better! (These are decals printed for the Traffic Cops, so when I print the normal Corel "Gold" on the reflective it looks like real metallic gold. )

That said, I was very impressed by the "chrome" silver this printer could produce. But even 2 days after printing, I can completely rub off the print with my fingers. Funny, this is not the case on the printed gold samples…

I would opt for the CMYKCMYK setup if I were to buy one of these. I must say, large solid colours print perfectly on the VS. My RS is not as solid. The old SP, though, prints as well as the VS. Just Sloooow!

BTW, Shane, how many print hours did your old machines have? My SP is now 18 months old, and has done more than 2000 hours. (The Versa Art is 12 months, and already has 1000 hrs. But it prints 3x faster than the SP) Apparently a reasonable life expectancy is about 6000 hours. So quite a bit of life in my machines. I think I will upgrade to whatever becomes the next generation Roland printers in a few years time.

[Shane Drew]

quote Gert du Preez:

The Namibian Roland distributors has a demo machine at the Erongo Trade show. I went there on Thursday, and was left somewhat underwhelmed by the VS……

I took a sample I printed on my RS with to compare my “gold” with the real deal. Mine looked better! (These are decals printed for the Traffic Cops, so when I print the normal Corel “Gold” on the reflective it looks like real metallic gold. )

That said, I was very impressed by the “chrome” silver this printer could produce. But even 2 days after printing, I can completely rub off the print with my fingers. Funny, this is not the case on the printed gold samples…

I would opt for the CMYKCMYK setup if I were to buy one of these. I must say, large solid colours print perfectly on the VS. My RS is not as solid. The old SP, though, prints as well as the VS. Just Sloooow!

BTW, Shane, how many print hours did your old machines have? My SP is now 18 months old, and has done more than 2000 hours. (The Versa Art is 12 months, and already has 1000 hrs. But it prints 3x faster than the SP) Apparently a reasonable life expectancy is about 6000 hours. So quite a bit of life in my machines. I think I will upgrade to whatever becomes the next generation Roland printers in a few years time.

Thanks Nik

Thanks Gert, I will not be doing that much silver work, I mainly need it for the white. I have a few tenders that I won recently which stipulate that option will be required. I would normally send that work off to Jason in Melbourne, and I’ve passed a lot of this work up, or just given them Jasons web address. My oldest machine is 7 years old, and the other is 6 years.

This year I’ve spent over $16,000 on repairs to them and I am getting to the stage that its time to take the plunge on new technology.

I went with the VS because they are much better than my old SC540’s, got the new heads, they still print and cut, albeit a bit slower. If I was buying just the one, I’d have gone for the new generation 540/3.

I liquid laminate all my prints unless it is promotional or temporary signage too, but I know what you say about the silver. The sales rep told me the same. Both Roland and Mimaki units suffer the same fate, but it is a very impressive ‘look’ when one is printed.

Unfortunately the silver is run thru the system whether you use it or not, and it is expensive by comparison to the normal inks, thats why only the one will have the configuration, and it will be the unit that will get the least amount of work.

I was worried about matching my clients colours too. I use a really strong green on my 540 using the CMYKOG configuration. I can’t run OG on these new machines, but the girl in the office matched the green perfectly using the new ecomax inks. That is what sold me on the machine.

[Stephen Morriss]

Wow Shane, early Christmas or what :lol1:

I’ve used Colorip then Wasatch 6 and now Versaworks.

Versaworks will take a little getting used to as you don’t have the 4 modules like in Wasatch, I’m using it with an SP540V so it may be a little different to yours with the VS printers.

Main difference is the modules setup and print/lam/cut. In Versaworks you select the print marks and then select print only, you then print and when you have reinserted the print you have to select cut only from the setup, then you print again (confused yet 😛 )
Easier than it sounds but with only having 2 modules I have to remember the settings last used on a particular print.

In Wasatch I had the 4 modules: best print setting, production setting and print/lam/cut and the 4th was the cut module so basically i just had to decide on production or best print or print/lam/cut which covered all my options really.

Nesting isn’t that good in Versaworks, Wasatch wasn’t brilliant, I could easily get better nesting manually but Versaworks does some funny things which require daft workarounds.

The colour library is good and means I can get agreed colours easily and most customers are happy to pick a colour off the chart, if I need to match a colour then it’s back to trial prints which I had to do with Wasatch anyway.

Over all though I’ve found Versaworks is good and covers most of my needs and you’ll be running happly with it in a few days.

Steve

Edit
Forgot to add that getting it and all updates free with the printer is a bonus that far outweighs the few minor downsides.

[Neil Fox]

Congratulations Shane.

My VS was delivered 2 weeks ago and I have been more than happy with the machine.

The previous machine I had was an SP540V, the second one in Ireland back in February 2005. I have been using VersaWorks since day 1 and find it very user friendly. I use in conjunction with Illustrator. I print directly from Illustrator into VersaWorks, very straight forward work flow.

I am using CMYKCMYK with the VS as I don’t have any call as yet for any of the specialty colour options. If I did start to get requests, I would likely get a VS300 or VS420 for the job.

Have fun with the new machines.

[Shane Drew]

Thank you both for your input.

Not sure who is happier with the purchase though, me or the bank 🙂

[Jason Xuereb]

No problems Shane. Make sure you get that take up unit for your white metallic unit. If you’ve got a decent sized job it prints pretty slow especially in CYMK+W mode in one pass. It’s about half a square metre an hour on the VS.