JETRIX are they any good?

[Iain Pearson]

Hi Andy
Yes the Jetrix are very good.
Willow Graphics in Bermondsey have one, and so
Far it’s been the nuts.
They did an industry first by printing onto Lego
Bricks and even Ice.
Fast head speed, white ink etc

[Robert Lambie]

I dont know anyone running one, but I was wanting to look at one at Sign & Digital earlier this year but did not. I have only heard good reports on them and thats coming from various suppliers, some that don’t even sell it. But still gave good feedback.

[Jonathan Dray]

We’re also looking at flatbeds at the moment and the Jetrix is on our short list. We actually went to Willow Graphics last week (great guys, very helpful) with Perfect Colours (also great guys) to take a look at theirs. The model they have is the KX7D which is the 2.5M x 3M bed, double heads, white, varnish, roll to roll etc.

It looks like a good machine and comes with a 2 year warranty as standard that includes heads. But, it hasn’t been around for very long so there obviously isn’t the big user base like the Arizona or HP FB range to help gauge reliability. If anyone else has been running one for a while I’d also be very interested to hear some feedback.

We also looked at the HP and our opinion is it’s a reliable user friendly option, but when it comes to quality vs speed it’s really starting to lag behind. To get certain colours to print without banding you need to slow it right down to about 10SQM/H. The double head Jetrix will print better quality at about 30-40 SQM/H (but it’s more expensive). Depends what you’re wanting to produce with it really. I think HP have only released the 550/750 as a stopgap until the inevitable latex flatbed that must be coming, because the print quality has really not improved that much (in fact I think it’s got worse).

[A.Kordowski]

quote Jonathan Dray:

We’re also looking at flatbeds at the moment and the Jetrix is on our short list. We actually went to Willow Graphics last week (great guys, very helpful) with Perfect Colours (also great guys) to take a look at theirs. The model they have is the KX7D which is the 2.5M x 3M bed, double heads, white, varnish, roll to roll etc.

It looks like a good machine and comes with a 2 year warranty as standard that includes heads. But, it hasn’t been around for very long so there obviously isn’t the big user base like the Arizona or HP FB range to help gauge reliability. If anyone else has been running one for a while I’d also be very interested to hear some feedback.

We also looked at the HP and our opinion is it’s a reliable user friendly option, but when it comes to quality vs speed it’s really starting to lag behind. To get certain colours to print without banding you need to slow it right down to about 10SQM/H. The double head Jetrix will print better quality at about 30-40 SQM/H (but it’s more expensive). Depends what you’re wanting to produce with it really. I think HP have only released the 550/750 as a stopgap until the inevitable latex flatbed that must be coming, because the print quality has really not improved that much (in fact I think it’s got worse).

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for you reply, from what i can make out the Jetrix is a very robust machine and have been told its a very reliable machine with 40 installs in the uk, we also looked at the HP550/750 and yes from what i can make out it still has banding issues and the maintenance agreement is very expensive, I’ve also had a reseller telling me if you want to be able to print white ink don’t buy a Hp you need to use the light cyan channel for the white and this uses £45 of wasted ink. So yes we are very interested in the Jetrix and like you are looking at the KX7…let me know how you get on :thumbup2:

[Unknown Member]

Having experience with both machines and recently doing a job for the London Underground and being told they preferred the massive 3m x 2m boards printed on the HP FB700 rather than the Jetrix that a partner company of ours done for us was positive feedback for the HP – The client stated the prints looked more alive and vibrant with the prints that came of the FB700.

The Jetrix is a great machine in my opinion and I know a few people using it a couple of issues that they all complain about its;

1. The maintenance on the machine – You have to purge the heads a few times a day and give them a good old clean to ensure all nozzle are firing. – The FB on the other hand does its own cleans several times during the day and does one major clean during the evening – You really don’t have to do anything with this up until the time it flashes for its 80 hour clean which even then you need some lint free cloths, swabs and some grease which is all supplied – Follow the step by step instructions and your away.

You can leave the FB standing for a week and come back to it load a sheet and it will print perfectly each and every time. Maintenance on this machine is minimal compared to the jetrix

2. Adhesion of ink – The FB amazes me you can literally put any material through it and the ink will stick like SH*T no messing around with primers or anything like that – I know my friends who run the jetrix have to apply a sealer to the edges of ACM before printing as the ink just comes off.

3. Have a open flatbed like the jetrix means you need to ensure your environment is dust free where as the FB prints in the enclosed section of the machine meaning you can load a sheet give it a blow down with a air gun and you know the dust is off and the area being feed is in the enclosed section

You mention the maintenance agreement which I agree at 10k is a massive amount especially as you may not end up using it…This is exactly what I thought so decided not to take it in my second year until such point where I was printing a time sensitive order worth around 25k to us and the machine developed a fault…I thought I knew what the fault was and decided to order some parts – 5k worth of parts later and still no fix….By this time the order needs to go out and being a corporate client with a set installation date I had no choice but to sub this out to someone else….Lesson learnt I now have a maintenance agreement in place….I would push HP to give you 2 years if you decide to go down this route.

The maintenance on these machines is done by art systems and I have to say if you log a fault you get a service call the next day from there engineer and the engineer will arrive with every single part he thinks he may need, if the parts are not in stock they are sent to your location over night from europe….Every issue we have reported to Artsystems has been dealt and fixed the next day without fail meaning down time is always a minimum….Not sure how this compares to jetrix.

The white ink is a load of bull crap this machine prints white very well… No issues what so ever.

UV gloss banding can be seen on some of the darker colours if your pushing this machine at the fastest speeds, bidirectional always gets rid of that….Also one last thing to add the roll to roll and the take up reel on the FB works very well, I’ve regularly printed 50m rolls at 2.5m width without issue.

I hope this helps guys!

[A.Kordowski]

quote James Sahota:

Having experience with both machines and recently doing a job for the London Underground and being told they preferred the massive 3m x 2m boards printed on the HP FB700 rather than the Jetrix that a partner company of ours done for us was positive feedback for the HP – The client stated the prints looked more alive and vibrant with the prints that came of the FB700.

The Jetrix is a great machine in my opinion and I know a few people using it a couple of issues that they all complain about its;

1. The maintenance on the machine – You have to purge the heads a few times a day and give them a good old clean to ensure all nozzle are firing. – The FB on the other hand does its own cleans several times during the day and does one major clean during the evening – You really don’t have to do anything with this up until the time it flashes for its 80 hour clean which even then you need some lint free cloths, swabs and some grease which is all supplied – Follow the step by step instructions and your away.

You can leave the FB standing for a week and come back to it load a sheet and it will print perfectly each and every time. Maintenance on this machine is minimal compared to the jetrix

2. Adhesion of ink – The FB amazes me you can literally put any material through it and the ink will stick like SH*T no messing around with primers or anything like that – I know my friends who run the jetrix have to apply a sealer to the edges of ACM before printing as the ink just comes off.

3. Have a open flatbed like the jetrix means you need to ensure your environment is dust free where as the FB prints in the enclosed section of the machine meaning you can load a sheet give it a blow down with a air gun and you know the dust is off and the area being feed is in the enclosed section

You mention the maintenance agreement which I agree at 10k is a massive amount especially as you may not end up using it…This is exactly what I thought so decided not to take it in my second year until such point where I was printing a time sensitive order worth around 25k to us and the machine developed a fault…I thought I knew what the fault was and decided to order some parts – 5k worth of parts later and still no fix….By this time the order needs to go out and being a corporate client with a set installation date I had no choice but to sub this out to someone else….Lesson learnt I now have a maintenance agreement in place….I would push HP to give you 2 years if you decide to go down this route.

The maintenance on these machines is done by art systems and I have to say if you log a fault you get a service call the next day from there engineer and the engineer will arrive with every single part he thinks he may need, if the parts are not in stock they are sent to your location over night from europe….Every issue we have reported to Artsystems has been dealt and fixed the next day without fail meaning down time is always a minimum….Not sure how this compares to jetrix.

The white ink is a load of bull crap this machine prints white very well… No issues what so ever.

UV gloss banding can be seen on some of the darker colours if your pushing this machine at the fastest speeds, bidirectional always gets rid of that….Also one last thing to add the roll to roll and the take up reel on the FB works very well, I’ve regularly printed 50m rolls at 2.5m width without issue.

I hope this helps guys!

Hi James,

Thanks for your reply, what sort of work do you put through your FB700? a lot of our work is very different one minute we could be printing on a door and then the next job could be on slate, the resellers we have spoken to have given us the impression that the FB700/750 is more for large volume jobs for e.g. 200 A1’s would you say this is correct?….thanks again for you’re help James…. :thumbup2:

[A.Kordowski]

Just a bit of an update, we bought a Jetrix KX7 had it now for about 6 months, oh and what a great machine, we bought this machine to mainly print on normal substrates acm, correx, forex but i found myself printing on all sorts of items including toilet seats, door knobs, mirrors, perspex, ikea tables, ikea folders. Inctec the manufactures service is very good as well, colour and adhesion is also very good no issues with picking on edges etc, so if youre looking for a flatbed this is a great machine…….. :thumbup2: