Just Bought a Versacam Any Advice?

[Robert Lambie]

i dont have a versacamm mate so cant honestly give the best replies to your question but will try with some.

quote :

I have just bought a Versacam SP300 Ecosolvent version
(nobody in Spain appears to be selling the solvent version yet !)

B&P Lightbrigade, the folk behind the Cadet solvent printer ship outwith the UK im sure.. 😕

quote :

Laminating (Film or liquid, which is best ?)

i find laminating with a good make of clear vinyl is sufficiant for abrasion protection.
if you are applying graphics to a vehicle and it is crossing reccessed areas of a panel. i would laminate with a clear vinyl with equal properties of the printed vinyl. i.e. if you print onto mactac vehicle wrap. use a clear mactac vehicle wrap for lamination.

quote :

Cleaning / Maintenance (Does it need much upkeep?

i think all printers and cutters should be kept clean. especially printers.
on the maintenance side of things the versacamm does not need an ink flush because of its eco-inks. true solvent printers do..

hope this helps some 😉

[visionart]

Thanks for that

I did speak to B & P Lightbrigade while i was over at sign UK 04, they informed me that they were in the middle of signing up some distributors for Spain but never heard from them again.

In the mean time i spoke with Roland Spain who put me on to a distributor
(In Spain they do not sell direct)

Couldnt believe it when they sent the quote through (9500 Euros + 16 % Vat / approx 6785 Pounds

🙂 They cheapest i saw the machine at Sign uk were 7995 Pounds so i was made up 😀

Only had the machine installed yesterday but getting some good output from the machine !!!

Cheers

[Robert Lambie]

what do you use to run it from. signlab etc
did the price include rip?

[visionart]

I use Flexisign 7,2 but it dosent have drivers or profiles for the Versacam (Time to upgrade!)

The Versacam came only with Roland ColoRIP

Seems ok though , only thing is Im having to use Adobe illustrator or Coreldraw to contour cut images

Laters !

[Rodney Gold]

Hiya
1) The first thing to do is find media and profiles that work , we like the grafityp s22p (a nice white point polymeric thats fairly thick – a very good general vinyl that has profiles that work if you limit inks)
2) You will find most profiles WILL lay down too much ink , you will have to fiddle
3) If you print a “heavy” colour (like black , blue , vivid red etc” with a bleed and contour cut inside the bleed it WILL curl at the edges. You can leave the output for 24 hrs and then cut or laminate and then cut or just use a thicker vinyl to solve this problem – it happens with ALL solvent printers.
4) Liquid sucks for lamination , it’s a band aid at best – cold pressure lamination is the way to go and a laminator for the 300 shouldnt be that expensive , considering you need not do massive widths. DO NOT manually laminate , you cannot apply enough pressure for a good bond and the lack of pressure will also make the lam obvious. The SP300 has a huge advantage in that you can print , lam and then die cut.
5) There is media you will never get a good print on , ask your local distributors to send you samples of media that are printable with mild low volatile solvents , there are tons of em out there.
6) Bleeding with doming can happen depending on how you dome and what you use , some resins DO make the print bleed , especially if you have to pull the dome to the edges of the decal. Full prints with dark colours can bleed and the curl problem is a problem. We lam all our domed stuff with clear or matte and then die cut – you cant see the lam with the dome and often a lam actually IMPROVES the graphic. Epoxy resins tend to bleed more , urethanes not – but using a urethane doming resin requires dosing and degassing equipment – difficult to do by hand.
7) You need to clean the machine a little depending on how much you print , maintenance is mainly keeping the machine physically clean , Head cleaning etc is mostly automatic , you might occasionally have to do a light head clean after a head strike ,which is merely pressing a button on the control panel , you will never have to do full flushes etc unless you really bugger up. Head strikes are when the material rucks and the heads hit it leaving streaks.
8) When you step and repeat something , use the RIPS manual layout , what happens here is you rip only one decal , the RIP senses the width of vinyl , you tell it the space between items and it fits em in. If you had to do it in the design program , you would have to design for a particular width of vinyl and then the EPS you export would be huge , rip times would be huge too – ask your dealer to demo this , the manual layout is incredibly useful.
I dont have the Versacam , but the soljet – same machine , just a lot bigger;)

[visionart]

Hey Rodney

Thanks for all your advice, it gives us a good start !!

Been watching the forum for a few months now and always find your articles very helpfull

Keep up the good work !!

Whats the weather like over there ? Bad day for us over here (a bit of rain & drissle!! )

I suppose we should think ourselves lucky that were not in the U.K.
(oops sorry guys just joking !!!)

Dale

VisionArt Sign Studio