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large format headache
at the moment i send my graphics out to a guy who is local but the same old story happens as probably it does with everybody else who sends them out….they’re not ready yet…will be tomorrow mate….so therefore this year as well as a new press for the litho side i think i should look after the sign side too, can anybody suggest a large format printer? apart from the uniform cadet etc which are obviously a fantastic machine are there any others out there which are just as good in terms of performance, quality, speed etc??? 😕
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22 Replies
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hi Rob, so your a litho guy? I done a little bit of that…
anyway, without my typing it in again…
check out this post which is a few below this one
http://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=17503 -
yeh originally, got 2 shops now, the stockport shop does all the litho stuff and the sale shop is all the signs and t-shirts as it was cheaper to hit 2 seperate areas than to expand the one shop but i kinda now get double the customers so after its first year its actually starting to stand on its own feet thank god 😛 got into the signs 6 years ago but again kept getting let down by other companies so thought i would just do it myself………very very sharp learning curve, can answer any litho question standing on my head cos at the end of the day its just ink on paper, but this game every 5 minutes you learn something new :lol1: …what do you use large format wise???
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Rob, Dave’s known as “Mimaki Man” round here!!! 😀 😀 😀
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Very Funny Chris….
I use the Mimaki JV3-160S(160 refers to the width 160cm) and its great machine. We got it mainly for bulk banner printer and general sign shop use, we had it now about 2 years.
It uses 6 colours (CMYK lc lm) and very similar dot pattern to Schotastic screening with a Shiraz RIP (talking to litho user now 🙂 ).
A solvent printer can be nightmare (and I know a press can be) you have to look after the printer for it to look after you, the ink is air drying and the machine does dock the head to stop the air getting in, however the ink is agressive solvent and has to melt into the material a little bit to make adhesion, so thats the issue side.
However the machines normally print better then Film litho but not as good as CTP litho!
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hmmm sounds a good machine if its litho quality or not far from the quality of litho???? what would you expect to pay for one of those and for inos ets if you dont mind me asking? there are so many out there but seems to be 2 or 3 that come fairly high in quality.oh i dont know now ggrrrr *drink* ………. what do you use chris?? bet this will cause me more headaches now ha
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We don’t as yet Rob, like you we bought in all our solvent print, however, we have just ordered (and take delivery on the 21st Feb) a 74″ Grenadier.
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Well this is what we bought from Applied Image, just the printer
http://www.applied-image.com/Products/MainPrinterMimakiJV3-160.htmHowever if you click the button at the top right of the forum “Uniform”, you will see the products called Grenadier / Cadet which is it’s other version, these are also known as converted Rolands machines.
Yes, litho quality as most of these setup are CMYK and use resolutions of 720dpi, however it is not as cheap as litho sadly!
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hmm gonna have to do something as every time i go to pick up he is sitting there with a fag in his mouth and that clint eastwood dirty punk look and i get fed up of putting customers off it aint good for business at all, had a look at both of the ones you have both mentioned and i am seriously seriously confused 😛 my god there is so much choice, would a print and cut version not be the more wise move of the two or is there a bigger advantage to just a printer, as both specs look very impressive??? (hot)
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i dint swear ha i meant cig :lol1:
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Think it depends a lot on your budget Rob. We went for the 74″as we had the need for 60″ minimum and were offered the 74″ at a good deal.
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i wouls say space is the main point for me in all honesty which is why i keep thinking about the print and cut unit together but dont want to cut corners purely on that basis, was looking at the Uniform CADET Plus SP-1400C for the 54 inch cut but not sure at the moment.hmmmm
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hi rob wait until the signuk….thats what i did last year, had a great look around….and got answers from all companys…made my mind up there and then got a good deal 😀 then sprinted to the bar……….. 😉
nik
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sounds pretty good to me nik 😉 think i will, the press side always has and always will be heidleberg so i am safe there, but this side is a minefield ha, and people say we have an easy job hey? how little they know 😮
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Sign UK… I don’t think much will be at IPEX but I certainly will be going to both
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Rob:
I don’t know if I’d be comfortable saying that any eco or solvent printer offers litho quality. In my mind that quality of product manufactured by the “silent giant” isn’t a static thing. Even though we’ve seen wonderful things happening in the digital world, things are always in a state of progress within the offset printing industry.
If you compare state of the art to state of the art, the quality of digital isn’t in the ballpark of offset. Given that you’re a printer, I’m guessing that if you’re making money then you’re one anal retentive dude and not easily swayed by pitches.
I used to be involved with colour prepress. I can honestly say that the inks on both eco and hot solvent printing systems do not have the colour gamut of the inks used for CMYK offset printing… and that’s saying quite a bit when the offset industry has forever been flirting with things like Hexachrome and Opaltone because they recognize that litho process inks are narrow in gamut. Additionally these ink jet devices do not have the resolution.
At any rate, I’m not telling you that inkjet is garbage. It’s not. The results from the Rolands (and rebadged and retooled Rolands), Mimakis, and their ilk are very impressive. The question won’t be “is this litho quality” it will be “do these prints make my customers happy” and they more than likely will.
As an addendum to my ramblings, I might add that if you’re trying to create synergies between the litho end of things and the digital end with trade show graphics then you may want to look at an aqueous based print system. These systems (like HP’s and Encad’s) are superior for trade show work as they do offer a wider colour gamut than CMYK (4c) litho but they’re not really appropriate for signage or any other outdoor product.
Hope I haven’t come off sounding too much like a snot but I’ve seen some amazing digital work but I’ve also seen a lot more jaw dropping litho.
Rob
(I’m not really a snot… only a colour snot) -
thanks robGF
to be honest the world of litho is poo, everybody is trying to pitch towards the digital market which is good for short run work but we use an acculaser 8600 and heidleberg for the rest, anything above 500 copies goes straight on the press as i cant see the point in investing £200,000 on a press when its old technology 6 months later, its a very fickle world, also if its anything massive we farm it to a friend of mine who employs 65 staff and has to break even on £154,000 pound a month before anything……let him be the one not to sleep at night instead 😛 that sort of investment is not worth the headache, however the sign side seems to be more relaxed, and even though we cut on our own plotter and have done for a few years now, the large format side seems like its getting closer and closer in terms of hard sell and technology towards the buyer of the machine, competition is always good but sometimes its a 17 year old kid bothered purely about comission, which is always good to have a sounding board like this, at least you get honest opinions, and better information…..as were are not exibition specialists and would never deal with agencies again (been bitten there too many times now) my customers are like 90 percent of people on here, dealing with customers who want a quality job at a fair price, and think all the machines mentioned here are more than capable of producing this kind of work, i appreciate all help on this people as i still class myself of knowing nothing compared to the amount of experienced people who are on this site.thank you all for all your help
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thanks robGF
to be honest the world of litho is poo, everybody is trying to pitch towards the digital market which is good for short run work but we use an acculaser 8600 and heidleberg for the rest, anything above 500 copies goes straight on the press as i cant see the point in investing £200,000 on a press when its old technology 6 months later, its a very fickle world, also if its anything massive we farm it to a friend of mine who employs 65 staff and has to break even on £154,000 pound a month before anything……let him be the one not to sleep at night instead 😛 that sort of investment is not worth the headache, however the sign side seems to be more relaxed, and even though we cut on our own plotter and have done for a few years now, the large format side seems like its getting closer and closer in terms of hard sell and technology towards the buyer of the machine, competition is always good but sometimes its a 17 year old kid bothered purely about comission, which is always good to have a sounding board like this, at least you get honest opinions, and better information…..as were are not exibition specialists and would never deal with agencies again (been bitten there too many times now) my customers are like 90 percent of people on here, dealing with customers who want a quality job at a fair price, and think all the machines mentioned here are more than capable of producing this kind of work, i appreciate all help on this people as i still class myself of knowing nothing compared to the amount of experienced people who are on this site.thank you all for all your help
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quote Rob Brearley:thanks robGF
to be honest the world of litho is poo…
No problem. I don’t want you to think that I am trying to discourage your consideration of a large format device for your operation. I just didn’t want you to be left with the impression that large format plotters offered a quality of print equal to great litho. If you’ve got the market for one of these units then go for it.
Good luck.
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to be honest we are looking at hp5500 system to join our JV3 for exhibition-style work so we can concentrate on brightness, detail and smoothness, so your comments are fair. The gamut of the JV3 (4 colour) is weaker then litho but the 6 colour has a little improvement. I mearly was trying to introduce the fact that digital inkjet printing is not blocky/speckled and that the colours do reach good results.
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quote Dave Rowland:to be honest we are looking at hp5500 system to join our JV3 for exhibition-style work so we can concentrate on brightness, detail and smoothness, so your comments are fair. The gamut of the JV3 (4 colour) is weaker then litho but the 6 colour has a little improvement. I mearly was trying to introduce the fact that digital inkjet printing is not blocky/speckled and that the colours do reach good results.
Firstly, the HP 5500 is a wondeful printer. We have one here which we use for the higher end indoor stuff (and an Encad 1000i). You can’t go wrong with the HP, Dave, and unlike eco and hot solvent that printer does have a wider colour gamut than litho (as does the 1000i which has even better dye inks). Is your laminator hot/cold? You’ll enjoy some cost savings going heat to paper with the HP/Encad products. I’ve found lower temp (95 c) activated films work better than the hot (150 c) for adhesion.
I understand what you are trying to say now and agree. Digital has come along way and the quality continually improves. Printers like the Mimaki and the Rolands are wonderful in terms of their outdoor quality. The days of the 300 dpi “laser master big colour” plotters certainly are gone…
Rob
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its funny as we are currently looking into the laminators at the moment, the sign making side seems to be more cold lamination but I still trying to gain more info on the hot lamination side, the more reasons why we should go hot.
your comments are helpful -
Dave,
I think that the main reason to go with a hot product for laminating your dye based digital would be cost. The prices for a heat activated films is normally quite a bit less than with pressure activated. For example, the cost per square metre for low-melt activated films is about half that of pressure. Case in point, a 3 mil Optiva GBC gloss film is less than 50% of what an entry level pressure film like Oracal 200 Gloss happens to be.
Things get even better for cost performance if you go to a high-melt activated film. However, we have found that if you use premium coated stocks with dye based systems that the ink and high-melt films don’t seem to work well together and that delamination becomes an issue. I have associates that run a lot of presentation paper which accepts less ink than coated premiums. These associates have found that with the basic papers the higher temp films work fine. That’s not for me, however, as the basic papers just cannot handle 300% TIC which means that they can’t reproduce the full range of colours. You suggested that you might want this for trade show work so you would be printing to premium papers or in some bases coated films. Sounds like low-melt films are the way to go for for.
Anyway… those are just this mornings ramblings. Oh, if you like the HP you may like the Encad. The HP has less maintenance requirements than the 1000/1200i and the HP does offer a finer res print but the Encad is faster and does have batter gamut inks (I have both).
Rob
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