New member needs help!

[Bill Dewison]

Hi Hedge,

I can’t help with your question unfortunately, but please do not be put off when you get few replies to a post 😕 Happens to us all. Alot of the time ppl will miss the odd post, and if you’re unlucky enough to have that as your first post, you can feel a little alienated from the group. A good one would be to introduce yourself in the ‘Say Hello’ forum.

Sneaky reason for this post as well, brings it back to the top of the pile and gives more of a chance that someone will see it and be able to help 😉 Naughty Dewi 🙄

Cheers, Dewi

[fluidedge]

Hi

Have no idea what your budget might be but we have just plumped for the 760mm wide Uniform Cadet – a slightly modified version of the Roland Versacamm using stronger solvent inks.

So far it has coped with everything, very pleased with prints onto standard white vinyl.

[hedge]

Thanks for the input and advice!

Our budget is in the area of $20,000. The DC3 is priced right there and seems to have all the right answers except for being limited on types of media and the inability to use narrower rolls. Are there other thermal transfer machines in this price range that solve these issues?

So far, my research tells me that I want to go the route of thermal transfer because of longer lasting outdoor prints, less maintenance if the machine is not used for a while and ventalation issues. Does this seem like a valid conclusion?

Hedge

[fluidedge]

The prints on the new solvent inkjets are guaranteed for 3 years outdoors.

You can hardly notice the whiff of ours, although in a smaller room you might want to get some professional advice on ventilation.

As far as mainainence is concerned, we just do a simple nozzle check every morning and a 10 minute general clean with spirits every week. So far so good. Recommended is a full flush once a year or sooner if printing seriously deteriorates. Must admit I am unsure of the work required to maintain the summa but a mate has an Edge and he spends about the same time as us in that sort of thing.

Another matter to consider is cost per print. Whatever the manfacturer says you can add 25% for reality.

Will your client-base will pay the extra for thermal prints?

Can’t see you going wrong with a DC3 though, looks like a great piece of kit.

About 9k GBP would get you a Cadet, and around 23k for its big brother the Grenadier.

[Nigel Fraser]

Hi Hedge,

I had exactly the same thoughts as you a year or so ago and was dead keen on the DC3 but it wasn’t available at that stage and I needed to buy before my year end for tax reasons 😕
I went for an edge2 which has been a good tool so far, albeit the print size is restrictive. The print quality I have seen from the DC3 is far superior in resolution to the edge (which is rather annoying!) although it did suffer from some slight banding on areas of solid colour (not process). The software looks easy to use and learn too.
I heard that spandex were introducing a replacement wide thermal printer to take the place of the Gerber MAXX, but don’t know any more about than that. I did see another machine advertised called the Signart Nautilus which sounded similar, but I had never heard of it and its a lot of cash to spend if you get a bit of a dodgy make or it gets dropped soon after and you cant get the consumables at sensible prices etc.
As far as I know there are very few wide format thermal machines to choose from although I think the technology has a lot of good points. I would be very interested to hear any updates from you if you decide to go for one of these or similar machines.

Hope this is some help….

P.s. welcome to the site by the way 😀

Nigel

[Nigel Fraser]

….. just a further thought (as I can’t seem to edit posts in this forum for some reason??)- As far as the media for the DC3 is concerned, I was under the impression that it was happy to print on any decent quaility standard vinyl, much like the edge. Though I’m sure that Summa would sooner sell you their premium priced “special” vinyl.
If this is the case, it should be easy enough to get your supplier to slit logs of 1220 vinyl down for you, the DC3 doesnt use sprocketed material does it ?? and although you would waste a strip of the log, you could get into supplying white sun strips for cars !!

Nigel

[richard clark]

A question for fluid edge. Who guarantees your prints for three years?? If in three years time you have lots of customers telling you their signs are fading, who do you talk to regarding compensation etc??? Have anything is writing regarding the ink that you are using?

richard

[hedge]

Hey guys – thanks for the input. This is exactly the type of advice I need. Keep it coming!

My research also has me curious about the Nautilus however I have the same support and reliability questions. Anybody out there seen one?

As far as your prints being good for three years, Summa claims five. I’d also be curious to hear tesrimonies to these claims! (and do they really back up what they say?)

Hedge

[hedge]

by the way….

that funny looking word in the posting above would be “testimonies”

[Nigel Hindley]

Something that has always made me curios is why every one seems to always go for Gerber Edge machines rather than a wider format printer? particularly when it can print and cut in one go, the Edge seems so limited in quality and size but seems to be what everyone goes for?

As a layman when I started making signs i gathered as much info about the edge and wider format machines and to me the edge always came second, am i missing something?

Nigel you are first person I have ever heard say that a wider format machine appears to be better quality. I had the spandex guy visit me pushing the edge 2 but i’m a cynical git when it comes to pushy salesmen and he gave me his word (he would) that there is no further edge3 or equivilant or any replacement being planned at all, that was just last year. Still wasnt enough to get me to buy one.

I am considering a wider format machine but dont know which to go for myself was considering one of victory’s machines?

[hedge]

Hedge here!

I’ve never heard of Victory – who are they and what are they all about?

[Rodney Gold]

You can’t guarantee any print for 3 years or for that matter 2 months unless you specify under which conditions it is to be used. There are machine manufacturers that will underwrite guarantees if you use their specified materials , inks etc and will still qualify that as to conditions of use or lamination , these guarantees will work out costly and tie you into very specific substrates.
For most inkjet type printers the guarantee of “UP TO” 3 years will be under perfect conditions , IE limited UV , limited wind and chemical abraision etc and will only be a guarantee against fading and no manufacturer will underwrite it, and even if they do , it will be replacement of materials only , not the cost of stripping , re applying etc.
Even thermal prints are subject to fading , we have a few prints (pc 60) that have been in windows that get sunlight for many hours a day and they have faded in less than 2 years. Albeit a little more resistant to abraision , they are NOT immune to it , however are generally a lot more immune to solvent attack tho are ALSO not totally resistant to it.
No print unless one is using ultra expensive archival inks will survive harsh UV. In the UK you are lucky , its always drizzly there 😉 I’m in South Africa , seriously hot over here and lots of harsh sunlight and more accelerated damage due to it.
If you laminate prints , you can of course offer far better guarantees. In fact we market lamination as an added value item , for example we laminate both inkjet and thermal printed decals , calling it a “tuffguard” which makes the decal impervious to solvents , abraison etc and is particularily effective on items which are handled on a constant basis or are cleaned often (Our thermal prints don’t hold up unlaminated under these conditions)
The reason folk come to signmakers with full colour printers is cos they need limited run stuff. Other ways of printing can be a lot more resistant to “abuse” but are not suited to small quanitity runs.
If your customer is requiring a sign that will live forever or for a long long time , he/she has to compromise in that materials like perspex , 5-7 yr vinyl etc must be used rather than digital printing (of any form). The customer pays for the impact of a full colour print and pays some more when it has to be replaced 🙂
For example a truck with vinyl cut signage curtains or vinyl cut lettering is a good advertisement , and the lettring will most likely last the life of the vehicle (for the purchaser – like 4-5 years till they sell it and buy another , most corporates etc dont keep vehicles for ever and a day). BUT full colour graphics on the vehicle are a STUNNING advertisement and even if these only last a year or 2 , the customer gets far more value in terms of people noticing the vehicle and thus more brand awareness etc – IE they will get more of what they wanted to achieve by decorating the vehicle. You have to look at why people want signage and what the return on their signage spend is. Primarily it is to increase sales , attract more attention , impart information and create a brand awareness. You can offer a customer 2 options , cheaper longer lasting “part of the crowd” or more expensive shorter duration but more unique solution.
I’m not saying you cant do exceptional work with traditional long lasting materials , but as they say in the classics , a picture is worth a 1000 words. In terms of full colour graphics , Thermal printers are a very expensive and slow way of producing nice pictures and they also dont offer the resolution that modern large format inkjets can. Buying one cos of the longer life of a digital print can make one pretty uncompetitive. The direct cost of inkjet printing is at worst about GBP10 per sq meter , around GBP1 per sq ft , it’s more like 50-70 pence per sq ft in reality, the cost per sq ft of thermal is many times that and the lifespan of a thermal print is NOT many times that of a inkjet type print. In terms of flexibility thermal is very very limited in certain respects. Granted , one can print on a bigger variety of self adhesive vinyl and some other specialised materials and achieve better spot colours as well as printing white and metallics and if this is your prime market , then thermal is the way to go. Whatever printer you get and whatever method you use there will be “issues” or advantages , not one method is a “do it all” solution.

General digital printing in today’s world is not just about printing on vinyl or vehicle decoration. There are many other applications that can increase your range of products and thus profits. We print on vinyl , meshes , banner materials , polysilks , various papers , lexan , abs , boards , photo paper , self adhesive paper , foils etc and work for a far wider variety of customers we ever did when we were doing thermal only. (We still do lot of thermal , but limit it to what it does best for us)
A LOT of digital printing jobs are not long duration applications , for example event banners , billboards , posters , mall displays , roll up displays , trade show exhibition siggnage , film sets scenes, promotional posters , backlit menues , event promotions and so forth. What folk want there is maximum impact , not longevity. Undertaking these jobs does NOT make one less of a signmaker and often “cross pollinates” other areas of the trade and actually increases sales elsewhere. For example you might do permanent signage for the loacal eating house as well as doing a few posters for their February special and so forth.
Consider very carefully the direction you want to take espcially if spending $20 000.

[Bill Dewison]

Hedge, I think Victory is a sign-maker’s supplier in the south of England. They do have a website, I just don’t have it at hand (I’ll look it up if someone doesn’t get there first 😀 )

Cheers, Dewi

[Robert Lambie]

another very informative reply rodney, thank you. 😀

with regards to lamination, i would think lamination isnt going to help UV stability unless the vinyl you laminate in has UV filter?
i am not sure if the standard clear vinyls, “if any” have these types of filters.
i make stained glass signage & although come as one, the films are made up of somthing like 5 layers, 2 of which are UV clear laminates.

does anyone know of any vinyl ranges with such a thing?
i dont see this being something so much needed. just thought i would ask if anyone knows a source..

[AaSk4Stickers]

Dewi
(hot)
Wash your mouth out, Newark is not the South of England!
(:)

Hedge
Take no notice of Dewi’s sense of direction, thank goodness he’s not a tourist guide!

Victory’s website is http://www.victory-design.co.uk and they are in the the central Midlands of the UK

Cheers
Alan

[Rodney Gold]

Most vinyls or any clear covering will be UV resistant unless it is something that passes UV light. Even if it isnt expressly a UV resistant barrier , it will increase life IRO uv exposure by orders of magnitude. You can really only use cold pressure laminate films on vinyls , the hot lams pucker the vinyl.
The big advantage of the Roland print/cutters is the ease of printing , laminating and then cutting. Sounds a lot more complex than it is , but it’s a real snap and the lam is realtively cheap and you can charge a LOT for it.
Nice thing about cold pressure lamination film is that the machinery needed to apply it is also cheaper than Hot lam as no elements are required , just pressure. We use GMP stuff , costs about GBP2 per sq meter or 20 pence per sq ft. We generally double the price of the decal with this applied and not one person has winged:) You never have to hard sell this either.

[signdevil]

We have 50k’s worth of a 64″ wide Cyberjet from Spandex. We also have an Edge 1 & 2. I would not be without the Edge’s but the Cyberjet, well after a year I still do not know what to make of it. In 12 months I’ll bet we had Spandex out 15 times to the printer for all manner of problems. To be honest, it still aint’ right now and for 50k I do feel quite pee’d off. When it’s working it’s great but the thing is you don’t know from one day to the next if it is going to perform or let you down. The cost of the inks is also a big issue. You have to sell and turn out a whole heap of work just to pay for a batch of inks. The unpredictability of solvent inkjets is something which is common with all manufacturers from what I’m told so those boys have got some serious testing to do before the product hits the market in the future me thinks!

As for the Edges, well they are so cool. They are robust and just keep on going. They are restricted on height of course and print upto only 297mm but the thing is, they just never let you down. Couple it up to the Gerber En Vision plotter and I don’t think there is any better kit. Maybe still too expensive aswell and I think that puts people off.

Tried a Roland PC60 Color Camm in the past – worst buy I ever made !!!

[Robert Lambie]

Hi mate
Sorry to hear about the trouble you are having with your spandex cyberjet.
I checked out your site when you registered, it says you run a Mutoh Toucan 64inch Sol printer? 😕 Is this the spandex machine or did you have bother with that one also?
Not being funny mate. Just asking, as I will be getting a sol printer very soon. So I would like to hear any problems with machines like this before our purchase.

Can I also ask how much one of these machines cost, the spandex one?
£50k is a heck of a lot of cash to spend on this kind of machine.

With regards to spandex, I think they have some of the best products/machines on the go. But I hate dealing with them. This may only be in the UK but these folk are so far up their own backsides.
They are very clever at marketing, and obviously one of our industries leaders.
The problem we found when running their machines was we were committed in various ways only to use only their products. That was years ago though so maybe things have changed. “I doubt very much though, if anything”

You say you are having constant bother, what with? Is it always the same problem?

The machine I am after is the grenadier 54” print & cut. It has been only on the market about 8-9 months I think and as far as I know, there has yet to be a complaint from a customer about how it performs. (Touch wood)
They even offered to give us a list of names to call of folk that have purchased one to ask how they find it.

[Steve Broughton]

quote AaSk4Stickers:

Dewi
(hot)
Wash your mouth out, Newark is not the South of England!
(:)

Hedge
Take no notice of Dewi’s sense of direction, thank goodness he’s not a tourist guide!

Victory’s website is http://www.victory-design.co.uk and they are in the the central Midlands of the UK

Cheers
Alan

😆 😆 Alan your geography is as crap as Dewi’s 😆 Newark??? Clowne, Derbyshire about 10 miles from Sheffield, Newark??? 🙄 😆 😆 😆 😉