Non solvent printers and novajet 880. Are they any good?

[Martin Pearson]

Simon, if it’s the one on ebay then it has been up for sale for a number of weeks now. If it were such a good buy it would have gone weeks ago.
The inks don’t last because they fade and there is no way round this unfortunately. I wouldn’t even be prepared to give a 3 year warranty on laminated graphics as I have seen them fade much quicker.
Other problems might be support as encad are not that popular in the UK, cost of inks and media is higher than solvent machines as media needs to be coated so you may find your selling costs are higher than someone with a solvent machine and you may also find the type of media you can print to very limited as it needs to be coated and less and less suppliers seem to be supplying coated media.
Really depends what you want to do with it though as I am sure there is still a place for these machines in the industry.

[hippo]

Thanks very much for your advice Martin, I’ll just have to save up.

Thanks again,
Simon.

[M Brown]

Hi Hippo,

I have a an Encad Novajet 850, basically the same machine. We use it to print canvas photos, poster and exhibition displays. We’ll never use it for external signs. I will give you some advise…. RUN!!!!!! They are the most unreliable printers out there. You will have ink all over your hands every time you use it. Also the ink delivery system is crap, and the head cartridges die for no reason at all. We are in the process of converting to solvent printers, once we have found one that doesn’t print with banding after a while.

[Brad Mulock]

Totally agree with lifesigns. We have an old Encad Pro 50 which uses GO inks. supposed to be uv and waterproof. :sigh:

code :Total mess everytime you use it. I haven't got a single print from it that hasn't had smudges over it or additional drop of ink where it wasn't needed.

this old machine was used when i did CAD drawing for people and served its purpose then but it now sits in the corner of my office looking sad for itself.

Stay away. Save up a go solvent. I hope to buy one soon but currently outsource all my printing.

[Bill McMurtry]

I owned a Pro50 too – it was always a challenge to use. I still have some printed test vinyl strips I did with it about 18 months ago stuck outside my shop in full daily sun: Unlaminated is very faded. Liquid laminated, either with viponds digiclear or with acrylic clear topcoat (car paint spray can) still looks good. Film laminated with oraguard 200G looks OK too. Moral – always laminate for outdoors use 😉

BTW lifesigns, banding with solvent printers is the eventual outcome of heads wearing out, all else being set up properly. Because there are more variables with solvent media type, feed, platen temperature, ambient temperature, head height, head passes, etc, there are many more opportunities for banding to occur. While my JV3 certainly is a great piece of signmaking gear it is nowhere near as easy to use and maintain as an aqueous printer, such as my old HP 2500CP. Impossible to go back though 😀

[M Brown]

Hi Bill,

Doesn’t the JV3 have a self cleaning system that helps. How much does it cost to run, and how much ink is wasted when the machine cleans its self. I’ve heard its cleans its self ever 2 hours, is that true. I was looking at a JV3 but someone told me that so it put me off the machine. Would love your input on the JV3.

from Mark

[Bill McMurtry]

Hi Mark, the JV3 can be set up to self clean the heads every 4, 8, 12, or 24 hours. On top of the automatic head cleaning routine it performs a short wake up every 50 minutes and spits a little ink into the capping stations (to keep the heads moist) and briefly clears the pumps. Of course these auto cleaning routines are only designed to keep the heads from drying out and the nozzles clear and don’t actually clean around the heads, around the capping station, the wiper and housing, etc – that’s all manual daily maintenance.

I’ve set the sleep clean on my machine to once every 12 hours. Based on that, and moderate weekly use, I find that about 1 Litre of ink goes into the waste bottle about every 6 weeks.

[M Brown]

Thanks Bill for your information.

How much is a litre of ink for a JV3?

A 1/4 of a litre for say verscamms is around £50 to £60 unless its gone down since I used one last. Does that mean that around £240 worth of ink goes down the drain (disposed of properly that is) in 6 weeks.

From Mark

[Bill McMurtry]

Mark, I use bulk ink, not OEM cartridges which are hideously expensive. Same amount of ink goes down the drain either way. I’ve been paying $250 per Litre for Sericol BP. However, I’ve just bought in 12 Litres (2 full sets of KMCYLcLm) of ink from Jetbest in Taiwan at only $25 US per Litre plus freight. I’ll be trying it out sometime in the next couple of weeks when I get a break in the current work load.