OEM inks or Roland Inks?

[Chris Wool]

why rock the boat, if you cant make money from the standard inks dont buy it.
the cost of 440 carts are tumbling at present.
if you do change the chances are that if you have a problem then roland will blame the inks and the ink people will blame roland.
if it has roland ink and roland recommended material and you have a problem then you can say.
your machine your inks etc you fix it

Chris
sorry forgot welcome and the name is

[Shane Drew]

quote lococreativo:

Hello:

I’m new in the forum, and wanted to get some opinions on ink. I’m planning to purchase a VersaCamm 54″ in the next few weeks. The Roland dealer has stated in their qoute that I will loose the warranty if I use other inks that are not Roland Brand. My question is: From your experience has it been worth to use other inks rather than Roland’s? Do you recommend that I wait maybe a couple of months before doing the change of inks??

Thanks in advance

Lococreativo

Welcome to the UKSB forums

I changed over to the Techink bulk solvent ink system while my Roland 540ex machine was still in warranty, and it was void immediately.

Roland are pretty sensitive to people changing inks, because they rely on the profit margins from the ink, but sell the machine at a discount. Most printer manufacturers are the same.

I never had a problem with my change over nearly 4 years ago, but having said that, I’d run with Rolands inks for the first 6 months or so, because if you have a faulty head or something (which I did) the last thing is a void warranty claim when that happens. My black head died the day before I had the techink installed, and as I was the first Techink installation on a Roland in Australia, they showed their faith in their product by paying for the new head on my behalf. That head went over 3 years before it was replaced again. I’ve only been thru 2 heads in the whole 4 years.

Hope that helps.

Shane

[Mark Nihotte]

Hi Lococreativo – here is a link to a recent forum discussion that might help…
https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … ht=#239688 😮

[Bill McMurtry]

Can a printer manufacturer void warranty on parts clearly not effected by use of non OEM inks, such as control motors, media feed system, motherboard and electronics, etc? I wouldn’t think so. I’m sure they’d have a pretty good warranty void argument with any part of the ink system, but I can’t see how they could effectively argue that, for example, a faulty media feed motor could be caused by using 3rd party ink?

quote Chris:

…the cost of 440 carts are tumbling at present.

I wonder if that’s got anything to do with competition pressures from cheaper, reliable, and increasing use of 3rd party ink? If so then I like to think I’m doing my bit for all the OEM users out there 😀

[Chris Wool]

quote :

Can a printer manufacturer void warranty on parts clearly not effected by use of non OEM inks, such as control motors, media feed system, motherboard and electronics, etc? I wouldn’t think so. I’m sure they’d have a pretty good warranty void argument with any part of the ink system, but I can’t see how they could effectively argue that, for example, a faulty media feed motor could be caused by using 3rd party ink?

i think you are right bill but when you ring up first off with a problem you are going to get less help until the fault is proved.

chris

[Nick Minall]

But if that’s in the agreement when you buy it can they enforce it?

Nick.

[Shane Drew]

Bill I had a 3rd party service centre come out on behalf of Roland when I did my conversion. Mine was a bit unusual because Roland knew someone was breaking ranks but had no idea who it was until I rang and asked for a service call with a warranty complaint on my heater.

The tech arrived, took one look at my machine, put his hands in the air and said, ‘whoa I can’t touch this until I get authorization from Roland.’

Long story short, they refused to touch or replace anything under warranty that was in contact with techink. The head, the pipe, the pumps, the cartidges…. all were void of warranty.

Anything like the heater was not void, but it took them over a week to come back with the parts to fix the machine.

Do I think they left me out in the cold to teach me a lesson? Yes I do.

Did I continue with that contractor for my out of warranty servicing? Not at all. They’ve lost $1000’s of lost trade over 4 years by treating me poorly. I had the last laugh anyway.. 😕

As Chris says, they can make life difficult, especially if they see you as a traitor like they saw me. My conversion was the thin edge of the wedge, and they knew it. With 100’s of Roland conversions out there now, I’m not very popular with Roland at all 😳 Certainly if you run a machine in warranty, and change inks, I’m not sure they’d be too interested in being really helpful at all.

[Bill McMurtry]

Hi Shane, yes the manufacturer’s warranty is only as good as their will to honour it. With the stories we hear about how non OEM inks kill heads prematurely and cause a host of other technical problems I’m amazed that printer manufacturer’s aren’t making as big a killing on their over priced spares as they are on their over priced ink 😉

[Byron Villegas]

Out here, the even the Roland distributor is not using original Roland inks. My versacamm is supposed to come is ecosol ink cartridges but they deliver all new versacamms with some kind of "true" solvent inks in pouch supposedly made from China. This, they say, is so that they can compete in price and "durability" with the other printers. But even these pouch inks are still expensive, more than triple the price of the ink in my Xaar (witcolor) wide format. I have since changed my inks (just last month) to Sericol Color+ BP series for my versacamms, and GH series for my Xaar (witcolor). No problem, so far (crossing my fingers).

[Gavin MacMillan]

quote :

the cost of 440 carts are tumbling at present.

Are they? Nobody’s offering us any better prices 👿 Where is the best place for thses at the minute?

Ta

G

[Chris Wool]

ring around gavin what ever they tell you say its cheeper down the road but i want some now 😉

[David Crocker]

This is a major issue i had with Roland when i performed my machines first Powerful head clean due to the black head clogging up. The pump blew and started spitting out claret everywhere, i wont lie…i wet my pants when i saw ink flowing from the control unit!

i had recently changed ink supplier from Roland to a company from Canada, they were doing great deals on multiple carts so for the price of 3 proper carts i got 6 from this other company.

Little did i know that the fitted Roland pumps were faulty anyway and prone to packing in on powerful cleans and i was no exception. when i called Roland and told them of the problem i let slip that i had used 3rd party inks (how i said it was a mystery even to me….watta stupid thing to admit! duh!) anyways the whole story changed after that and they told me that my warranty was void etc etc. They even refused to do a call out when I said Id pay for it! Which was £420 + £150 an hour!

They said that the 3rd party inks had probably melted the pipes in the pump which caused the breakdown. Much Googling later it emerged that i wasnt the only person to get this problem whether it was 3rd party inks or Rolands – the pump was faulty to start with. Nice of Roland to inform me or offer a replacement!

Ive now gone back to 3rd party and havent had a problem since, although i have had the black head changed due to a few head jams and scratches from raised/buckled media whilst printing. inexperience can be costly but hell did i learn from it!

I now get my carts for £25+vat (220ml) and the only reason im not using the 440mml is because they stick out too much 🙂

Hope that helped a bit…
Dave.

[Peter Shaw]

quote :

Are they? Nobody’s offering us any better prices Where is the best place for thses at the minute?

Yes they definitely are. I was told Roland reduced the prices to distributors.

Try Europoint, Spire Digital and Printmax.

Peter

[Ian Bingham]

440mls are 67 quid at the moment

Ian

[Peter Munday]

Found this on B & P’s site. http://www.graphicsystems.bplightbrigade.com/i … rights.php

[David Crocker]

quote Peter Munday:

Found this on B & P’s site. http://www.graphicsystems.bplightbrigade.com/i … rights.php

# "I will have to void the warranty on your equipment, because you’re NOT using the equipment manufacturer’s brand of supplies."

# "I will have to charge you for the service call, because you’re not using the equipment manufacturer’s brand of supplies."

# "There will be an additional charge for your service, because you are not using the equipment manufacturer’s brand of supplies."

Yup
Yup
&
Yup

Thats exactly what I and many others have been told (by Roland) i reckon!?

What got my back up was the fact that even though i eventually found out it wasnt the 3rd party ink that had caused the problem of my pump blowing up (their excuse was that the pipes had melted) but the fact that Roland wouldnt even do a call out regardless of me paying for it and admitting that I had used 3rd party inks! Why would they turn down such a large ammount of money for a problem which was their fault in the first place i.e. faulty pump and also that the problem would only take 10 mins to correct. I bit the bullet and did it myself after searching around t’interet to find a pump. Im now using the Mimaki pump, it makes one hell of a racket but i was told that from the start, heck – even the engineer walked me through it over the phone. So Roland lost out on something like £400 + £140 an hour for a £50 part that took 10 mins!

The mind boggles 😮

Cheers
Dave.

[Shane Drew]

Universally Dave, Roland are Pig Headed and Bullys.

I had the same issue here, now I’m enemy #1 apparently 👿 All because I wanted a bulk ink system. If they supplied one, I would probably have purchased theirs, but as they didn’t I had to look elsewhere.

Supplying a Roland Bulk Ink system is an obvious option they chose to ignore, and then they penalise anyone that wants to go down that path.

I was the 1st of 100’s in australia to get the conversion done here with Techink, I’m not popular at all….. 😉

They took great delight in telling me my warranty was void. To their credit, Techinks aussie agent gave me the warranty to cover it, but Roland themselves know that Techink is not a backyard brand, and that they have one of the finest pigments in the market.

It is the least likely to damage heads thru blockage, than others. They are also one of the largest OEM suppliers in the world. So they know their inks. Roland know that, but choose to brow beat users to toe the line.

They don’t want to lose the cash cow that ink purchases has become, even more reason why they should offer a bulk ink system IMO.

[Mike Fear]

I would imagine Roland are being pretty protective to keep the revenue they get from ink sales and servicing.

Personally speaking though, as I pay for the warranty cover from Roland, if they say I have to use OEM inks, then that’s what I’ll use.

OK, I may save money if I used 3rd party ones, but the amount saved wouldnt be that much considering the ink used, and knowing that if the printer does get a fault, I can get it fixed quickly and for no cost is worthwhile.

If I used 3rd party inks and the printer packed up and I then had to hunt around for an engineer, wait a couple of weeks for them to come out and fix it and pay their bill then the real added cost would more than wipe out any saving on the inks.

I reckon using 3rd party inks would only be financially worthwhile for someone who is going through a huge amount of ink, or really selling far too cheap and making no margin on the work.

[Shane Drew]

Mike, its like Ford saying you can only use Dunlop tyres on their cars, when perhaps Firestone give better mileage.

I have no problem staying with the recommended brands, but if its proven that I can get better value for my buck, then why shouldn’t I be able to change?

In the real world, Roland would have to decide whether they want my long term business, by offering me a better price, thus lowering my operating costs, and making it more attractive to stay with them. But to restrict my freedom of choice, so they can maintain high profits for easy returns is borderline dishonest.

We don’t buy warranty here anyway. After the 1st 12 months we are on our own, so I’m free to shop around. Most 3rd party service centres welcome the business, whatever ink we run.

The guys I use, direct import parts from asia, and bypass the Roland distribution network in Australia altogether. So, they (Roland) miss out more and more.

Their arrogance costs them money on all fronts.

Great machines, lousy company.

[Peter Shaw]

Mike, I think you are right and have recorded my views before.

My current historic ink costs work out at £2.13 per sq m. If I recalculate using the current 220ml cartridge cost this reduces to £1.68. This is with EcoSol Max ink.

The cost of the bulk ink conversions that I have seen would more than outweigh any savings on ink at my usage level. At 4 or 5 times my usage this is probably not true but the throughput of this machine would not be viable.

I believe that there are more cost savings to be made on achieving better discounts on substrates. I am often very surprised when people quote how much they pay for items on these boards.

Peter

[Mike Fear]

Shane, I see your point and agree to an extent, but its the same as say the warranty on a new vehicle – you have to get it serviced at a main dealer to keep the warranty, you may get better service and cheaper prices at an independent dealer, but if the warranty states you use the main dealer, that’s what has to be done.

As Peter says, the ink costs are basically minimal for most jobs – personally I don’t really consider ink or vinyl costs when quoting for work as the production costs for most work is basically irrelevant, and the price difference on a 20cm, 50cm or 1m job isn’t worth worrying about.

[Peter Shaw]

quote :

you have to get it serviced at a main dealer to keep the warranty

That is no longer true. I think it was ceased by law as a restrictive practice.

[Shane Drew]

Mike, I basically agree, but it depends on the competitive market I suppose. If, like me, you are up against the chinese who buy anything I can buy, much cheaper than me, any saving is not taken for granted. For that reason alone, I know and calculate all my costs – vinyl, ink, time, etc.

I try and negotiate better prices on anything I use. If its a few dollars, I don’t worry, but if its ink that I save 50% off the cartridge price for the same qty, I’ll be better off than someone not using it.

My substrates are the same. I’m loyal to a point, and after sales service has a value to me too, but if spandex or Roland think that we should blindly support them without anything in return, they are not very good business men/woman. Just as you and I often have to ‘look after’ our better clients for fear they’ll shop around, the big companies have to do the same.

Also, I’m not sure about over there, and Grade A mechanic here can service a car under warranty, as long as they go by the ‘book’ in relation to the service required.

[George Elsmore]

I know i am going to sound stupid here but the title OEM INKS OR ROLAND INKS Isnt that a contradiction in terms i thought that
OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer.

In the case of ink cartridges it means that the manufacturer of the printer also manufacturers the ink cartridge as well, eg An Epson cartridge for an Epson machine.

Roland cartridges for a Roland machine 🙄

you may all laugh at me now 😀

[Peter Shaw]

No laughter, George. You’re absolutely right. What’s being referred to as OEM is actually 3rd party.

[David Crocker]

quote George Elsmore:

…In the case of ink cartridges it means that the manufacturer of the printer also manufacturers the ink cartridge as well, eg An Epson cartridge for an Epson machine.

Roland cartridges for a Roland machine 🙄

you may all laugh at me now 😀

Have you taken apart an empty cartridge? Theres a nice little sticker right over the words "EPSON" 🙂

lol
Dave.