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Printer Choice?? please help!
Hey everyone, right… im still undecided on a printer. iv now got 4/5 on my mind. Iv currently got a Roland SP540i (6months old) and id like something thats more of a production machine.. the last printer i worked on was a Seiko 64s and id love something with the same sort of speed as that but with eco sol ink! The printers in the mix are, Roland Xc540/ epson Gs6000/Valuejet 1614 and the mimaki JV33. Now after a few weeks of thinking i started to lean towards the mimaki- set up with eco sol ink. I have now been told about the CJV130 and was told that this is the same printer as the JV33 with a cutter attached for not much more money… can anyone help me!!! 🙁 my heads all over the place… would the mimaki be easy enough to maintain run on eco sol inks??
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12 Replies
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we have a Roland soljet. was originally a Grenadier but switched it to Bio solvent ink by Colourific. its a print and cut machine and i wouldn’t be without it…
18 months ago we added a Roland AJ740, it is blistering fast and really couldnt be without it. that now runs Colourific inks too…what you need to think about is what your going to be using the machine for most. if you have a cutter that has the option of contour cutting, you dont necessarily need a print and cut machine. i know you do a fair bit of wrapping
so the Roland AJ740 would be great as far as fast production goes. we easily print a a 44ft artic lorry full wrap in a few hours or so… just setup a roll and it gets straight to work. there is one for sale in the UKSB shop just now for £15 grand… that’s a £30 grand machine!
https://www.uksignboards.com/index.php?page=4other printers you should consider is the likes of the HP Latex machine and the Elements Printer range. both great machines and ready to laminate immediately. thats an excellent thing to be able to do if you do allot of wrapping. by that i mean, say you waste a panel wrapping. you simply print up another one and its ready to laminate and fit right away!
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I have the jv33-130 with a separate cutter. I am more than happy with it but in a year or so I would hope I would like to put in a faster machine as high quality images take a bit longer to print than I want to wait! I think the xc540 is a good bit faster but I know of someone who has alignment issues on long runs small labels. Might not be much help here but it comes to a stage where you just have to plump with a supplier who will give you the best support!
Print and cut is nice but I find having the separates is handy as I can run the printer at the same time.
Best of luck with your purchase!!
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not sure about the latex machines, has anyone on the boards got one? if so would be nice to hear comments, they have been out now for a couple of years, but not mentioned much on the boards,
Peter
Peter
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Peter,
I’ve bought one literally a few weeks ago, a 60" L25500.
Brilliant piece of kit, had a few hiccups with it, but nothing bad.And yes indeed, out of the printer, into the laminator, onto the vehicle – no waiting for outgassing as there’s nothing there to outgas, no smell (no nasty warning on the ink cartridges), you can print and cut immediately without the edges curling up…I really can’t say anything bad about it!
If you’re into wrapping, imho this is definitively the machine to have.Going from the Grenadier to this, no more customers complaining about the smell in the shop.
Print quality is top notch, if you do get a head strike and notice that the heads are misaligned just press the "auto alignment" button and 10 minutes later the heads are perfectly re-aligned.
No engineer required to change the heads, it literally takes a few minutes with no tools required…easy!Also, no need to do a shutdown to go away on holiday, just turn it off and when you get back turn it back on again.
Here are the bad points: it really does use a lot of power (approx 45pence per hour when printing – but not all the time as this is only when the heaters are heating up), the inks are much more expensive compared to the solvent/eco solvent bulk ink, and it generates a fair amount of heat (not necessarily a problem at the moment!), and the starting up time is a few more minutes than a Roland or a Mimaki as it has to get up to heat before it can start printing.
Also, not all media will be compatible with it, up to now I’ve come across a couple of materials that don’t like the heat but not a problem to find a replacement.If anyone has any questions about this printer please ask me, it’s still early days as it’s not been here long but I will try to answer them.
Regards,
George Zerbino -
Thanks George
Most informative, I saw the machines demo’d before they came out, I am going to William Smiths open day tommorrow, so will take another look.Peter
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No problem Pete, that’s where mine came from. Top service from the engineers that came down to install it, cheers!
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as pete says very informative.
shame the samples just sent to me don’t live up to your description.
the canvas and gloss ok but all the mat samples are not as good as my 6 year old sc540exthey say you have to wash the prints off before they go out doors ?
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Hi Chris,
I have a hp sample book which contains a sample printed onto hp permanent matte vinyl, looks flawless to me.
Having said that I personally never print onto matt vinyl, but rather print onto gloss and then laminate with matt.
Never heard of having to wash the prints before they go outdoors, do you know who actually said that? I wonder what the reason might be.
Cheers,
George -
its on there sample pack from HP.
on some sheets the small lettering is unreadable due to poor alignment ? -
On mine the only one that isn’t perfect is the durable frontlit scrim banner, all the others are spot on.
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George,
Thanks for the info on the HP. We are about to order one and you’ve confirmed everything (good and bad) that we’ve heard else where.
The other comment is being latex inks there are no issue with venting the room as you need to for the solvent printers.
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John,
You’re welcome.
You’ll be happy with it, it’s an excellent machine.Enjoy!
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