Roland are trying to fleece me

[Robert Lambie]

painful i know, but price doesn’t sound too far out mate…
the heads do cost that price and if there is a bit of work involved and you are outside of the contract then £350 is round about right too…

when you say changed the inks once… do you still use the genuine roland inks or an alternative brand? or do you just mean you are only on your second set of carts?

are you sure that the heads have actually gone? maybe they are saying "if" the heads are gone, (worse case scenario) then a new head will cost £600. i say that because its a bit strange to say a head has completely gone without anyone even having a look at it. 😕

[B Roberts]

Thanks for your reply.

I am using geniune roland inks (second set of cartridge’s)

I could understand if the machine got the sort of hammering a sign maker would put it through, you know running all day.
One thought was that the machine has been under used and perhaps left idle
too much!

When they received the scan of the test print they said straight away – new heads.
I checked the manual under "Correcting for Misalignment in Bi Printing", but roland said no! that wont help either.

Ben

[David Rowland]

heads can deflect and cause troubles if not used enough. Is the black faint on the test print?

[B Roberts]

Hi there, yes the print is faint and 50% mis-aligned.

[David Rowland]

50%? as much as that… so its a splatter and just weak..

likely pumps that suck the ink thru have gone but i am saying that without seeing a test print.

[B Roberts]

Hi there,

From what you are saying, i think it’s best if i show you the test print.
I don’t think I’m the best judge – I’ve been only using the machine for a a couple of weeks.
Can i post an attachment through the boards or could i email it to you?

Thanks in advance,

Ben

[Jamie Wood]

I thought that the heads had an expected life span, several billion dots, or
something like that. I have heard of companies paying towards new heads
even out of warranty*, if the heads haven’t come anywhere near their expected lifespan. I believe that an engineer would be able to tell how many
dots the head has actually fired off, in one of the service menus.

It may be worth asking Roland. Was the machine new?

*They usually pay a percentage, depending on how many dots are expected
and how many the head has actually produced before dying.

Cheers,
Jamie.

[Peter Normington]

I think £350 for a call out is extortionate, I would see if you can find an independent engineer to take a look. I think there are one or two about.

Peter

[B Roberts]

I think i will, it’s not as if i have to worry about invalidating the warranty.
I was expecting more than 12 months for a 10k printer.

Ben

[Ian Bingham]

hi there,
Im not very experienced but it sounds like your pump has gone or going as Dave said, all the sp are now fitted as standard with a new heavier duty pump as there was problems with the old ones, and in deafens of roland when an engineer dose come out, they give the machine a good once over, alignment setting etc. its like new! it is expensive but it is worth it and you have a good machine there USE IT MORE, make the money and the call outs wont feel as bad
Ian

[Robert Lambie]

quote Peter Normington:

I think £350 for a call out is extortionate, I would see if you can find an independent engineer to take a look. I think there are one or two about.

Peter

£350 is allot of money, but not really that much when all is taken into account. i remember one time, back about 14 years ago or more… spandex took £250 for a call out charge on their Gerber 4b "vinyl cutter" ours was randomly playing up, so we asked for them to come out.
the guy arrived and used a small portable airline, opened the machines and basically cleaned all the dust out of it. wiped it down, pressed in the module cards etc and turned it back on… job done. £250 for them to turn on a mini hoover and clean it!
same happened a few years prior… machine goes on the blink and out they come. (we didnt want to touch this new hi-tech machine! 😮 well it was back then) after 20 minutes of checks, he decided to change the fuse on the plug. guess what… the machine started! another £250, this time for a 13amp fuse! these sort of charges didn’t stop there, after the first hour it was £50 per hour added. this was way back when i was just getting into the trade. up to 16 years ago…
fast forward 16 years and the price is now £350… hence why i say its expensive, but not too bad. 😕

[Peter Normington]

Rob, just because it was spandexpensive then, doesn’t mean its a better deal now, For goodness sake Barristers and Dentists charge less….

Peter

[B Roberts]

Hi there, thanks for all your help guys.

I can bite the bullet on the call out, but a new head seems extreme.
I’ve just printed 6 A2 signs and they look great, but i didn’t use the black.
I am going to plod on and see if regular use sorts it out.

cheers,

Ben

[Robert Lambie]

quote benchelt:

.
I am going to plod on and see if regular use sorts it out.

keep it printing but also try some good cleans on that head group alone from time to time…

[B Roberts]

thanks again 🙂

[Phill Fenton]

I’m afraid it’s a case of these companies charging what the market will bear. That may be good for business in terms of profits, but doesn’t build a loyal customer base. As soon as someone else comes along with a machine that does the same but at lower ongoing running costs everyone will switch over in droves. Spandex are suffering now for milking it for all they could over the years! – I suspect a few years down the line Roland will also find their customer base has evaporated if they continue to take the p1ss out of customers that buy their machines!.

[Chris Wool]

spot on phill and things like cleaning fluid swabs etc should be as cheep as chips to encourage people to use them more.
a set of cleaning carts should be reasonable not a arm and a leg , this will stop people looking else where.
as you mentioned spandex i always wanted a edge but would not play there games i knew there pricing and would not get involved.
roland is more open and at least you can helpyourselvess along with some of your own maintenance.

as far as topic see if you can upload a pic of test print

chris

[John Childs]

I don’t think £350 is too unreasonable.

Sure, it might look expensive when the engineer only spends an hour buggering about with your machine, but only if you don’t understand all the expenses in employing one of these folks. Wages, motor expenses, employer’s NHI contributions, 28 days paid holidays, pension contributions, etc etc etc.

To be on your premises for an hour the engineer might have had a three hour drive to get to you, then the same to get home. Add in a spot of lunch plus other incidentals, like filling up with petrol, and you have to pay his wages for a whole day just to fix your problem.

Sure, he may on occasion be able to fit two visits into a day but that’s a bit of bunce for Roland to make up for the times when, through no fault of their own, the engineer gets held up somewhere. As an example, I sent a fitter up to Chesterfield to do two hours work on Wednesday. He should have been back in six hours but, due to being stuck on the M1after a fatal accident, it was nine hours before he got back. So, not only did I have to pay him a full days wages, but also an hours overtime. I was not happy, but what can you do?

We are quick enough to say that our customers must pay the full cost of any travel, therefore it does not do for us to complain when Roland do the same.

[B Roberts]

Guys,

Am i just unlucky with the versacamm sp 300? or is there an industry standard printer / cutter that is a better alternative for the buck?

I have already learned of the short comings of the default versaworks bundled software, but is there a better pound for pound (to use a boxing term) machine out there for the whole print / cut shabang?

Ben

[Peter Normington]

quote John Childs:

I don’t think £350 is too unreasonable.

Sure, it might look expensive when the engineer only spends an hour buggering about with your machine, but only if you don’t understand all the expenses in employing one of these folks. Wages, motor expenses, employer’s NHI contributions, 28 days paid holidays, pension contributions, etc etc etc.

To be on your premises for an hour the engineer might have had a three hour drive to get to you, then the same to get home. Add in a spot of lunch plus other incidentals, like filling up with petrol, and you have to pay his wages for a whole day just to fix your problem.

Sure, he may on occasion be able to fit two visits into a day but that’s a bit of bunce for Roland to make up for the times when, through no fault of their own, the engineer gets held up somewhere. As an example, I sent a fitter up to Chesterfield to do two hours work on Wednesday. He should have been back in six hours but, due to being stuck on the M1after a fatal accident, it was nine hours before he got back. So, not only did I have to pay him a full days wages, but also an hours overtime. I was not happy, but what can you do?

We are quick enough to say that our customers must pay the full cost of any travel, therefore it does not do for us to complain when Roland do the same.

John,
I dont know if Roland charge £350 for the first hour plus an additional hourly rate, but the customer should not have to pay for Roland’s engineers to travel more than a reasonable distance. A company with Roland resources should have engineers based around the country and within an hour or so of most customers. I’m sure that most days the engineers can fit in two calls, and even if not, they still earn on any parts that they may fit. and presumably for time after an initial period.

based on 2 calls a day, 5 day 47week year will gross £164,500
More than enough to cover all costs and salaries.

I still think it unreasonable, and I may be cynical, but believe these high charges are designed by companies, not just Roland, to encourage customers to take out even higher cost, maintenance contracts.
Peter

[John Childs]

Peter,

I think you may be gilding the lily a bit at two visits every single day, so let’s compromise at one and a half. That makes an engineer’s gross takings £125,000 in round figures

I know vinyl fitters who expect to be able to charge £275.00 per day. They have no head office expenses to cover, low travel expenses, and no employer’s costs (self employed). All they need in the way of equipment is a squeegee, a scalpel, a heat gun, and a scabby old Fiesta to run around in. They also don’t need to waste day on a training course every time their employer brings out a new machine. Those fitters expect an income of £65,000 (£275 x 5 x 47)

Every business book I’ve ever read suggests that, as a rule of thumb (that word again 🙂 ), charge-out rate should be a minimum of three times labour rate. Here we only have a two to one ratio, so who’s ripping off whom?

I’m not saying Roland are cheap, just that they are not as expensive as might be thought.

[Peter Normington]

John,
can I fit your vinyl? 😀 😀

I’ll give you a 5% discpount on those rates!!

Peter 😉

[John Childs]

quote Peter Normington:

John,
can I fit your vinyl? 😀 😀

Of course you can Peter.

If you want a permanent job, with all employee benefits, I’ll pay £9.00 per hour. Hence our £27.00 charge-out rate. (Three times labour cost again)

On an ad-hoc self employed basis I pay whatever anybody wants to charge me.

The thing is that hourly rate is only part of it and a £30 per hour man may well be better value that their £20 per hour counterpart if they have twice the output. We have a good idea of what we can charge for fitting any particular van and can soon sort the sheep from the goats and decide whether to use any particular fitter again.

[Shane Drew]

I’m no fan of Roland either, I think they are selling the machines cheap, knowing they can make the ‘real money’ on consumables.

I’ve just replaced my Magenta and Black heads after 3 years, and it set me back close to $au5000.00 (it included a pump). I nearly died, but the machine has done a lot of work. Its just such a large bill to have to pay unexpectedly. It was not in my budget to have such a big expense.

I use an independent service company who charge $250 for a callout, and $160 for every hour or part thereof onsite. Roland use another independent company, which I may try next time.

I find these charges outrageous, but, they do have the best techs (mostly from Europe) in the business, and I suppose if you want the best, you have to pay for it. I could have not-so-good techs, that take 2 or 3 times as longer to do the repair, so its a checks and balances thing I guess.

Back to the subject at hand, you sound like the pump may be the cause, but once the heads misfire like that, they are on the way out anyway.

[Chris-Hooper]

We have just had a black head replaced on our soljet 2, which is over 4 years old.

The £350 covers there travel to your location and 1 hours labour after
that it is £125 per hour oooch.

Have you checked that the pumps are working properly? if there are broke then the cleans cannot work so you will not see any difference.

[David McPhillips]

Phil you have it spot on with spandex… i bought a Gerber fastrack 650 I’ve had it only 3 years now and the main circuit board has had to be replaced 4 times in these and i have just been told it has blown again just 6 month after being replaced at a cost of £650 each time engineer costs of £90 for the 1st hour plus £45 thereafter (+ VAT).

Now I would see past it if this cutter had been constantly working but circuit not the case, and of course they tried to say it was our electrics so i hired an electrician to do a complete test on the electrics and rewire a number of sockets plus fitting top of the range surge masters, the report on the electrics came back fine with no faults or surges found but still these circuit boards are blowing after a max of 8 months and we are being told nothing they can do just pay and replace… (:) not this time circuit afraid they can keep their machines it has put me completely of buying from spandex.

So if any members can recommend a good plotter and supplier I will take it on board as i am going to have to just bite the bullet and buy a new plotter.

OK Sorry folks got slightly carried away there and was going off track but the we some (not all) suppliers treat us is inexcusable and that’s the thanks we get for being a valued customer.

OK right that’s me finished guys and girls glad to get that off my chest now back to work

Dave

[Craig Brown]

Without wishing to light the blue touch paper…how many of you guys take maintenance out on your sign kit?

I know it’s not a cheap option, but in essence it’s not really any different to an insurance policy…if you don’t claim it seems like a waste of money but if you do claim and it enables you to get your kit up and running the same or next day, the money you have generated and the customers you have kept most be worth the cost…may be a simplistic view, but we all make decisions on the way we run our businesses and paying for warranty/maintenance falls neatly into that bracket.

…withdraws to a safe distance to avoid flying objects.

[John Childs]

quote CABROWN:

I know it’s not a cheap option, but in essence it’s not really any different to an insurance policy…if you don’t claim it seems like a waste of money but if you do claim and it enables you to get your kit up and running the same or next day, the money you have generated and the customers you have kept most be worth the cost…may be a simplistic view, but we all make decisions on the way we run our businesses and paying for warranty/maintenance falls neatly into that bracket.

I had a maintenance contract in my early days, when I only had one cutter and needed it to be working all the time. Also, it cost £5750 twenty years ago (double that for today’s value?) and had to be looked after.

Nowadays we have two cutters so a breakdown on one won’t put us out of production for one nanosecond, therefore no problem and no maintenance contract needed.

This might sound a bit strange to some just starting out, but cutters can almost be regarded as disposable items today. A bit of routine maintenance and replacement of disposable parts aside, if a cutter lasts four years, which they will do easily, and looks like it might start costing money, throw it out and buy another.

A good cutter can be bought for a couple of grand and, if it only last four years, has only cost you a tenner a week. That pales into insignificance when compared to the money they can earn you.

[Craig Brown]

Good point John…when I posted I was more thinking along the lines of the digital printers but it could be any kit that we can’t afford to have down time on…as you say plotters are dramatically cheaper now than in the late ’80’s.

[B Roberts]

Hi there,

I’ve just tried to see if anything is out of the ordinary with the pumps but to be honest i,m not sure what i’m looking for.
Did another auto powerful clean but black is still faint.

To go back to an older topic i spotted, Does anyone know a roland service engineer in the gloucestershire area or the midlands?

Ben

[John Stevenson]

Hi

try McLINK LTD from PRESTON 01772 722 224

john

[B Roberts]

Many thanks John

[Alan Drury]

A couple of my colleagues have experienced the Spandex pricing and I have read about it often and now I wouldn’t buy anything from Spandex unless I absolutely had no choice, I don’t even bother going to the Spandex trade stand at the shows.
Alan D

[David Rowland]

We use Spandex as a main supplier, sometimes the parts prices are set a bit high but their support on the phone has helped us out quite a few times. However Spandex currently have one of the cheapest and best quality lo-cost UV flatbed printers out at the moment, the ink and replacement parts are reasonably priced too.

[Michael Antrum]

It sounds as if you the reason you are having problems because he machine has been used so little, but if you have some time you may well be able to recover the black head to a satisfactory standard.

First of all we need to do a simple test to ensure the pump and tubing are not at fault.

Get ready to perform a head clean, but remove the waste tank first. You should see two small pipes where the waste tank screws in. Holding the bottle so it catches the waste ink that will come out (don’t let it drip on your carpet) press the head clean button. When the ink starts to come through check to make sure that ink is coming out of both pipes. If it is your pump should be O.K. If it isn’t then it’s likely that you need to replace the pump which is a very simple task.

(If you have only one pipe showing where the waste tank fits you would have the new tyle pump, and it very unlikely this is blocked.)

If this test is passed, then it is likely that you have dried ink in your print heads. You will have 2 x Sol Cleaning cartridges that were supplied with the machine. Put these in cartridge slots 1 & 2 (Black & Cyan) and perform 2 powerful cleans. The leave the machine. The cleaning fluid breaks down the ink on contact – however, the longer you can leave it the better. Over the next few hours do a few normal cleans which will kepp things moving along and remove any dried ink. Keep doing this until you are ready, then put the ink back in and perform at least one powerful clean. Now try printing again.

How long you need to leave the machine with flush in depends on how bad the head actually is. I had a machine that was left by a customer for over 6 months, but after leaving the flush in the heads for 3 days we recovered the head back to the point at which it was perfect.

However, you may not be able to recover the head perfectly, but you should get a massive improvement at the very least. All it will cost you is a some ink.

I hope the above helps you get going again.

Regards,

Mike.

[B Roberts]

Hi Mike, thanks for your help.

I have just followed your advice and the ink only appears to be comming out of one of the pipes. Does this mean we’ve got a dodgy pump?.

Regards,

Ben

[Michael Antrum]

It is not necessarily your pump, but it is a likely suspect. You need to visually inspect the pump.

Remove the white front cover on the machine. At the bottom of what you have uncovered there is a vanity cover that is held on by 3 screws. You access these through 3 holes on the vanity cover. When you remove this plate you can see the pump clearly. The most common way for the pump to fail is a split pipe, which will mean you could see ink leaking around the pump. (On second thoughts put some newspaper down under the machine first, or you may trash you carpet !). If you see a leak then you need to replace the pump (real easy and a pump is around £ 50+VAT)

If you don’t see a leak then it may be that some of the pipes are blocked. To test this do the following:

you will see two black pipes coming out of the capping station that join to two white pipes. Pull these apart and swap them over.

The pump has two sides and pipes, one side does the Black & Cyan, the other the Magenta & Yellow. (it does not matter which side is which). By swapping them over we will see if the pump is the problem or not.

Then put on the front cover (you don’t need to replace the vanity cover to run the machine. Power up, remove the waste bottle as before and do a clean again. Then do a test print – is the black O.K. now, becuase if it is we have switched the good side of the pump to the Black Cyan side. If the black head now prints O.K. it is very likely the fault is with the pump.

Normally faulty pumps are very obvious as they leak – but not always.

Regards,

Mike

PS The good news is that if it is your pump, it would explain why your black head is printing poorly, and is a good omen that there is probably nothing wring with the head !

[Gert du Preez]

Our Roland service agent charges about 350 Pounds for a call out, only difference is, they drive 400 km to get here, and then 400 km back! If you wait for them to come to this area on a routine visit, the cost is only about 20 Pounds. I was quoted about 450 Pounds for a new head, including installation, and new wipers. Somewhere in the UK pockets are bulging with cash….

[Nigel Pugh]

I suppose you need to sit back and think about it, compare the cost of keeping a service warranty on your Roland or any other printer for 12 months.

How does that price compare to paying for road tax, insurance and M.O.T. on your works van, you cannot do without your printer or van for any length of time otherwise your business would suffer.

I would bet that in most cases the van costs per year would be more than having a warranty on your printer.

[B Roberts]

Thanks for your reply michael.

I ordered the part from Kieth @ McLink (01772 722 224) very helpful chap.
£65 for the pump, which should arive tomorow.
I was going to ask about installation instructions, but youv’e pre-empted that so thanks again.

Regards,

Ben 😛