Roland estimated Ink Consumption help please?

[John Thomson]

yes the cleaning cycle does use ink……so yes if you are not using the printer much it is expensive.

john

[Chris Jarvis]

quote John Thomson:

yes the cleaning cycle does use ink……so yes if you are not using the printer much it is expensive.

john

Thanks John,
I’ve read the claim (by a Roland representative) that the SP-540i uses less than £1 per month if totally unused.

I don’t know if it’s the same for the BN?

I would like a ‘real life’ idea of what each sq. mtr. costs in total ink usage including the waste tank replacements. My machine is still under warranty, so not replacing the waste tank is not an option.

As things are, I’m loosing out.

[John Thomson]

apart from the waste solvent printers do not like to be idle……the are far better printing often.

john

[Chris Jarvis]

I’ve had the BN for 5 months:

Magenta is still 100% ?!!
Yellow is 40%
Cyan is 40%
Black is 20%

Waste Tank is 95% full

So £199.45 (inc. vat) for total ink consumption cost.

One typical job that I print is exactly A3 in area. According the the job log, the ink used on that one job is £0.22p, but how much extra do the cleaning processes add to that amount?

[Martin Pearson]

quote Chris Jarvis:

quote John Thomson:

yes the cleaning cycle does use ink……so yes if you are not using the printer much it is expensive.

john

Thanks John,
I’ve read the claim (by a Roland representative) that the SP-540i uses less than £1 per month if totally unused.

I don’t know if it’s the same for the BN?

I would like a ‘real life’ idea of what each sq. mtr. costs in total ink usage including the waste tank replacements. My machine is still under warranty, so not replacing the waste tank is not an option.

As things are, I’m loosing out.

Did you get that claim in writing? The main reason I don’t have a solvent printer is that I don’t get asked a lot & don’t want to have to try & grow that part of the business. If I need something digital then I use a trade only service.
In all honesty your best bet is to start using it as much as possible to make the machine pay for itself, if you don’t then yes it is going to be an expensive toy to have lying about.

[John Thomson]

if you work out what you pay per litre for ink then how much is in your waste tank you can work out the cost of the cleaning cycle over 5 months.

My imported solvent printer has no self clean function and after 14 months use I still have a perfect nozzle check………and the only head cleans are the ones I tell it to do………makes me think self cleaning is more about selling ink than anything else 🙄

john

[Chris Jarvis]

It seems from this uksignboards thread:
https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=53542

That the first tank full isn’t typical.
Maybe things are not as bad as I think?

I’d like to hear from other BN owners.

[Nigel Pugh]

Chris,

If you are still using the original set of inks that came with your BN-20 then roughly half of the 220ml cart would have been used just by charging the printer during it’s set-up. As for the waste tank then yes the first one does fill up quicker as the ink lines would have flushed prior to adding any ink.

Regards
Nigel

[David Rogers]

When operating these machines I’ve always been of the opinion that if I’m concerned about cleaning costs / waste ink then I’m either charging not enough or the machine is idle for too long and a glorified paper-weight!

Think about it – sell, oh, I dunno, just 10m2 of print and you could cover your entire ink costs and then some if the whole lot became waste.

At about one to two pence per ml I wouldn’t fret.

Dave 😀

[Chris Jarvis]

Thanks Nigel, Dave,

I’m design, print and sell mainly 200m x 150mm stickers. The designs are unique.
The asking prices are for single items and fairly critical.

It’s difficult for me to establish exactly what is a viable amount of time the machine should be working in a week.

When exactly (that is, below how many hours per week) does it become a ‘paper weight’.

[David Hammond]

You don’t want to be working out a viable time the machine should run, as that varies hugely some months are busy, some are quiet.

As has been said, if you’re worrying about waste ink you’re not charging enough! Ink is almost a consumable, when it runs out we buy more, when the printers running I know we’re making money. I don’t worry about it.

I’m not sure if you can export the job log to excel, but you could get really geeky and work out how much ink you’ve used for how many Sq/M and number of jobs, and then work out an average cost/size per job. 😉

[Martin Pearson]

quote Chris Jarvis:

Thanks Nigel, Dave,

I’m design, print and sell mainly 200m x 150mm stickers. The designs are unique.
The asking prices are for single items and fairly critical.

It’s difficult for me to establish exactly what is a viable amount of time the machine should be working in a week.

When exactly (that is, below how many hours per week) does it become a ‘paper weight’.

Sorry Chris I think your going about this the wrong way, rather than trying to work out how many hours a week the machine needs to be running you should be consecrating on how you can make it more productive. As David has said if the printer is running he knows he is making money & doesn’t worry about ink costs. Look at the different ways you can use the printer & other markets that it might be used for. If your not sure where to start then ask a question on the forum, sure people would be happy to advise.

[Chris Jarvis]

Of course I’d like to use the machine as much as possible. I know that making it pay for itself before it becomes obsolete is vital.

I need to grow the number of designs I’m currently selling. Then I’ll be printing more of that kind of job than I am at the moment. I bought the machine to have total control over very low quantity print runs.

I’m not running a print shop, and that was never the idea behind buying the machine. Having said that, I have already printed runs for customers, and I’ve got another order for some more of those today.

I must admit, I hadn’t realised just how much of a ‘tamagotchi’ these machines are.
Only owning one gives you a real handle on that.

[Hugh Band]

Hi Chris
Agree with others that ink is the least cost to concern you – appreciate that intention wasn’t to run a print shop – but for return on investment consider that the BN-20 is a great little workhorse that can let you offer diverse products and open up new markets. The initial charge/flush does use quite a bit of ink but we have always been impressed with the ink usage relative to output charges. The waste tray charge is a pain in the …. but again can be built into job costings or worked round more cost effectively. Try all the different media available, garment films, clings, metallic, canvas, paper, wallpaper, perforated vision film etc etc the BN-20 although lacking in dryer is capable of output on most media. One thing you might find is that some media isn’t available in 500mm widths so find a supplier that will slit for you and then you can get say a 1370mm roll cut to 2 x 500mm and 1 x 370mm the BN-20 can take a 370mm width which s ideal for running samples/tests. We’ve even run and cut laminated MotoX stickers in our BN-20.

We originally got our BN-20 to speed up garment production and produce contour cut decals but using its potential led us into new markets and ended up with adding its big sister a VS640 as we had opened up markets which required wide format and in a volume that could justify in house production.

Most media suppliers will send a sample you can use to print tests on so unleash the potential! If small samples are sent then use the fixed widths available in the BN-20 to run as a small sheet job.

Re ink costings: the Versaworks prediction of job ink usage is a useful tool for quoting and post job the job log can give you ink by channel, but if you build a rule of thumb heavy, medium and light coverage cost factor say per sq metre and err on the conservative side the ink usage shouldn’t be a worry.

My advice – go for it! 🙂 But yes like your tamagotchi it likes to be ‘exercised’ regularly 😀

[Chris Jarvis]

Thanks Hugh for the encouragement, and everyone else for the good advice I’ve had so far. I do appreciate it.