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Roland GR-640 nothing but a 7000 pound door stop!!!
Absolutely disgusted with our new Roland GR-640. It amazes me how Roland managed to make a machine with so many faults. From 1st install it wouldn’t connect to our network so had to use a USB cable. Then when cutting a job it cut random lines trough it destroying a fortunes worth of material. So along comes a firmware update which fixed that (6 weeks later). Next it wouldn’t read crop marks = another engineer visit. Now when trying to send a multiple sheet job instead of going to read the crop marks on the next sheet it returns to the start of the 1st. Tried running the sheets separately and now it wont read the crop marks!!! To top it all off if you send a job with for example 10x a4 sized sheets with a perf line around the outside with multiple stickers on each sheet with cut lines, you have to keep removing the blade holder and changing its position!!! All in all its nothing more than a 7 grand door stop unless you want to do nothing more the cut basic single sheet vinyl jobs. Such a waste of money, got rid of our xr640 in exchange for 2 separate machines, what a mistake
Is anyone else unfortunate enough to own one? Are you having problems?
Rant Over lol!!!
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28 Replies
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Is this a brand new machine David?
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Brand new Rob. Un-boxed and assembled here along with a new EJ-640. Honestly breaking our hearts since we’ve got it. All we want is for it to work as it should. Seemed a good idea to get rid of the XR640 as we do quite a lot of printing but the XR always seemed to be tied up cutting while the print queue got bigger. Thought if we got a separate printer and cutter one could be printing while the other was cutting. The whole blade change position is a nightmare.
Here’s a previous rant about it – topic65804.html
P.S. When you said Rob not to try to wrap an unpainted bumper I really wish I’d listened. Its been back now for the 3rd time! Thought Sotts primer material would have done the job but it failed 🙁
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I bought the bundle deal of an ej-640 and the gr-640 but after I paid for the machines in full the supplier told me there was a wait for the cutter as they didn’t have any in the uk (roland couldn’t say how long the wait would be either).
Then they offered me an ex demo cutter from the roland show room, which then developed a fault before it left roland so they needed to wait for a spare part.
I decided to go for a summa cutter and roland print studio as I felt there was something amiss with the Gr-640 cutter….. sounds like I had a lucky escape!
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Did you do your own install?
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Hi Denise, no all our machines have been installed by our supplier which are registered Roland dealers and repair agents. Some of the issues they seen immediately and done all they could to sort them out for us but on account of the machine having been just released there was very little help available from Roland. We’re speaking directly now with Roland about our issues and they are doing all they can. The issues are also new to them hence their lack of solutions. They currently running test files supplied by use to see if they can find a solution for us. In the meantime though it’s still a nightmare 🙁
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Hi david
Why not sell the roland cutter and buy a graphtec or summa cutter and roland print studio to run them? Or any other rip software?
Hope you get it sorted, awful situation to be in
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Yeah the temptation is definitely there to change it. I’d say theres definitely ground’s for "inherit fault"
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I have the EJ 640 and a word of advice don’t remove the cartridges to see if nearly empty etc as when u put it back in it then shows full, it’s a glitch that roland are aware of but as far as I know there is no fix for it yet.
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Hi Shawn
Is that a versaworks related glitch or a cartridge chip glitch?
Have you had any problems with the machine so far?
Alex
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Hi Alex, I think it’s a chip glitch but even Roland I don’t think are 100per cent sure. Other than that found it to be a fantastic machine no complaints at all mate.
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Cool thanks Shawn!
I must admit I’ve been very impressed with the EJ… roland print studio is an ‘interesting’ piece of software but once we got the hang of it it smashes through work -
I’ve only used versaworks, how do u get the print studio? Thanks shawn
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It’s paid for software based on the caldera rip.
The bonus is being able to use any cutter. The tiling function is a lot more powerful than versaworks and rip speed is way faster. Also it’s a proper PDF rip so no issues with transparencies affecting things -
Sounds really good. The versaworks dual is awful. A lot slower than the old versaworks at ripping, and like you say have to use Roland cutter etc
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just been taking a look at the roland print studio and it think with the features on it def worth a look at, just can’t bring myself to part with £800 when it should be free when your spending all this money on roland equipment then u have to pay for the better software to help you work the equipment. something to think about.
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Also it runs on a Mac so a bit of extra cost and profiles aren’t as readily available, I bought it with the printer but I didn’t pay £800 for it
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I only use macs so good there [emoji106]. Only have pc purely for the versaworks rip, if was cheaper would def buy it just can’t justify £800 for a rip software lol,
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Hi David
Do you have random cut pressure through the vinyl?
Missing cut lines again random?
Registration problems?
Bowing boarders again random?
Head has a random rattle noise also, Solenoid issue that’s still not fixed
Were in a mess lolWere wasting average 5 meters a day. 2 engineers
Has anyone had this problem?
What was the solution? -
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We have been having issues with cut registration, random cut pressures also the bowing and also skewing of the cut. This is on our xr640, roland have replace nearly every part of the machine but we still have the same issues. Roland have told us no one else is having any issues.
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Hi Lee
seems the exact same issue as mine, Great!
had two engineers out every time it’s got worse. Random bits of paper tear when lifting the backing is causing us major issues on our supply only basis. Putting pressure down then not weeding. Faults are endless and the story is getting more and more.
Were wasting average 5 meters a day and at least an hour and a half in time which is a lot when we have over 100 orders to get through in a day!
The pressure is now on. looking like i will be going back to summa. I cant see the cutting quality being any better once it’s fixed either, Not bin right from the install -
It seems these problems are much more wide spread than roland will admit to. We have had about 10 engineer visits and we have lost thousands in lost work and jobs going in the bin, roland engineers can replicate the problems but don’t have a fix for any of them our last engineer visit was about a month ago and they seem to be not wanting anything to do with the problem at the moment even though we are still paying for our roland care[emoji34]
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Ouch that’s not good guys! I can’t see we’ve had any issues with our XR640 machine these all seem to be good so far…
I know Matt the head engineer is very accommodating and normally gets things resolved ASAP
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Matt has change loads of parts including the main board, servo board, feed and scan motors and encoders cables to the heads, pinch rollers I think over 10k in parts alone but still not resolved the problems. Every time they come they can replicate the problems and matt has run a special test file from roland japan that’s a metre square and it’s all over the place. It’s just not consistent so you can’t adjust the alignment.
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Being a Roland fan it saddens me to hear about this but if they can’t make a plotter cutter after all these years not holding much hope with the new printers.
When the new plotter was announced I needed a new one so tried to buy one … lucky they could not supply one and a nice second hand graphtec came up. -
We’ve had a combination of basically all of those faults. It still has issues with reading crop marks. Here’s what we’ve done to try and sort it.
– Installed firmware version 2.40, available from roland but if you’ve any problems getting it i’ll send it to you.
– Running latest version of versaworks 1.6.12
– Changing from ethernet to usb was the ONLY thing that fixed the ramdon cutting errors. It now cuts exactly where it
should. Its a pain though because only one of our 5 PC’s can use the cutter.
– When reading registration marks if the media is in any way raised up it won’t read them. I use a metal ruler to hold
the media down if a mark isn’t recognised.In all honestly the guys at Roland have been great and seem to have done all they can. It amazes me how such a new piece of equipment can have so may issues, it not like Roland are only new to the business 🙁
Hope this helps a bit,
David -
Well well
Roland are a fine service, Had a call yesterday the manager is not happy with the case and were now waiting on a new unit
Can’t really fault Roland after care
Happy now 🙂 -
Strange coincidence Gaz, got a call as well. Their definitely doing all they can to help 🙂 Their even going to send an engineer over to Northern Ireland to us if need be 😆 😆 😆
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