ROLAND pc-600

[Rodney Gold]

The 600 is VERY expensive to run – apart from the high cost of consumables the heads blow on a regular basis and are expensive to replace. Spend a little more and get the edge if you HAVE to use thermal , but my advice would be to go inkjet anyway. You will get trounced price wise if you compete in the vehicle graphics market using a thermal printer vs those quoting using a Inkjet. We have both an inkjet and thermals and if I didnt have specific applications for a thermal machine , I would dump mine.

[Peter Shaw]

I agree with Rodney. In fact when I had a PC60 I calculated our print cost at around £49 per sq m. I now sell our Cadet print around this price.
I also think the thermal machines are more labour intensive. I would never turn my back on the PC60 or something dreadful would happen, like a broken ribbon or a misalignment between colours. For some reason this would always seem to occur on the last colour thus 3 colours worth of print were thrown out!!

[valegraphics]

Thankyou for the feed-back, once again i’m so glad i signed-up to this!
My only problem is that i am short of space. I was thinking of a rockhopper 1000mm + 1220 cutter + laminator = lots of floor space. I am confined to an office space of 19ft x 8ft. I hope you can appreciate my dilemma now? Advice on hardware would also be appreciated. Thanks once again my friends
MATT

[Phill Fenton]

Having said that – the coloramm is a very cheap buy 2nd hand. If you print using spot colour and use aftermarket ribbons, running costs are not much higher than a versacamm or Cadet.

Don’t forget also – the colorcamm is a cutter as well as a printer (the Edge is a printer only) – so can be used purely as a cutter if need be.

If I was a newcomer just starting out, I would buy a 2nd hand Colorcamm to use predominately as a cutter but with the ability to print economicaly in spot color (and when required print full colour).

A new cutter can easily cost more than a 2nd hand colorcamm which performs the same function but also has the ability to do much more.

These are worthy points to also ponder.

Horses for courses as they say 😉

[Lee Harris]

Hi Rightsigns

Can the PC60 be used in the same way as the PC600 or not.

Regards
Lee

[Rodney Gold]

Lee , The Pc60 and 600 is more or less the same machine .

[Peter Shaw]

I disagree with Rightsigns statement about running costs as noted in my previous post. Does anyone else have experience of this?

Also there is no way I could use a PC60 as my main cutter as it is incredibly slow.

[Rodney Gold]

I also disagree – my Soljet is at least 1/5th of the cost and sometimes up to 1/10th. Aftermarket process colours go for 8 quid a pop and spots at 11 quid (refills) , the process is 60m and the spots are 90m , they print only 8mm wide , so yield is around 1/2 a sq meter for process and 0.72 sq meters for spots. For CMYK , that means its around 64 quid a sq meter and a one colour spot is at the LEAST 15 quid per sq meter. An inkjet like the versacam , even with its outrageous ink prices , will use around 12-17ml per sq meter at full coverage. Ecosol ink is around 220quid per litre and at 15ml per sq that translates to 3-4 quid per sq meter. Use aftermarket inks at about 85-90 quid per litre and that drops to 1-2 quid. All it takes is a few sq meters a day to recover the capital difference between a pc600/60 and a versacam. Lets say CMYK at 3 sq meters a day will save you at least 30-40 quid per sq meter , lets take 30 quid , thats a saving of almost 100 quid a day , or 2000 quid a month!!! Start printing higher volumes etc and it may only take a month or 2 to recover the difference. This doesnt even consider the fact that the PC60 cannot equal the inkjets quality or print on as many diverse substrates.
Just one other thing , the inkjet ONLY uses ink on demand , unlike the PC60 (no ribbon saver) and to a lesser extent the 600(ribbon saver) that advances the ribbon whether you are actually laying down resin or not.

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote pshaw:

Also there is no way I could use a PC60 as my main cutter as it is incredibly slow.

i have the same problem with mine…i only use it as an addition to my roland cutter, for printing and cutting small stickers in corel….even then it cuts like a tank, but most folk onboard have great success using it as a main cutter 😕

nik

[Chris Wool]

the pc 60 is stepper motor driven 200mm /sec max is the 600 servo driven and cuts at 400mm /sec a 600 owner could put me right there tho – so a 600 could be used as a normal cutter at start up level.

Chris

[Phill Fenton]

quote Rodney Gold:

. Aftermarket process colours go for 8 quid a pop and spots at 11 quid (refills) , the process is 60m and the spots are 90m , they print only 8mm wide , so yield is around 1/2 a sq meter for process and 0.72 sq meters for spots. For CMYK , that means its around 64 quid a sq meter and a one colour spot is at the LEAST 15 quid per sq meter

Sorry Rodney but I disagree with your figures.

I pay £5.50 for a 90m refill of Process ribbons and £6.25 for a 75m ribbon of Spot colour ribbon.

This equates to £22.92 per square metre if printing process CMY (I usually print full colour in CMY only) or £30.52 (if having to print CMYK) and £10.42 per square metre printing spot colour

I don’t disagree that the running costs are much lower using an inkjet and that the inkjets print better and much quicker. But lets not exagerate the differences.

I’m only offering my opinion and experience here to allow any one reading this to make a fully informed decision as to the viability of these machines bearing in mind it is a much cheaper machine to buy.

I fully intend to buy an Inkjet at some point as I recognise it is far superior. All I’m saying is the Colorcamm still has it’s uses and for a signmaker with a limited need to print (many a day my colorcamm sits idle) it’s still a valuable machine to have that earns money for me.

Horses for courses as I ‘ve already said 😀

[Peter Shaw]

Interesting discussion! I still sit between the 2 cost ranges as per my post.

If you take the £22 figure and factor in the machine cost; the hideous head replacement cost and the cost of all the scrap prints, I reckon you’ll get to my figure of £49.

[Gordon Forbes]

PC600 is the next gen PC60 It isnt like a tank cuts pretty good and for small text clarity it spanks most of them even the newer injets I know i have both and thats the main reason I still have it.

Goop plus it prints to T shirt material as well.

Goop

Something i haven’t got for the cadet yet

[Chris Wool]

quote :

for small text clarity it spanks most of them even the newer injets

thats why after 2.5 years ive still got my pc60 – it must be 8- 9 years old now and still love it for some jobs.

chris