Roland SC-500 Sol-Jet Your Views Please!

[Chris Wool]

has it had the heater conversion and make sure that its rolands eco solvent MAX inks.
first generation very mild solvent machine slow by today’s standard but can produce good prints. + should be print and cut.

chris

[Gareth Hankinson]

HI Chris

It is running on Eco sol max the proper stuff from granthams.

I don’t know about the heater but will find out is this a problem and would it cost much to fit if not?

Thanks for the reply

[Lyle Knittig]

I have a CJ 500 converted to solvent, so basically the same machine. If you don’t have heat plates you can make them if you want to spend a bit of time. I made mine from in floor heat cable (electric) and use a dimmer switch to control the temp and a cooking probe for the temp reading. In Canada the materials were between $200 and $300 CND. The print heads are very cheep ($106.00 CND) and you can repair and maintain these printers your self if you spend the time to read the service manual. They are slow and in bi direction you can print banner stuff and larger items at normal, (360 dpi) with a print speed of about 30 sq/ft per hour (full print) and faster for lettering and non full print jobs.

For small fine prints you can use super mode but speed drops to 17 sq/ft per hour and photo mode is 8 sq/ft per hour.

If you are looking to get into digital printing and can’t afford the $$ for a new unit, the SC 500 is a 54" printer cutter that is able to print quite nice. Be ready to do some alignment test prints and make sure things are set up propper and you will have good results.

With Roland inks, profiles should not be an issue but you may find that one or two profiles work on a lot of different material.

[Gareth Hankinson]

Thanks for the reply lyle I get the machine next week and I think it does have kid heater element looking at the photos. Looking forward to getting started with it.