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SAD NEWS BUT TIME TRY AGAIN iDEAS ON XR640
OK guys I have not been here a while. Sadly for good reason!! My husband and I started this industry a few years ago and then stopped we had year or so break and then i became pregnant so we put the business on hold. Our intention was to start up again but never could imagine how our lives would have changed after the birth. Cutting a long story short in may 2012 i gave birth to a healthy beautiful boy Vasili and came home only for the next day a student midwife made a serous error that resulted in my son becoming blind deaf with quadriplegic cerebral palsy, it was in national news papers. This has taken us by shock and it has been very hard to come to terms with whats happened. Only recently my husband and I have talked and decided to set up a design and sign business very small scale me and him. we need to earn a income and it is both what we enjoy but think we will steer clear of big jobs that require large signs fitting and prefer to sub these out. Life at the moment is hard but we feel a void and wish to try this once again. i would put his website up but its against the rules. but put it this way my husband refers to him as ‘ my little spartan’
We are debating jumping the gun on a XR640 roland print and cut machine
reasons being time is money
space as it print faster more jobs can be done etc
quality needed for certain types of jobs so dx7 twin heads sounds good.
I was wondering of your opinions on this machine or shall i just save some money and go VS640 or similar.
We want to get ourselves back to a ‘as normal’ position as possible we had great plans before and sadly we will probably never be able to push the business in a direction we would have originally liked because of the situation with my son. We only feel confident now to start this now we have some carers come in to help and even so my husband will be the driving force like a one man band but I would like to come in and help a little. Its also about pride and we always wanted to set something small up for our children to have if they so choose in the future. We want to try and carry on being positive although this has been hard and to be honest I feel my husband needs a challenge and something to focus on separate to the home life for sanity reasons 🙂
Any help appreciated on the machine opinion
also costs of inks is a big question as they are £80+ for 440ml each and i Use to buy 1litre for £60 so what are your opinions on this???
Elena XX -
18 Replies
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Hi Elena,
I don’t know anything about the XR640 roland print and cut machine, but I want to wish you all the best success with your business to you and your family.
You deserve some good luck.I’m still with my 30" Roland SP-300v and she’s still serving me well.
There’s some great deals out there and I’m sure some of these good sign people will be upgrading their hardware and may be in a position to help you out more than me.Philip
Get Noticed Signs -
Hi Elena Like Phillip I dont have an opinion on that machine I too have a roland which has served me well, not sure what part of the world/country you are in but im sure members locally would be more than willing to help out in any practical ways they could.
I can only offer my best wishes and hope things work out in the way you wish going forward.
John
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So sorry to hear what’s happened Elena and likewise wish you all the best for the future.
We have had our XR640 since October and are delighted with it. It enables us to turnaround more jobs in a day, and already on numerous occasions have been able to take on short turnaround work which we would otherwise have had to refuse.
Ink cost isn’t really an issue as it is covered in each job anyway. We did go for the white ink option and as yet haven’t actually used it so that may be something worth thinking about.
The other thing is that manufacturers profiles are not as common for this machine as say the Versacamm as there are only about 100 machines in use in the UK or there was in December but this will change in the future. At this minute we use the Metamark MD5 profile for most things.
Any other questions please feel free to ask.
😉
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Blimy thats a bitter pill to swallow…I wish you all the best in your new endeavour and your son continues to give you joy. little fighter.
bless you and your family
Cheryl -
Thank you all for your kinds words. It’s hard but we are determined not to let it ruin us. My boy is still an amazing beautiful angel and we love him even with all his loss.
Gary Birch. Thanks for that info I’m surprised that profiles are not set up prior to release that’s important info regarding the md5 profile. Who disbelieving your machine from and have you been happy ?
We have to start from scratch so all the texture art cd vehicle line outlines wil have to get again my husband made his out outlines but think we may buy impacts cd this time as he made his as he went along and saved them for the next job. When we sold all our equipment in 2011 pcs went with machines.
Maybe we are crazy starting something like this but as a small operation we feel it’s doable. We reside I a small village outside Worcester area. Hopefully we can make it work to some capacity.
Thank you all again for your kind words xxxx -
Elena, Sorry to hear such sad news. I take my hat off to you both for wishing to start over again after such a traumatic time.
All the best. I hope things work out for you.
Karl.
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quote Elena kalispera:Thank you all for your kinds words. It’s hard but we are determined not to let it ruin us. My boy is still an amazing beautiful angel and we love him even with all his loss.
Gary Birch. Thanks for that info I’m surprised that profiles are not set up prior to release that’s important info regarding the md5 profile. Who disbelieving your machine from and have you been happy ?
We have to start from scratch so all the texture art cd vehicle line outlines wil have to get again my husband made his out outlines but think we may buy impacts cd this time as he made his as he went along and saved them for the next job. When we sold all our equipment in 2011 pcs went with machines.
Maybe we are crazy starting something like this but as a small operation we feel it’s doable. We reside I a small village outside Worcester area. Hopefully we can make it work to some capacity.
Thank you all again for your kind words xxxxWe got ours from Grafityp, it is the 3rd Roland we have had from there and was as happy as ever with the service we got from them + you get 10% off the inks when you buy a printer from them.
The profile situation will get better with time, probably already is as I haven’t had a look for about 3 months.
I know Warren also has one so he will probably see the post and reply too.
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Hi Guys Im Elena’s husband I actually did not realise my wife posted on here and only after a pleasant chat with Nigel from Grafityp it was made clear to me that my wife had already enquired about the machine in this forum. As my wife said its been hard with the sad situation we find ourselves in but we have to move on and do what we can. I must admit she is right I need something to focus my energy on as the last couple of years has been exhausting researching everything for my son that may help him. I like any father will still do this but I have to follow the original plan to establish this business now if not in a very small way this time so that it will enable us a small living.
Thanks Gary for the advise and its nice to here from people using the machine. Nigel mentioned Warren on here also has the machine and is happy.
Ive been busy lately trying to get computer set up ready etc. I would love some suggestions and contacts any of you may feel be of use setting up again, these could be 3D letter manufacturers, led suppliers preferred vinyl etc. but truth is I know these will be re learned in time I don’t think anything major has changed in a couple of years?My wife mentioned the inks because I said to her that it will probably cost more but I have been told the new eco sol max 2 inks are fantastic and the newer machines waste less ink so hopefully it will balance out.
Just one more tho I wanted to say you guys are truly lovely people and we both appreciate the kind words from you all. I hope we can make a go of this and hopefully there will be no regrets.
I hope to chat with you all soon
Mike 😀 😀 😀 -
I had a demo on the xr640 with some of my own files. I’ll be honest I can’t really work out where it fits in the market place.
It’s a little quicker than a VS machine, a little better print quality, build quality is slightly stronger but it’s a big chunk of extra money.
I don’t think even if the prints from both machines were side by side you would see much difference. I think a customer would be less likely to be able to see a difference but it all depends on your target market.
Also with the extra colour options you’ll have slightly higher running costs if comparing to a 4 colour machine as it pulls ink through periodically even when not in use to stop the heads clogging.
Also I’m guessing you’ve thought about a laminator matched to the printer.
I’m based in tewkesbury so not a million miles away from yourselves 🙂
Hope that’s of some help and sorry to hear of the situation with your son
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Alex thank you for your opinion its true what you say and this is what makes it more confusing. Tewkesbury is not massively far about an hour at a guess. Im near that area on Thursday as my cousin lives their and been invited to his birthday party 🙂
What machine are you running and are you pleased with it??
Mike -
I have a Roland RS 640, print only with a seperate summa vinyl cutter. Very happy with the Roland, I think I would look at latex printers from HP as there are some very good deals on those at the moment aswell. Sorry for adding an extra machine to your decision!
If you want I visit sometime you’re welcome to come along
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quote Gary Birch:So sorry to hear what’s happened Elena and likewise wish you all the best for the future.We have had our XR640 since October and are delighted with it. It enables us to turnaround more jobs in a day, and already on numerous occasions have been able to take on short turnaround work which we would otherwise have had to refuse.
Ink cost isn’t really an issue as it is covered in each job anyway. We did go for the white ink option and as yet haven’t actually used it so that may be something worth thinking about.
The other thing is that manufacturers profiles are not as common for this machine as say the Versacamm as there are only about 100 machines in use in the UK or there was in December but this will change in the future. At this minute we use the Metamark MD5 profile for most things.
Any other questions please feel free to ask.
😉
I’ll echo exactly what Gary said almost word for word as we have same set up for the same length of time.
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Hi Guys,
Sorry to hear the sad news.
I run a Roland XR 640 its a great bit of kit, I’m based in Essex, if you have the time why not come down and use the machine for yourself….Happy to let you spend a day messing with some samples and printing bits off.
Mine is on 6 colour with metallic and white.
Many Thanks
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quote Harpreet Sahota:Hi Guys,
Sorry to hear the sad news.
I run a Roland XR 640 its a great bit of kit, I’m based in Essex, if you have the time why not come down and use the machine for yourself….Happy to let you spend a day messing with some samples and printing bits off.
Mine is on 6 colour with metallic and white.
Many Thanks
Very kind of you Harpreet Sahota xxx
Nice to hear such great opinions.Alexc40 latex i hear still needs maturing so many differing opinions with latex at the moment?
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That was me Elena replying in last post. As my husband login details where still active when I replied so I replied in his login xx
Really appreciate the offer Harpreet maybe down that way in couple weeks time as we take our son to specialist therapy centre not too far from Essex called the Scotson therapy centre. So may take you up on that offer but only to say hello not to waste media playing with your new machine.
Much use of the Metallic ink yet I hear many don’t use it??
Elena x
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Sorry to hear what has happened to your family,
We bought the XR640 back in May CMYK Lc Lm Lk & white if you have the work for it I would recommend the machine it’s a real workhorse we had a little issue with the print cut alignment but Signmaster systems and Roland got it sorted not sure what the issue was as they changed so many part including 3 main boards, encoders, motors etc but the customer service from both companies was excellent.
This is a machine that needs to be worked if it’s not used daily it will do a cleaning cycle which waste ink, even if we do not print a white ink job the 220ml cart will only last about 3 month and our machine is used daily as we are a trade printer. We have only use the white ink for labels but it would also be good for window graphics with spot white colour.
We are also based in Essex and you are welcome to come and see it in action when you are in the area or you can call for a chat about the machine with an honest option from an end user. I hope this helps make you decision easier.
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Lee thank you too for your advise and kind offer. Your all so so lovely. Xxxxxx
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I currently use a VS-640 with LcCLmMYKWMt and I myself have recently decided to bite the bullet and work for myself, I have bought the VS-640i and because of my experience during the last 3 years with teh VS-640 I have decided to run with CMYKCMYK. I have simply not printed anything using White or Metallic but I am on the 3rd cartridge of each which is basically £750 thrown away.
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