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solvent or eco solvent?
Hi everybody, i want to buy a printer and laminator, ive been looking and the new roland 54" but have been told that it runs eco solvent inks and the uniform version, the cadet runs full solvent. is there much of a difference? i will be using it mostly for wraps, am i better off getting one or the other?
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20 Replies
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I would go for full solvent. This way you have a choice of inksets – you can either run full solvent or eco solvent. If you buy the eco solvent version you can only run eco solvent.
I’m sure the Cadet has now been discontinued though.
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I would go for full solvent too.
The difference between me and some of my colleagues though, is that I’d only go for a machine that was designed from the ground up for full solvent.
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..I sense yet another conspiracy 😕
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Full solvent for me! My JV3 produces superb quality which I have full confidence in the life span of the product. A few of the signmakers around me use eco inks and no laminate, this equates to problems later on, but that is just my opinion.
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I have to argue this, when I bought my Grenadier it was full solvent, but it was not printing every day, therefore I had major problems with heads drying in. I have now converted to eco-solvent inks and have no problem just turning the machine on once a week. It basically looks after itself.
Peter
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quote John Childs:The difference between me and some of my colleagues though, is that I’d only go for a machine that was designed from the ground up for full solvent.Yes but press a wrong button on your machine and wham! your machine sends you into the twilight zone… dates dont match up with carts, new stock is 100 years old and so on… move to new ink source and serials don’t match, warranty blown and more… ide not sleep at night if i where you john. 😉 :lol1:
we have had our solvent grenadier 4.5 years now and only problems have been silly niggles here and there… we recently had our heads changed and the technician couldn’t believe the printing they had done using activasol with our first set of heads…
their print-out report tells them exactly the mileage, so to speak…
the funny thing was, he changed the heads but it wasnt even a head problem after all… it was a dodgy rubber bung on my ink cart. so the heads could have just kept going as they were. :lol1: :lol1:
i honestly believe that if you keep your machine running at least one job a day, weekends off… do the light 5 minute end of week clean, keep your machine in a clean environment and it will spit you out money day in day out till the poor things dies of old age. :lol1: -
i just think that if roland had not bought out 2 lots of rubbish inks i dont think there would be this debate at all.
there sol ink and ecosol ink was a disaster i had them both
the roland eco sol max inks really did sort out all there problems and now there is no need for the grenadier and cadets.
full solvent has its uses but i think for general sign shop use the max inks are a very good compromise, between printer care and high quality prints with sensible durability.
chris
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We use ecosol max and don’t have any issues besides the fact we munch through cartridges lately.
We’re not accounting for ink costs separately in our accounts lol.
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I purchased a Roland running ecosol, converted to full solvent bulk system, never looked back.
Just the cost savings in inks alone made the change worth it.
I’d go solvent if you had a choice. My second 540 is being installed as I type, and the machine is being converted to solvent as well.
I can’t say about ecolsomax, as it came out after my original conversion, but my solvents inks are cheaper by the litre than the ecomax by the cartridge.
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With solvent inks how is the added durability?
Instead of lasting 3 years like eco-solvent inks is it rated longer?
Might be a good idea to do to our SP once we have our XJ
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quote Jason Xuereb:We use ecosol max and don’t have any issues besides the fact we munch through cartridges lately.
We’re not accounting for ink costs separately in our accounts lol.
And we have been accounting for inks separately since I’ve been the boss of the books
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Hi Interesting thread,
We had a Cadet 54" running on full solvent for approx 4 years no problems… a couple of months ago noticed a small amount of drop out on 1 head so decided to get it replaced. contacted my supplier who told me that a new head would be £600 but Roland are doing a special offer for all Cadet users. If you swap to roland eco sol max inks they would replace both heads all pipework, scan motors, dampers, give the machine a full service, all new covers and panels and give a full 12 month warrenty on the machine… cost £1300. We now have a fully serviced 4 year old machine with 12 months warrenty.. Very pleased and a lot more profiles for printing. only slight concern I have is how well banners will stand up to regular use! the printing quality is superb. We laminate everything else so I am confident we will not have any other issues.10 out of 10 for Roland. I would reccomend any other cadet users to contact Roland..
Cheers
Ian
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Never had a problem with the durability of banners with eco inks
Ian
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that was my next question, do solvents last longer than eco? if so how long? is the solvent more scratch proof?
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Ian, I don’t think they are not being as generous as you think.
Their profit is in the ink, and its huge by all accounts.
I can buy solvent inks at almost half the price of eco max. They’ll get their money back very quickly by having you back on board.
In terms of scratch resistance, thats why I changed to full solvent.
I do a lot of work in tourism – too cheap to laminate. My jobs were being scratched in transit using eco inks. I changed to solvent and 4 years later, I still don’t laminate those jobs, and I’ve never had another complaint from my clients with regard to scratching.
Banners also scratched easier than with solvent.
If you are laminating everything, then I don’t think either way is an issue, but if you want longevity without laminating, solvent has to be a serious contender.
Thats just my experience anyway.
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I agree with Shane, full solvent on banners for example are far more scratch resistant
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quote Shane Drew:Ian, I don’t think they are not being as generous as you think.
Their profit is in the ink, and its huge by all accounts.
I can buy solvent inks at almost half the price of eco max. They’ll get their money back very quickly by having you back on board.
In terms of scratch resistance, thats why I changed to full solvent.
I do a lot of work in tourism – too cheap to laminate. My jobs were being scratched in transit using eco inks. I changed to solvent and 4 years later, I still don’t laminate those jobs, and I’ve never had another complaint from my clients with regard to scratching.
Banners also scratched easier than with solvent.
If you are laminating everything, then I don’t think either way is an issue, but if you want longevity without laminating, solvent has to be a serious contender.
Thats just my experience anyway.
Whilst I totally get the point Shane is making here I would have to say there has never been a solvent ink that I couldn’t scratch, whatever the strength of the ink, so to have inkjet prints in a tourism environment without laminate and no complaints, I would consider myself very fortunate, I certainly wouldn’t be asking too many questions lol
Eco sol max has so many good points that I don’t think most people would go to full solvent from there, maybe if you’re used to full solvent then you stick with what you know, but any inkjet print un laminated and within reach can easily be spoiled, just a question of your customers expectancy
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The point i was making was that Solvent is a lot more resistant to scratching. I agree if you wanted to scratch it you could but not as easily
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quote marshy:The point i was making was that Solvent is a lot more resistant to scratching. I agree if you wanted to scratch it you could but not as easily
full solvent is marginally more resistant to scratching on banners compared to eco sol max inks, on vinyl there’s not really much in it in my experience, and considering damage to your exterior print would usually occur unintentionally or just by wear and tear then laminating is the obvious solution, therefore full solvent has no particular advantage in that regard.
I do agree with Shane on the price of the ink though, as troublesome as bulk systems can be occassionally, the max carts are still dear by comparison
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I’m going to jump in here.
We only run eco solvent max inks.
With our SP540 when printing banners I used to laminate them because they’d get damaged in transit etc. They would scratch easily. I was never fully happy with it.
Now with our XJ640 with the additional blower dryer unit I don’t have an issue anymore. This printer has extra heaters and so forth. Yes if you want to scratch the ink you can scratch it but general handing doesn’t do any harm. Your basically scratching right into the material. I don’t have to be extra careful.
I think it also comes down to the heating/drying abilities of your printer or slowing down your printing speed right down.
I’ve done the scratch test on a JV5 which is great and compared to the xJ640 straight off the printer there isn’t a big difference in the amount I can scratch it.
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