Thinking of buying a secondhand cadet

[Robert Lambie]

Cadets are rebranded versacamms
Grenadiers are rebranded Soljets
both Roland machines but altered slightly to allow a more aggressive solvent ink.

heads are going to cost you about £500 each and if you are going to have to buy them, ide get them fixed and aligned by a pro.
thats not to say you cant do yourself, i know many do, just depends on how clued up you are and if you like to gamble. :lol1:

[Nigel Pugh]

Hello Gordon,

It is a re-badged Roland, a couple of things you need to check, what inks is this printer set up to use, genuine Roland inks or third party inks. What RIP comes with the printer, is it VersaWorks or another RIP. Will the seller buy inks to show you this printer doing what it is supposed to do……….print !!!

If it requires print heads and you can buy the printer cheap enough then it might be worthwhile but it all comes down to what the asking price is and your budget.

Regards
Nigel

[Martin Pearson]

It’s being sold for spares or repair so the owner obviously isn’t confident it will be OK, there is no rip with it so you will need to buy one of those as well unless you already have suitable software.
What do you plan to do with it because if you buy a machine like this with a narrower print width you may soon wish you had bought a wider machine & if you have ended up spending a fortune to get it running you will lose a lot of money when you upgrade.

[David Rogers]

Walk away from it unless it’s free to a good home OR it comes with a warranty AND you get to see it fully operational before parting with your cash. Heads (TWO) are at least £500 each and best installed and set up by a technician…IF it’s not working you won’t see much change from £1500 by the time it’s working…and you can get a warranted used one for that – it’ll probably be best to replace the capping stations, pump, dampers etc

They are OK machines to live with – a bit temperamental if you don’t use them much as blocked heads are common with low use.

Without a RIP it’s not worth much and as Martin says it’s pretty narrow width.

I ran a 54" Cadet (SP540) and it was a great machine for day to day use…but there was still times when I wished it was wider. 750mm is pretty limiting for doing banners, fascias or shop windows without joins.

[Gordon Connelly]

Thanks for all that, guys, genuinely appreciated.

The guy says it’s stored some place where we can’t test it beforehand, which strikes me as suspicious (a mate’s house).

It’s on auction on that well known graveyard for iffy printers…

But I won’t be bidding, based on what’s being said here, it sounds like a potential nightmare and he refuses to give any guarantee that anything works. I can handle the idea of replacing heads, he’s up front about it possibly needing done with it being in storage etc, but there’s no guarantee on anything else and he got stroppy at the suggestion…

Thanks!

[Robert Lambie]

nothing wrong in buying a uniform branded printer, earlier roland rebrands that is. yes they need a end of week maintenance clean but other than that they are perfectly fine. thats as long as you buy ink from a reputable source.
we have one fo the first roland soljet rebrands Grenadier which is now about 8 years old and ive just left the print room and its printing away earning us money as always.
granted we have other printers but would never get rid of the roland print and cut…
at the end of the day, every machine should be kept clean and maintained regular. the 5 minute end of week clean is nothing. hell a traditional sign writer will clean his brushes for longer after every single job! 😉 :lol1:

all above is irrelavant if its a dodgy deal of course. :lol1: