what printer would you recomend?

[Robert Lambie]

if this is all you want to do, then i have no hesitation on recommending a pc600.. you will be in the £5000 area brand new.. next step is the gerber edge, £15000+…

You will find loads of info on both machines here on the site 😉

[Phill Fenton]

I also use a PC600 which is fine for smallish decals but has high running costs.

Graffityp have been advertising a thermal transfer machine recently which I believe is Australian in origin (I think it’s called a Nautilus) – running costs are very low (apparently). It prints and cuts and is a fairly wide format. About £12000 to buy (I think) – must be worthy of serious investigation.

[Bob Gilliland]

Phill,

It’s actually made in Taiwan by a company called GCC (Great Computer Company). They in fact make many of the components that are used in varying degrees to the sign trade (and related) world wide. Like so many other things in life, lot’s of “brands” to chose from but only a handful of actual manufactures. GCC is one of the “players”.

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

Mark,

Define “smallish”. Smallish as in size, smallish as in quantities, or smallish as in both. And would this be a “smallish” part of the business, or something that would get attention every day?

If it’s going to be “small” size, mainly 4 color process output, and used very little, I lean towards a PC600 or PC12. If volume enters into the equation even the slightest or you are desirous for a wide range of spot color support and to various substrates, I’d look at other alternatives. It’s not that it can’t be done with a ColorCAMM based operation, it’s just difficult to experience the same type of profit margins other options will allow.

Look at desktop inkjet printers today. They cost more to own and operate today when they can be had for $99.00 to $199.00 USD compared to a few years ago when comparable units cost $499.00 to $699.00 USD. It’s only good “economy” if you don’t have to run the thing very often. Otherwise, it’s “foolish” economy by buying on the “cheap” up front since your operational cost will cost you (and your customers) more in the long run compared to other alternatives.

Phill knows first hand and that’s why he offers up such information when these posts come about. Given the choice, I bet he would like to have a Summa DC3 or the Nautilus machine. Am I correct Phill??

[Robert Lambie]

quote :

Phill knows first hand and that’s why he offers up such information when these posts come about. Given the choice, I bet he would like to have a Summa DC3 or the Nautilus machine. Am I correct Phill??

BOB i would like one of these machines mate! 😉 😆 😆 😆

[Bob Gilliland]

Robert,

If you got one of those “toys”, your wife would NEVER see you! 😉

[Robert Lambie]

😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
very very true mate!

im still contemplating the DC3/2 not sure what way things are going to end up.. very busy with vinyls all round at the moment.. i know thats a good complaint. but doesnt let me dabble in newer, interesting areas of our trade.. 😕

good to see you back on the boards mate.. 😉

[Phill Fenton]

I completely agree with Bob.

Horses for courses – think very carfully about what the machine will be used for. The Colorcamm is ideal for small decals and is cheap to buy, a good way to learn about digital without spending too much. However, it is cheaper to buy in large prints than to produce them yourself on a Colorcamm – so, even though this machine will print large size, it doesn’t make sense to use it this way. Aftermarket ribbons lower the running costs considerable but even then they are still high.

[Mark Candlin]

The printer is going to be used to print motorcycle decals and sponsers.
Print and cut is a must as is sharp print quality. (Bikers are a fussy lot)

Any large print work I get I farm out to a company near here who has a couple of Vutecs (now that is a big printer!!)

Its more to take care of the small jobs that at the moment i turn away because I cant do the job in house and are to “small” to farm out.

Thanks for the advice 😀

[Rodney Gold]

The Roland Inkjets can now print and cut on uncoated media with a very inexpensive retrofit , there is a new inkset coming out that is infrared curable ,
The print quality is the BEST I have ever seen and is virtually indestructible without overlamination – its a TON better than thermal (and we have a few Roland thermals) and VERY VERY cheap (less than GBP 5 per sq meter – Ie about 40 pence per sq ft at best quality)
The output is almost dry as it comes off the machine and print and cut resistration is superb and the speed is blinding – the best digital prints I have EVER seen.
This is a very new development , the inkset has a very good colour gamut and is eco solvent , ie not true solvent where you have to run in a ventilated environment , the output is stunning retianing gloss and drying fast etc. – uncoated prints cannot be destroyed unless you are really determined to do so
Grand format printing is problematic , its difficult to handle prints that are more than 1.5m in width let alone apply them or even load a 50m roll into he machines
Wait a while before you buy!!!!
I have been using Roland thermals for a long time , my advice is to steer well away from them unless you are doing teeny teeny stuff only, Anything bigger than A5 is looking for trouble. the problem is the print head only works with a 8mm ribbon , banding , overlaps and dropouts and a VERY fragile head are the problems
The initial cost is low , but it soon evaporates – you are looking at at LEAST GBP 80 per sq meter for a cmyk + metallic spot print – thats damn expensive on larger stuff and that DOES NOT include the cost of ownership. To run a Roland pc 60/600 , you almost need a clean lab type environment!!!
ANY graphics applied to a vehicle , regardless of what print technology you use HAVE to be overlaminated – so factor in the cost of a decent cold film laminator into the equationand a good one can cost upawrds of GBP 5000
The Nautillus is made by the same co that makes my lasers (GCC – Great computer corp),running costs are a lot cheaper than an edge or PC60/6000 but I think thermal printing is a technology that is now “old hat” unless of course you wish to print a true gold or silver, cos the new gen digital printers kill em in just about ANY area.

[Bob Gilliland]

Rodney,

Thanks for bringing the “ink” perspective to the table.

I have read most of your participation here on Robert’s board and find it to usually be very beneficial and well worth the time to read and digest. 😎

I love all things “digital”, with a particular fondness for color thermal output. In the past I have had many false starts when attempting to comprehend inkjet technology, but due to some changes with our business, I can no longer keep pushing that education off. I’m still very “green” into the entire ink “thing”, but am making an honest go this time. So a question if you don’t mind please, since I usually gain insight when you post.

Relative to both UV and IR curable inks; how does this “bond” to the substrate? With thermal printing, you fuse the pigment/resin into the vinyl. With solvent ink, it’s very similar. Ecosolvent works through the receptive coating. But what about UV and IR inks to non treated substrates? How does it actually bond to the substrate? And what kind of life can we expect with the inks of today (and that is relative to abrasion and related relative to the bonding to the substrate, not the “life” of the inks themselves from a UV standpoint) in high traffic area or where it would be subject to an “above normal” abrasion environment?

I feel confident that tomorrows inks will be better then today’s at addressing “known” issues, just as today’s are better then yesterdays. That’s a leading reason why ink is going to eclipse thermal as the preferred digital color output device; lower output cost with equal or surpassed longevity.

I perceive thermal to still be a much needed and used technology to the sign trade, but plotted on a curve, ink will (or has) overtaken thermal. It’s those points that can’t currently be addressed, or easily performed with ink, that the thermal zealous needs to hammer away on. Two quick ones; “White” ink still needs some work (and devices and software to support it), so currently, ink isn’t suited for many substrates that aren’t “white” since there is no “priming” capabilities for the devices. Additionally, you can’t print a double sided image they way thermal can. And there is some software coming to the market place that will take spot colors into an entirely new arena for these thermal devices (way kool stuff!).

[tony winterbottom]

you signmaking guys are going to have to excuse my ignorance with this question 😳 after all, im only the software guy

large format inkjet, laminated or not Vs thermal edge..
How do you fit an enormous, say 42″ wide inkjet print to a vehicle in one piece without any army of fitters, ladders, scaffold etc ?
edge output albeit tiled, printed on high quality cast vinyl is surely easier to fit around and in and out of all the contours, especially if your a small signmaking business or maybe working on your own ?

surely you end up having to cut up the large inkjet print to fit it ?

[Jon Aston]

SENSORED 👿

I don’t really mean that – it’s just a great British expression (from a Canadian perspective) that is sure to get attention.

The best advice is to start by thinking about what you are hoping to accomplish in the long-run, then plan beyond simply this equipment purchase.

Choose to invest in a system that has the greatest potential for speedy return on investment, with the intent of re-investing in the next piece of capital equipment that fits your plan. Ideally, this should be done on a cyclical basis: every 12-24 months if you want to maintain your ability to compete with your equipment before new technolgies make your existing equipment obsolete.

What system can offer the best opportunities for return on investment?The answer lies in other questions: What factors are likely to affect return on investment? What are the tangibles? What are the intangibles? These are all important questions to ask prospective suppliers as you conduct your research. I would also ask what the supplier’s most successful clients are doing right and ask for a list of references.

As you develop your plan and research your purchase, understand that no single technology today has all of the answers (nor is one ever likely to). People are enamoured with wide format inkjets today for many reasons, but to sum it up: the technology is sexy…and is being widely promoted based on relatively low print production costs per square foot and relatively high print speed — all for a “low, low price” of X. This is driving some disturbing trends in the market, IMHO.

For starters, everyone seems to be focussed on low output costs so that they can “compete” — investing good money (for many small sign shop owners quite a large amount of money) in order to sell signs for less money. Does this make good business sense when you stop to think about it?

From my perspective, a large part of the problem is that too many signshops are chasing the same business — more often than not trying to sell on a price-per-square foot basis, rather than on a value added basis — instead of focussing resources on developing the market for themselves. If you want to be successful in this rapidly changing market, I don’t believe that simply depending on a passive marketing strategy (yellow pages, referals, website) is going to prove effective. I would instead recommend micro-marketing / key account management.

Focus on maximising the business that you do with existing customers by offering them a wider selection of graphics solutions. Become familiar with their plans, goals and market communications objectives…or better yet, become involved in developing them. Become a partner in their success.

Anyone who knows me knows that I could drone on and on about this until my eyes roll back in my head and I fall over backwards, foaming at the mouth…but I won’t.

Suffice it to say that making a very good business decision when choosing to invest in one piece of equipment over another should start with a business plan…including a good marketing plan.

…and everyone was expecting me to (all too predictably) respond with “I strongly recommend that you consider the Gerber EDGE!”…Damn, I guess I just did.

Good luck!

[Mark Candlin]

Thanks again for info, Iam gonna do a bit more research I think.

Jon,
You are right about planning any new equipment purchase carefully and working the whole thing through carefully. Good advice.

[Bob Gilliland]

Tony,

In a word, “carefully”!

I have a converted school bus to wrap next Tuesday (Imagine a 6.5’ x 35’ “corrugated” billboard for each side, not including the front and back). I never entertained the concept of printing this job out on the Edge due to A) the cost of output compared to other alternatives and B) all of those panels will be a real pain to fit. In no way would I ever want to abuse myself with so many panels for such a large area.

The panels that will be used for this job are going to be 52” wide, instead by yours truly, with nothing more then a step ladder, tape measure, propane torch, and a combination of traditional and felt squeegee (after I have cleaned the vehicle with Rapid Prep that is!). Its how I’ve done it in the past and how I plan on doing it in the future.

Not sure about the marketplace in the UK, but here in the States, complete wraps are a big and profitable business. If you know of anyone that does it on your side of the pond, request to watch them for a few hours. It’s amazing when you stand back and think about it. I budgeted ten hours to do the bus, but believe I’ll be done in about six and half. It’s like any other profession. Those that make it look easy know what there doing and fool everyone else into thinking they can do it as well. Truth is, they can; it just takes some time and practice, not at all unlike most other things in the sign trade (or life for that matter). A gentleman over here in the states, Rob Ivers (think you may have heard of him before, yes?), has some tapes available for purchase on how to do these installs with large panels. Well worth the investment if anyone is interested in seeing a professional at work.

I’ve kidded with many vendors and manufactures to actually send their employees out “in the field” to see what happens in the “real world”. For a programmer, go visit a shop and sit with the “designers” for two or three days that has to use the software that “you” have designed. I’m willing to bet some interface changes or functionality would change real quick if they had to make a living using the product instead of making a living making the product. 😉 For a material rep, go see where and how these materials are used. Look at the difficulties that are experienced out in the field, or the conditions that are presented to fitters. It’s not always sunny, warm, and calm winds. For equipment reps, same thing. Go see how the equipment is used and abused in the field. I’m just now thinking of a plotter manufacture that has controls all over the machine. It would be much more convenient and productive to concentrate all these controls to a centralized location. Yes, it’s only a few extra seconds here and there, but seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours, and hours into days. All time is money and any deficiencies in the cycle mount up quickly. Some talk about doing such things, some actually send people out, and a few actually follow through the entire concept. 😮

Jon,

You’ll enjoy this to some degree…

Late last week I produced some “special” vinyl for another sign shop. He needed 5’ of vinyl to match a PMS color for which no vinyl manufacture offers. It was worth $35.00 a running foot for amount he needed. Not bad for 5 feet of 225 series White vinyl, two Gerber spot colors and a pass of the Duracoat UV foil in the same amount, and less then 30 minutes of combined “sales”, production, and administration (invoicing, file work order, etc.) time for the job.

Yep, lot’s of shops going on the same path and lowering prices as they go along. I decided when I started this new shop to take a different path. I may not have chosen the best path to some, but I’m enjoying the scenery and there is not much traffic. I very rarely sell signs or commodity based product (it happens, just not often). I do however sell solutions, and solutions often afford a much nicer profit margin.

Yes, I love my Edge, but it’s not for everybody (and I’m very happy about that fact)!

[Rodney Gold]

In terms of how the ink sits , its basically the same as thermal , the media gets heated just prior to being printed and the inks fuse into it , the roland actually heats the ribbon and the foam roller transfers it to the vinyl where it sticks , it doesnt actully “fuse ” the resin directly into the vinyl with the head.
No printing – whether it be thermal , resin ,IR uv , whatever can possibly be permanent under abrasive conditions. The print has to be protected.
Inkjet and thermal etc are all the same thing really , the all deposit colour on substrates.
In terms of thermal , for non t-shirt type printing and the spot metallics , there is no point in it , white print on the roland is dreadful anyway and requires 2 or 3 overprints to be dense enough.
Whats a double sided image? (you can print on clear with an inkjet)

Jon aston made some VERY good points in his post !!!
Pricing on a consumable cost per sq ft + mickey mouse % and chasing the billboard market and competing in the cut throat section is just not on . The bike graphic market is most likely a VERY high profit thing , but then again , how many bikes can you do. Ostensibly your machinery must run continuously , digital printers are very expensive, so one has to job it out , and if you concentrate on the high end and deliver colour matched quality , you will do well. HOWEVER if the cost per sq m is 15-20x another technology , you might not really compete at all and will be far less profitable

In terms of wide format , the big thing for us is that we produce 1000’s of small domed stickers etc per day , and a wide format printer running at 9m2 per hour at 1440 dpi resolution is a serious production tool. Apart from that we have a huge base of corporate and sporting customers , so selling high quality large format displays/banners/posters etc is a doddle , they know what we do and the quality and are happy to use us as a 1 stop shop. Making a market for digital printing in the face of others , without a customer base can be very difficult which meshes in with his marketing strategy comment.
Going back to Jons total solution point , we also invested heavily in a mounting/hot/cold laminating print finishing station. This has to be integrated into a digital print setup.
There is a VAST gap between vinyl cutting/routering etc and Digital printing , you have to be a designer , a puter geek and get into printing and colour technology understand rips and do a hell of a lot of R&D work or fiddling , deal with file types and formats you never encounter in the other side of things
Thats’s apart from dealing with different customers like Ad agency execs who started of as a gofer and had one bright idea and now drive a Porsche boxster 🙂 (they have no clue about production and machine capabilites)

[Jon Aston]

If only guys like Bob, Rodney and myself were paid by the word!

This fixation with printing costs and selling based on price is a bit nutty…and bad for business.

As I alluded to above, I find that too many people focus too much of their limited resources (time, energy and money) into buying/producing for less so that they can sell for less.

Odds are (insurmountably so) that there will always be someone who is prepared to sell for less than you…it doesn’t really require any special skills, so anybody can do it.

Selling at discounted rates also inevitably results in having to do more work to make the same amount of gross profit (this is easily demonstrated in a spreadsheet). Can you imagine answering an ad in the careers section of the newspaper that reads “Work more for less!”? Doesn’t sound like a promising career to me.

IMHO the smart money is on the people who invest their time and energy in acquiring / honing their marketing, technical and sales skills — or those of their team. Understanding what the market (or on a “micro level”, your customer) needs, how to develop/produce a better solution, and how to sell it isn’t constrained by the law of limited returns.

For some, this approach leads to redefining their business…from “I run a sign company” to “I’m in marketing communications, specialising in outdoor advertising” (a whole other subject). Maybe food for thought for some, or a load of rubbish to others…but my 3rd and 4th cents on the subject.

[Phill Fenton]

I find this subject very interesting so thanks for passing on all your advice Rodney, Bob and Jon 😀

Are there any dissadvantages with Solvent inkjets?

I’ve heard that they are best suited to continously running. It’s even been suggested to me that if they are not used for any length of time the ink will cause blockages in the printer – How true is this? Thermal printers can be left unused then started up for limited runs without any problems, do inkjets need any extra cleaning etc. when being switched off?

What about fumes and drying – do inkjets need special extraction fans to remove fumes – and how quickly do the printed images dry out?

Last year a Roland engineer told me that pretty soon we will be able to buy a solvent inkjet for a similar price to a PC600

[Rodney Gold]

True solvent inks are toxic to varying extents over longish ties , and they stink the place up – even the eco solvents smell.Yes the solvent printers have to be run with extraction and ventilation
The new generation machines are built to withstand the attack of the solvent in that the heads are meant for it. Most machines these days are simple to run and do it all for you ( we have never had to do ANY maintenance on our machine barring changing ink carts) like self cleaning , capping the heads etc.
The older type machines were high maintenance and had messy bulk ink systems.
There is really nothing more to printing these days than loading the media and setting up base points etc. Settings on the RIP are another story , We use a Wasatch based rip and the choices there are truly frightening – however most of the work is done for you in that most medias and inksets and machines have various ICC porfiles which actually tell the printer how to handle things , you basically tweak a bit.
Ink is merely disolved or suspended pigment in some carrier , the determinant of how good a printer can be is the smallest size of its droplet , the smaller it gets , the finer the pigment has to be so as not to clog the heads. Drying times are less with a true solvent than an Eco solvent , but the problem is that legislation has banned solvent inks in some countries and indeed , some carriers and couriers refuse to accept tham as cargo. first prize would be a cheap UV curable machine IMHO.
Drying times are a problem generally especiall with very fast printers.
the trend is now to use multiple heads and multiple inksets to speed up output .
its pretty difficult to handle very large wet graphics , and if they arent dry and ink touches ink , you have a nice slip and slide.
Cold weather is a particular problem , a heavy ink deposit (1440 dpi) can take a few days to dry. An output heater speeds things up.
Large format inkjet technolgy is maturing and the machines are getting seriously good , I know roland was working on a machine that can print ANYTHING up to 6″ thick , like direct printing on wood , perspex , correx , styren , supawood , towels , sheets vases etc. There are flatbed printers right now , but not any that are affordable.
funnily enough , there is a term in digital printing that is called Giclee which is used to describe real art type digital printing – it means “that which is sprayed” and a lot of ppl thin its a sort of snobbish fenchie word to give more cachet to the term digital printing , but its not.
There is a printer called the IRIS and its been around a loong loong time , it uses a sort of rotating drum with heads the spray the inks (that which is sprayed) and it’s output is considered as the absolute best , far better than any modern inkjet can deliver – amazing for something more than 10 years old .
Any 300 dpi dye sub printer can best an inkjet running at 2880 dpi , so I feel there are still new developments to come.

[Mark Candlin]

Thanks again to all who responded.Some very good points.

Its always the same when buying new plant…. is there a brand new groundbreaking machine just around the corner..shall I buy now or leave it 3 months or so?

I do think that heat transfer has almost had its day, the new solvent ink jets are getting better. Iam going to see some demonstrated Ill let you know what I looked at.

Thanks again all

[keith]

Mark,

Don’t write off the possibility of a pc600 too early. We have found ours to be extremely versatile.
For example, we recently did some exterior signs for a start up water company complete with printed photo logos on. The largest being about 500mm X 380mm and they came out fantastic! We used frogjuice (a lacquer available from Victory) for added protection.
So impressed were they that they have since had two delivery vans and an exhibition sign all with their logo on.
They also now buy water cooler labels (200mm X 100mm) and promotional stickers (125mm X 125mm) from us.
It’s not in large quantities but it’s regular. The quality is good and the price is relatively high compared to paper labels. But they don’t want or need to pay for thousands at the moment. This is where we step in.
I agree with Jon about selling to existing customers.
We have done signs for a multitude of b & b’s caravan parks hotels etc. By keeping the quantity low it is easy to take their logos and create stickers and souvenirs etc for them to sell on. We are working with one particular caravan park to help him find what will sell the most this year. So far shield shape stickers are ahead, to date he’s had 100 in the past 2 weeks. Not a lot yet but with the real season now upon us we will have to wait and see.
The local council now come to us for ‘no dog fouling sitckers’. Before they had to order a minimum of a 1000, we didn’t set a lower limit but they have 200 a time (normally every 2 months). All our customers appreciate the time (very little once the artwork is stored) and it helps their cashflow.
As you said in you initial post you work on your own most of the time well the tapes are really simple and clean to change, we often let our 15 yr old son work it after school. There are only three of us so it is used as the forth person. It will soon get round what youare able to do and if your’e lucky you will be able to contain it during the …normal 😉 working day.
Running costs are relatively high but the customers don’t see that, they see the perceived high value of the product together with the quality and your first rate service. Nothing selss itself but with the right sort of selling who knows 😮 😀

Keith

[Mark Horley]

Keith…What are the average running costs for ths pc600 per sq metre…and if you don’t mind me asking…what can you sell them for per sq metre…I’m looking to buy and at present the pc600 seems the best entry level machine available…but instead of taking the salesmans word…I’d rather hear it from someone using one day in day out.

Cheers….

[Robert Lambie]

quote :

I’m looking to buy and at present the pc600 seems the best entry level machine available

entry level i would say it is the best for the price tag!

square metre.. well i wouldnt aim to run that kind of size daily.
it does have high running costs when you start out at those sizes..

A4 size? well cost you with proper roland ribbons. about £4 to produce.
charged out at anything from £15 to £25 for a one off print.

when you consider you can buy in brilliant stable prints at a sqaure metre from anything from £17 low rez – £40 hi rez. it throughs the roland into perspective with wide format.

having said that. it can and does cope with this size! 😉

[keith]

Mark,
As Rob says it costs about £4 per A4, a single (spot colour) will do approx 9 – 11 A4’s.
For one off’s we charge anything from £11 upwards depending on the complexity of design.
We have corel print house /photo house, easy sign, photoshop, u lead photo express and can pint on the pc600 using any of these. We recently did two Unsung Heroes prints for a local coach firm. Scanned them in to photoshop, colour burned them, imported to easy sign, retyped the two words and printed them on to ordinary white gloss vinyl. Size 3/4 A4, charged £11.50 each. Total work 10 mins and the customer still thought they were cheap 😆
Another good thing is you can offer different coloured stickers quite cheaply. The dark colours print nicely onto ordinary coloured vinyl. We do a load for a garden machinery business. Black onto sunflower yellow so providing you are using a normal 5-7yr (or better) the possibilities are endless.
The way to calculate a specific job is to work out how many goes into A4 then add the cost for designing, divide by the number required and then add your profit margin. Some jobs we deliberately price low because we know it will lead onto other business. Hence why we are working with the caravan park.
When we did the sign and vehicle logos it was incorporated into the price of the van. It saved us a LOT of time and looked more effective so we only added on about £65 per 500 X 300 logo. Not a lot I agree but when you consider it only took my wife and I 1 1/2 hours to do the van and got almost £300 for it, it raised the profits quite considerably.
One word of caution, we have had two other machines before the one we have now. We weren’t happy with the quality being produced and despite many visits from their engineer who was constantly moaning that it was printing normally we refused to accept it.
Consequently the banding is virtually eliminated, the colour reproduction is set to a lot higher spec than other machines resulting in real quality prints.
Although the problem has been in all three machines apparently even the Japanese manufacturers didn’t know what it was.
Now we are branching into the clothing marking and this is also used for this, Ideal for a small business.

Hope this helps,

Keith

[Jon Aston]

Mark:

I disagree with your suggestion that thermal transfer printing has “almost had its day”…let me explain.

We sell solvent inkjets, “eco-solvent” inkjets, and thermal transfer printers…so although I often appear biased toward thermal (Gerber EDGE, EDGE2 and MAXX2 in our case) I’m not. As I may have mentioned previously (too busy to check) all of the various digital printing technologies have their place. All have their advantages and disadvantages.

Until you understand the advantages of thermal transfer printing, I don’t think you should rule it out…especially as your first foray into the world of digital printing.

One of the greatest advantages of thermal transfer is that the printed product is ready-to-apply…without overlamination. If added abrasion resistance is necessary (ie vehicle graphics application), you can print abrasion guard. No laminator to purchase, no new lamination skills to master, no waste.

Secondly, Everyone is buying inkjets these days. How will you differentiate your products and services from the rest of them?

I would challenge anyone to demonstrate a wider range of marketable products that can be produced with off-the-shelf products than you get with the Gerber EDGE and EDGE READY materials. When you also consider the fact that you can print white, metallic and “medal” colours, transparent colours, etc, the unique range of attractive effects that can be acomplished gives you more lattitude for designing/producing highly effective graphics solutions for your customers…unmatched by inkjet.

The EDGE is a proven, highly reliable machine; inkjets are…”improving”.

I could go on, as you might well imagine such a verbose fellow can.

The point is…Plan ahead based on a series of investments, starting with the machine that is capable of delivering ROI as quickly as possible. “Entry level inkjets” — in my opinion — are not your best first step…and when you are ready to re-invest, they will have evolved into something beyond what you can purchase today. (BTW, you’ll still be making money with that EDGE ten years from now).

[Henry Barker]

I would back up what Jon says, I already had Gerber software and plotters, and bought an Edge for abit of fun, to add abit more to vehicle layouts and print a few decals. It doesn’t run everyday, but easily pays for itself and when it is running is literally like printing money.

Gerber are offering great deals on the Edge 1 in a package ( not sure specifically with the UK), or you can pick them up refurbished at good prices too.

As Jon says there is a huge range of media you can use with the Edge, I am just going to play around with something called “Newprint” which we get from Spandex here for printing onto and then heat transfer to garments.

[Mark Tunnicliffe]

Am I missing the whole “Gerber Edge thing”? 😮 I just don’t understand why people are still investing hard earned money in such old technology, surley manually changing ribbons for each process colour is very labour intensive (not wishing to knock those who run a Gerber 😳 ) £12000 is a very large chunk of money towards a full solvent inkjet machine which can print onto uncoated media at widths many times wider than the 380spocketed vinyl which many suppliers have phased out.
We run both thermal and solvent inkjet machines and for our uses the inkjet has taken on a large amount of work the old roland thermal was strugling with.

[Henry Barker]

Not being protective or over sensitive to hard earned invested money 🙂

How many inkjet fiascos have there been under the same period the Edge has been around?

If you listened to the reps around here over the yaers you would have bought this machine then that,then something else. The Edge has been pretty consistent since its launch on the market.

The guy wants a machine for printing small decals! Nobody would suggest doing vehicle wraps regularly with an Edge although there are many who are.

Sure you have to load the process colours individually, but for the work we use it on thats not a problem, alot of stuff here is Spot colours anyway.

No one machine is going to do it all. I went to a distributor awhile back and saw a whole area of their store full of full width inkjet type machines that were all being sent back to the states as they were not doing what they should. Gerber had problems with Maxx….sometimes proven older technology is better. Of course assessing the market you hope to sell to is another major factor.

Edge media is very flexible, and as long as you have a Spandex close by you will always have support in materials for these sprocketed machines.

I use Avery sprocketed materials Gerber approved which comes untouched through our distributors from the factory in Holland, I don’t think sprocketed materials will cease, alot of people use Gerber EnVision 375 plotters without the Edge.

Horses for courses….we all look at things differently! 🙂

[Mark Horley]

Henry…Can you use an egde with most signmaking software packages???

or do you have to swop everything to gerber/spandex…

if you have to swop….whats the true cost…

[Henry Barker]

Most sign packages?? I don’t know Signlab have just developed a Thermal module, I just bought (this year) a second Gerber Omega CP software package new for £400 so I don’t think Software is a barrier, my Signlab was also under £1000 as a crossgrade. Poeple sell stuff all the time.

You can contour cut with other plotters if you print the right reg marks or there are loads of old Sprints and 4B’s kicking about which can happily contour cut Edge work cheaply leaving your main plotter for bread and butterwork.