Dealings with Atlantic Tech Services

[Luke Culpin]

I must say an experience similar to this put me off non genuine inks for life! Probably near on 10 years ago, agreed to try them on the understanding that the supplier takes full responsibility for any issues. Didn’t take many weeks to wreck our machine! Managed to get a couple of engineer visits but nothing ever came of it and I was left with a dead printer! I sympathise with you and hope you can find an affordable solution!

[Chris Wilson Chris Wilson]

Ditto.
Not worth the worst case personally, for the few pennies you save per print it doesn’t really work out any more competitive job to job.

Not that helps now. But we did have issue with the cyan on eco sol 3. They think something went wrong where there was flakes of dried ink in the line or it had become to thick and end up sitting in the head. It’s to thick to blast through hense the nozzle drop out. New head for us (thankfully cover by Roland on there care package). Not good news, once your up and running again though I would look into it. They have never left us high and dry.

Hopefully all sides of the parties can solve this

[Daniel Evans]

Hindsight is a great thing but Atlantic say it’s not their ink that’s caused this.

All in all the ink is bad but the service is worse.

I can’t understand how they can say it’s not their ink, 2 cyan channel’s play up and both channel’s filled from the same bottle.

I personally won’t be going near their ink again and I certainly won’t be using their service and I urge others to stay clear.

[David Stevenson]

Not good Daniel that’s for sure. Apart from the obvious problem with the cyan theres also a problem with the cyan flooding into your yellow on the right hand side. We’ve just had a head replaced on our EJ640 for the se reason. Every time we printed a solid yellow we were getting black lines through it. Works perfect for a few minutes after been cleaned but the black crept back in. Fingers crossed you get sorted out one way or another.

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[David Stevenson]

quote Daniel Evans:

Hi all

Fed up of being mr nice guy and I’m now in a foul mood so it’s name and shame time…. Stafford and Atlantic Tech Services.

Quick brief, a couple of years back, I converted from Eco-Sol Max 2 to Eco-Sol Max 3, on doing so I decided to replace a damper in my VS-640i and I didn’t know you had to turn the choke valve on/off and ink went everywhere, destroying the head.

I contacted Stafford on here and he came out and confirmed I needed a new head, he then offered to fit the head free of charge if I converted to their inks and they would loan me a used bulk ink system to run the ink.

The printer didn’t have any warranty so I thought why not, seemed a shame to throw away a whole new set of Eco-Sol Max 3 inks but it was a pretty convincing sell, I was a new and low volume user which they knew and I believe that took advantage of my naivety.

That was 2 years ago and now take a look at my print head.

Don’t get me wrong this hasn’t happened overnight, It’s gradually got worse and I don’t know if any of you have dealt with Atlantic Tech Services but I always got told, we’ll get an engineer to contact you, maybe because I didn’t have a service plan with them but they didn’t seem bothered even when I mentioned to Stafford at a previous SignUK show about ink issues which with the colour changing during prints, I never heard anything back.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, I finally had enough when the problems have got unmanageable, I decided this time to contact them by email and I complained, their response was shocking! If you want a good read I’ll happily post it.

My email might not of been the nicest email, I had sought advice elsewhere from a couple of sources as lets face it, Atlantic didn’t seem to want to talk but I needed to get my point across and I was asking for help.

Staffords reply was all defensive, not once was it mentioned about helping me and more about passing the blame. The longest paragraph from him was to do with me posting on here and that they don’t take kindly to threats, I wasn’t even gonna name them but just that I’m using a third party ink and the issues I’m having so I could get some help but we all know how things escalate.

3 weeks after my initial email and after chasing them up time after time, they finally send someone down last week, he:

1. Turned up at the wrong address after I emailed them my new one
2. Tuned up hours late when they were supposed to get here first thing
3. Spent most of the time on the phone dealing with someone else’s issues and from what I could work out, they didn’t seem best pleased either.
4. Spent god know how much time in his car, making more calls I guess
5. Knocked over 2 rolls of media, one being Arlon SLX hitting them on the corner of my printer ruining over 10 metres of the SLX and 2 metres of the roller banner vinyl as the corner pierced through the rolls (because he was on the phone)
6. Replaced a 3 week old damper which was perfectly fine as I had tested it on another channel and told him that

The only thing he did do was confirm that the head isn’t damaged and no signs of a head strike which I already knew.

He left me place saying that it’s not the ink and my head will come back 100%, I needed more ink as I was running dry (all 8 cartridges had ink in them but just not in the bottle) and he couldn’t do anymore cleaning until then. He left my head in soak in the capping station and told me to get more ink for next day, not wanting to spend anymore money on their ink I held off and the next day I took it off and did multiple cleans fine. Funnily enough, my nozzles have not changed.

So I went to the sign show the other day to speak face to face with Stafford, now there stand was busy and I’m not one to make a fuss so I wait, I then go and come back later and wait again, I then start to speak to another staff member as I’m fed up of waiting and I show the nozzle test and he straight up says’ ink issue’ but he didn’t know I was a customer or was using their ink, Stafford finally comes over but says he wants to talk to me and he’ll give me a call so I left him my number but tell him I have to leave in an hour.

He must of called me pretty much an hour later and I miss it, I called him 8 minutes later and no answer, I go to their stand and he walks passed me, I then wait on for another half hour and call him again, I’m still waiting for that call back.

I left the show and I’ve not heard a thing so enough is enough, I’m no longer wanting help from them, I’m currently looking into taking it further another way and I’m in the middle of getting my paperwork in order.

I do want to let everyone on here know of my dealings with Atlantic Tech Services and Stafford and if it saves someone else using their services I’ll sleep better at night.

In the meantime I have put a flushing cartridge on the cyan lines, flushed out the ink and replaced the ink for genuine but to be honest, that’s made matters worse, maybe it’s pulled the old **** through to the head and the righ at the bottom to pull a little what can this be?

So I think I’m gonna head have to get someone in to replace the head and replace the rest of the cartridges back to the originals, thanks Atlantic.

quote David Stevenson:

Not good Daniel that’s for sure. Apart from the obvious problem with the cyan theres also a problem with the cyan flooding into the yellow on the right hand side. We’ve just had a head replaced on our EJ640 for the same reason. Every time we printed a solid yellow we were getting black lines through it. Worked perfect for a few minutes after been cleaned but the black crept back in. Fingers crossed you get sorted out one way or another.

[Daniel Evans]

Hi David, yeah that started a few weeks back

[David Stevenson]

quote Daniel Evans:

Hi David, yeah that started a few weeks back

We spoke to 3 separate Roland engineers in the hope they’d give use a magic fix but instead ended with a new head. Not what you want to hear 🙁

[Jamie Wood]

We swapped a couple of our machines over to 3rd party ink (not Atlantic). One of them was OK, but it destroyed the head on the other one. The suppliers always insist that it isn’t their ink casuing problems, yet miraculously, when switched back to OEM ink, the problems disappear. Other people may be lucky with 3rd party ink, but for the money saved, I would only ever use OEM ink.

[Colin Crabb]

Never had a problem with Atlantic tech – but have had issue with 3rd party inks. Cost us ££££+ to fix an issue caused by 3rd party inks, and despite a so called ‘warranty’, it wasn’t the ink fault….. no Sir not our ink…

We learnt from this and only use Original inks, sorry 3rd party may save in the short term, but not in the long term.

[Myriam Garrido]

We had issues with a well known Belgium company’s third party inks. Issues occurred instantly after changing and wrecked a new head (also supplied by them a couple of months previously fortunately). They too insisted their ink wasn’t at fault and it must be the head (even though it was used for months before perfectly with originals). Had rude exchanges of emails from their Italian ‘technical dept’ blaming us ! Any excuse to avoid resolving the problem. 3 months it took for them to replace the head and we dumped all their other ink. Basically finished us as a business. They did offer nominal compensation by way of a credit.

Strange how so many third party inks ‘come out of the same factory’ as the originals !!!

We have used another third party ink a couple of times (Jetbest) and found it to work really well without any issues in our experience. Nazdar is supposed to be really good too but not had any experience.

Way way of a recommendation Andy Malcolm has always been a decent and very knowledgeable engineer, again from our experience.

[Daniel Evans]

Thank for the replies.

I understand about the 3rd party inks, Atlantics ink has never been consistent, if you print solid colours they would change during the print. I’m sure some out there are fine and I know some suppliers give warranties on all wet items but Atlantic don’t, funny that.

I never wanted to swap over, I wanted to keep the original Max 3 inks I had just bought but they did such a convincing sell I went with it, I just feel stupid now.

[Daniel Evans]

Hi Myriam

I get the same response, not Atlantics Ink, it’s my fault, its the electrics on the head, etc etc etc.

They won’t have none of it and just ignore you. You’d think that turning up at the show and seeing them face to face they would give you some time, how wrong I was, head down and speak to any random person.

[James Boden]

Hi Daniel,

Sorry to hear this. What’s the name of the 3rd party inks your using?

[Daniel Evans]

Atlantics own brand, I think they call it surecolour

[James Boden]

I have the same machine as you and switched from Max 3 to Nazdar inks some time ago. So far so good

[David McDonald]

Hi

Sorry to hear about your problems.

Years back when we had Roland eco-solvent machines we experimented with various 3rd party ink options and always had problems regardless of the brand used. The odd thing was that if we kept original Roland inks in the Magenta Channel and 3rd party in the others it did solve all the problems – regardless as to whether they were seemingly unrelated to Magenta in any conceivable anyway – very strange! An engineer did once give us a plausible explanation as to why that could be but I can’t remember now.

The other thing we learned was that of the many 10’s of 3rd party ink sellers out there the actual ink content in the carts came from a much smaller number of manufacturers – of course each re-seller has their own re branding but you are often buying the very same ink content. This is exactly the same for the 3rd party inks we buy for our flatbed UV today – we know who makes the ink content and could buy directly from them at the very same price (we use the re-seller though as they also service our machine).

Anyhow sorry non of this actually helps you but we’ve been there and have the T-shirt. We no longer have eco-solvent and are fully latex but I’ll I’ll never use 3rd party with them and will always have the printers under a decent warranty. I’ve learned my lesson.

Cheers
Dave

[Daniel Evans]

Should all the dampers face the right way or does it not matter.

I’ve just taken a look and the one he put in is the other way round to the other 3, I thought they all needed to face the same way?

[Stafford Cox Stafford Cox]

Daniel, I’m not into throwing mud around on a public forum and neither do I plan on doing, but as a right of reply and for all interested parties, I would like to point out that the last time UK Print & Promotions ordered ink from Atlantic was 10th March 2017. That’s over 2 years ago. Our inks, like every other manufacturers inks, have a shelf life of approximately 12 – 18 months. Could it be that you are either mixing another manufacturers ink with ours, or you are continuing to use our inks, anywhere up to 12 months after their expiration?

Stafford

[Daniel Evans]

That is correct Stafford

However, when you sold me the system you knew I was a new user as this was my first solvent printer, you also knew I was a low volume user so why install a bulk ink system??

I didn’t know what I was getting into, you knew exactly what you was doing.

There was no mention that inks expire, there was no mention that I had to wash the old ink out if I left them in to long, if I had know that, I wouldn’t of had the system installed, seems daft don’t you agree?

You said you don’t advise customers to switch to your ink but you clearly did, you even loaned me the system to use (which you can pick up otherwise it goes in the bin)

Either way and like I said in the email, it’s not hard to have a system in place that tracks when Inks are sold and to remind your customers to purchase a new set or flush the old ones out, I would of done this again if I had known and it was explained to me.

The engineer that came round said the head will come back 100% and the issue was nothing to do with your ink and you guys use out of date all the time so it’s fine to use, so what is it?

Then another engineer at the show said that it is an ink problem, unfortunate for him he didn’t realise I was using your ink.

If you guys don’t know then how are we supposed to?

I’ve tried contacting Atlantic many times and even spoke to you at one of signuk shows telling you about some issues but no one ever gets back to me, when I first contacted you my ink would of been well in date.

By ignoring me it’s not done either of us any favours and seeing as this was the only way to get a reaction from you I posted in here instead, you could of just called me back as agreed.

Also throw as much mud as you like, other than not being a high user you have nothing, the only thing I am guilty of is being naive.

[Suspended Member]

This content has been hidden as the member is suspended.

[Daniel Evans]

Thanks James

I’ve also had a few people contact me directly with a few recommendations, just wish I knew about all these engineers before.

I’d still be using genuine inks, my printhead would still be perfect and I wouldn’t of lost out on any jobs.

Because Stafford was on here, I went with him. :bangshead:

[Kevin Mahoney]

If the head is goosed it would be worth pumping a syringe full of flush into the inlet while it’s capped off, pack plenty of tissue in there to avoid the mess, worked perfectly for me with a printer that had been stood idle for a while. Soak overnight with flush & power the flush through the faulty heads. Nothing to lose before ordering a new head.

[Daniel Evans]

Thanks Kevin

Tried that and unfortunalty and no go.

I’ll order a new head, 4 new dampers and hopefully I’ll be back up and running NO THANKS TO ATLANTIC!, just wanted to get that in.

So to sum things up:

1. DO NOT use Atlantic Tech Services for your Ink
2. DO NOT use Atlantic Tech Services full stop in my opinion as I’ve just found out, there are plenty of engineers out there that are far better than this bunch of jokers.

Personally I think Stafford touting for business should also be banned.

[Vince Francis Vince Francis]

Personally I think Stafford touting for business should also be banned.

I didn’t think anyone was allowed to tout for business on here. I don’t. I will offer advice to people as & when they need it though

[Stafford Cox Stafford Cox]

I don’t tout for business on here. Up until a few moments ago I offered free advice to those that needed it. It’s a shame how one post can ruin that.