[Simon.Johnson]

Hi

There are lower cost hand held device available. they will not hole punch and does not have the power of the Signgeer products but may be suitable for a lot of jobs in the short term.

mod-edit

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi Ian

A quick tip on an integrated printer/cutter versus a separate printer and cutter. I have a number of customer who are small businesses who produce short run labels and decals. In all cases they use an integrated printer/cutter because they can set a print run up of almost any number and leave it to run them out unattended giving even a one man band the chance to run 24 hours if needed.

A separate printer and cutter does have other advantages but you do need to be available to move each sheet from the printer to the cutter so man power and staff hours may dictate the best choice for you.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi Barry,

From memory an SP-300 could not be less than 8 years old. Normally I would say don’t worry about the age, all Roland printers can be repaired and maintained to produce exactly the same print quality as the day they were first installed but I suppose you must question how many times you can turn the machine on and off before the power board or main board finally say enough. Whilst both are replaceable they are expensive items.

I will say that both the 24inch Mutoh and the 20" Roland are good machines but are limited in the media available compared with the SP-300(V) and this might restrict what you can do so I would advise you to think of your expected application for the machine and then check that a choice of media is readily available.

The fact that a Roland SP-300 or SP-300V is still working after such a long time and is still worth about 40% of it’s original capital cost says a lot more about the quality of Roland products than any marketing puff could hope to say. Buy the SP-300V or spend a little more and find a second user SP-300i and you won’t be sorry.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi,

The SP-300 does not work with Roland’s VersaWORKS software where the SP-300V does. Essentially the actual printers are the same, produce the same output, use the same ink etc. A lot of old SP-300 have indeed been upgraded to be an SP-300V so they can use VersaWORKS. If you are not sure, just turn the printer on and watch the LCD display, it will either say SP-300 or SP-300V.

A word of caution if it is an SP-300, very early versions cannot be upgraded without a new mainboard which would be a prohibitive cost. The original ColoRIP software for the SP-300 is now so out of date it won’t work on more recent operating systems. Some third party software is still OK such as SignLAB Print & Cut as you can update this.

If you do have an old SP-300 and want to know if yours can be upgraded, please let me have the serial number and I can confirm this for you.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi

This type of banding is mechanical and is dependent upon a lot of factors such as temperature, humidity, media and a host of others. A normal fix is to simply put in 1 or 2 extra pinch rollers on the SP-540 instead of just using the left and right hand rollers and this should stop it happening.

[Simon.Johnson]

quote Peter Normington:

Signlab, illustrator or corel will trace, and from what I have seen on the Wasach site, why do you need to do it in a rip?
contour cut an image, for me, signlab rings the bell
(i have all the above mentioned programs)
Peter

Peter, I agree entirely with you that if you already have SignLAB and/or Illustrator or CorelDRAW and you don’t already have Wasatch SoftRIP the benefit of Tracer in V6.6 is limited and would not justify the cost.

Wasatch have added the Tracer option primarily to address new customers moving to a print and cut workflow for the first time. This customer may not already have tools to produce cut paths and this is where Tracer will come in very useful.

For any existing Wasatch SoftRIP user with the Contour Cutting Option who upgrades to V6.6, the Tracer option is included free of charge.

[Simon.Johnson]

quote Chris Wool:

i asked how much for the printer and carts and was told they haven’t made there mind up yet. also told i could have one for ages either.

so what a waist of time.
my other views of this tactic i will keep to myself.

chris

Hi Chris, If you can make it to Clevedon for the open day on 6th or 7th I can guarantee you will have all the pricing information, delivery schedule and I will even show you the latest "Trace" option in Wasatch which might finally persuade you to upgrade your ColoRIP.

In my view, it will be worth the time spent visiting the open days to see this new technology. If you currently do the design as well as the print for your customers, the real benefit of the XC-540MT is that you can create and sell a design that can’t immediately be undercut by everyone else with a Wide Format Printer. Because of this, one thing this technology may do in the short term which has not been advertised anywhere is to help you to retain margins on your work!

[Simon.Johnson]

Shaun,

If your market is to print very small items which will be viewed from a close (arms length) distance, the addition of Lc and Lm inks in the XC-540 will make pastel shades smoother and the artistic mode on the XC-540 (1400 x 1400) will offer a slightly higher quality again. If you are in the business of printing large signs, posters and banners, it will be very difficult for a client to see the quality difference in a like for like print mode between the two machines.

Again, assuming your not in the small print, close viewing situation, the decision on which machine should come down to work load. If you need to print more than 25-30 meters every day, you should go for the XC-540. Equally, if you want to long continuous print runs on heavy rolls of media, go for the XC-540. If you are always going to be printing less than this I would suggest the VersaCAMM.

As Kevin said, if you really want to see the difference, arrange a demo at one of the Roland show rooms where you can run the machines back to back and see for yourself.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi Stephen/Chris,

Please try importing the tiff and the eps file back into x3 to see if the files themselves were corrupted during the save process or if it is the RIP which is failing. If it is the RIP I can give you a download link to test (will deface the prints until licensed) the upgrade version of the software to see if that works correctly.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi Ali/Jason,

To clarify, the Roland SP-540 is no longer available and so there will be no "New" machines available any more. There is no difference in print quality at the slowest, highest resolution settings between the SP-540 and the new VP-540, The print resolution, ink head type are both the same. The extra 2 print heads in the VP-540 allow it to maintain a higher print quality at the higher print speeds and to support print speeds that are not available on the SP-540.

It is very hard to finance second hand equipment so if you need to lease, the VP-540 may be your only option. A good second hand SP-540 will be very hard to find as companies don’t want to let them go but this would be a good option for a cash purchase.

An afterthought:

Don’t go to a trade show expecting to save money! Bargains are available all the time if you ask. It costs a huge amount to exhibit at a trade show and that cost can only be recovered from the attendees. In simple accounting terms, the cost of sale is much higher and, in these days of the Internet, how many new customers will really be taken on as a result of a show alone? Go to the show to attend some of the presentation to learn something new, to meet old friends or to get a feel for the market – if you then form a relationship with a new supplier that helps your business move forward, your visit will have been worthwhile.

[Simon.Johnson]

Andrew,

It is possible to get a small piece of "dirt" on the seal in the capping station for any individual head which will render the pump useless and will cause the ink to stop flowing as the vacuum fails. WIping around the seal should solve this.

However, the following may also be the case:

The Grenadier uses three ink pumps, each of which works with two of the print heads. The pumps will eventually fail with the either the input or output pipe splitting. If it’s the input pipe, you will see exactly the effect you have where one colour will stop completely. If it’s the output pipe it will carry on working fine but be spraying the ink around inside the printer making a real mess eventually.

Very simple test to prove this. Remove the protection plate from in front of the three pumps. You will find each pump has a pair of pipes coming from the capping station to the pump and another pair of pipes going off to the waste bottle. You will find there are joins in the pipes to allow replacement of the pump. If you find the pump connected to your light magenta head, disconnect the two pipes coming from the capping station at these joins and swap them over Don’t worry about which is which as this is only pumping waste ink. Do a medium clean and you should now find the light magenta ink starts to work again. Eventually the head you have connected to the old light magenta side of the pump will stop working as it loses it’s vacuum. All you need to do is replace the pump and you are up and running again.

[Simon.Johnson]

quote Chris Wool:

wilco simon leader just adjusted one and will try later, how will this affect other colours ?

chris

Oh, if you have a combination of monochrome and colour images on a page you’ve got problems. If the colour images are photographic, the effect of turning off the ICC output will mean that most images just print darker than they should but colour should still be reasonable. You could either brighten the images in PS individually or you can select correction curves within ColoRIP, select the CMY channels only and try to brighten them within the RIP this way. This is a fidge though and will not work so well with very dark or contrasty images but worth a try for speed.

[Simon.Johnson]

Chris,

The problem is that the RIP is still trying to apply colour correction to the image even though it is monochrome or k only on a cmyk file. The function of the ICC output profile is to try to correct the colour of the inks (black in this case) with unwanted effects.

In ColoRIP, select the image configuration you want to use to print the job, click edit and then click colour transforms and in the centre of the window that opens you will see the current ICC output profile selected – change this to none. As you OK your way out it will ask you whether you want to delete the ICC profile as you are no longer using it, say NO!!! when you the get to the point when it asks you to save the file just add "no correction" to the end of the profile name to remind you this is the one to print black and white images. This solution will work for any bitmap image created as a K only colour in a CMYK file or an monochrome bitmap image.

I think you can do a similar trick in Onyx by turning off the ouput profiles.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi David,

If it helps your thoughts, you can buy an i1 based profiling package which will calibrate both monitors and printers for under £500.00ex-VAT.

This will work with both VersaWorks and ColoRIP/Wasatch/Troop.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi Robert,

If it helps you here are some ideas you may like to consider when looking at a UV printer:

(1) Difficult to make a ROI running a UV printer reel to reel as you can already produce the same output with your existing machines so look to rigid substrates for your ROI.

(2) Ignore the quoted print speeds for now. If your printing to rigid then there is a set up time to load each piece. Check how long any printer takes to actually load and align a new piece because this may far outweigh the actual print time and this is the timing that matters in a production run.

(3) When you calculate your costings on a production run, remember that printing rigid you require a full time operator in attendance unlike your existing reel to reel printers and their hourly cost must be added in entirely as they can’t be doing anything else.

(4) If you have a niche market which will pay a premium for a service you can provide with a UV flat bed then go for it. If you are considering the investment to take on high volume, low margin work, think very carefully before you decide. This is a very different type of business model to sign making where lower volume higher value is the norm. Do you really want to change the way you work?

(5) Finally I would advise you to look at the bigger names as well. This is a big spend and you need to know that your supplier is able to support you long term. A smaller supplier may well change his product line up for his own commercial reasons after you have made your investment and then where will your support come from?

Hope this helps a bit – good luck

[Simon.Johnson]

If it helps you, the VP and SP 300 series both run the same inks and media, have the same output resolutions and therefore both can produce exactly the same type of work Think of the VP-300 is an engineering update to the SP-300 which offers the end user more speed and offers Roland a lower manufacturing cost and an easier machine to maintain long term.

As to which you should buy: Both machines are still available new but you really should go for the newer VP series as this gives you better prospects longer term regarding production speeds and support.

I would agree with the comments that you should look at 54" rather than 30" unless you really are tight for space or budget, or unless you have a niche market (labels?) where 30" is fine.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi Mike,

Firstly please run the on-board test print from the front panel to check all black nozzles are firing.

If they are , please describe the banding in a little more detail and I’ll try to help.

[Simon.Johnson]

Hi Mike,

You could try Hexis as well. They have quite a range of "special" films which include some strange metallics.

If you do come across other brands which seem to offer a metallic finish, check with the supplier that it is not metalized polyester as this will not print on the SP-300 without a surface coating.

[Simon.Johnson]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you Russell.

If it is an SJ-740 it will not work with Versaworks. If it is an SJ-740EX it will work with Versaworks which you are licensed to use it at no cost. If you are not sure which model, let me have the serial number and I will find out for you.

Which version of Troop are you using?

[Simon.Johnson]

quote Chris Wool:

simon nice to see you on here and thank you for the explanations.
is this area also when the variable dot size of the head comes in to play, or am i barking up the wrong tree again

chris

Hi Chris,

To me, variable dot shouldn’t make any difference but Roland figures for ink usage running the same 1m x 1m test image (ISO N5A) on the VP-540 VersaCAMM and on the AJ-1000 (fixed dot printer) in two different print modes give:

VP-540 360x720dpi = 4.71cc or £0.75p
VP-540 720x1440dpi = 5.07cc or £0.81p
AJ-1000 360×360 = 5.2cc or £0.34p
AJ-1000 720x720dpi = 10.5cc or £0.68p

The two prints from the AJ-1000 must look different but will try to find out if the fixed dot printer has some issues between modes or if this was a profiling error.

One other point if your still following this, as I understand it, in the higher res mode a variable dot printer stops being variable dot because it can only use the smallest dot size to make high res. If you look at the figures for the VP-540 in a low res mode it can use the bigger dot size. The effect of this should be slightly more dot gain so when you create a profile for this mode you would see that very slightly lower ink usage still giving you a visually similar image.

Will get back to you shortly on the "spares" question.

[Simon.Johnson]

quote Mike Fear:

I’m pretty sure you cant use Versaworks seperately from a Roland printer as it looks for the printer when it loads up, and wont work if it cant detect it.

That’s right, Versaworks uses the printer in effect as a dongle. You need to know which Roland VersaCAMM your Cadet is based on. I assume you are buying a second hand machine so you need to know if it was an SP-300 or SP-300V engine. The "V" version will work with Versaworks the non "V" version will not. For either model of SP-300, if you go for the Roland Eco-sol Max inks you can download all the profiles you need form the Roland web site to work with the Troop V5 or later RIP.

[Simon.Johnson]

quote Bill McMurtry:

I agree with Dave on this: more passes = more ink with a given profile and horizontal dot count.

quote Simon:

It slows down because it is putting a narrower band down per pass for more accuracy of dot placement and alignment.

A printer can not change the width of a single head pass or the accuracy of dot placement (head speed variation aside). But it can change the number of times it overlaps consecutive head passes. Therefore, 2 head passes will lay down twice as much ink in a given area compared to 1 head pass. Profiles calibrate a specific resolution and head pass count. My JV3 is profiled at 720dpi 8 pass, if I use that same profile to print at 720dpi 16 pass then I’ll use twice the ink for the same print.

Bill, If you watch your printer working you will notice that on a high pass count each band is in fact much narrower than when you use a low pass count. The print head is a fixed size but can be controlled as to which dots actually fire for any given print mode. What RIP do you use with your JV3? If you believe it will use twice the ink going from 8 – 16pass then some thing is very wrong. It sounds more likely in your case that the RIP has these modes wired together so you may not actually being using a profile at all when in 16 pass where you are in 8 pass.

[Simon.Johnson]

The better quality is simply down to the more accurate dot placement.

I like your idea of printing slower to keep the printer working for more of the day – seems like a very good idea from a maintenance point of view provided you can up your speeds when you have more work.

[Simon.Johnson]

quote Dave Rowland:

If your printer slows down as a result of putting more bands/passes of ink, then it must be putting more ink down. Why would it slow down per linear ltr? try 1 pass on a resolution and see how much ink goes down and the speed it takes.

Not so.

It slows down because it is putting a narrower band down per pass for more accuracy of dot placement and alignment. If you have a printer with sa range of settings for passes per resolution (such as Roland printers) you will notice you don’t need a different profile for the different number of passes – only for the different print resolutions.

[Simon.Johnson]

If we have everything set up correctly the difference in ink usage should be very small between the fastest (low res.) and the slowest (hi-res.) printing and should only amount to penny’s (10p per square metre?). The logic of this is that if your source image requires a 50% density of a particular ink to look correct on the print, it does not matter what mode you print with, you still want a 50% density for it to look correct! This works for pure inks (CYMK) or combined colours such as red’s, blue’s and green’s. If you change the density of ink used to make a colour the colour will change. The reason we have profiles for each print mode is to try to make sure this does not happen. By the way, you could also see this level of cost difference just changing from one manufacturer of substrate to another because their media’s ability to absorb ink and reflect light may be different.

Very few RIP’s have really accurate profiles for all resolutions for any given media so you may find when you print the same file in one mode and then compare it with another mode you have a change in colour which would also mean a change in cost!

When we install printers and train the operators we suggest caution with print mode selection. If our profiles are accurate, they could run all work at the highest quality and it would not significantly change the running costs, however, it will dramatically increase the time to run a job. If you can sell a job printed at 15 metres an hour but you chose to run it at 2 metres an hour you not only increase your operator costs but you can’t run anything else while this is running. Lets say it’s a 15 metre print which you sell for £40.00 per metre. The difference in the print speeds mean you have lost 6.5 hours or production which could have produced an extra £3,900.00 in revenue if you had the work!!

[Simon.Johnson]

I am interested to know your application for such a machine?

At the moment you can only get close. Epson have announced an "eco-solvent" printer which will start shipping in Oct/Nov this year which should meet your print quality criteria but what applications it would suit are not clear yet.

[Simon.Johnson]

Just to clear up any confusion regarding the ColoRIP update offer from Wasatch.

The update is from Roland ColoRIP to a full featured release of SoftRIP (currently 6.3) and not a "light" version. The only restriction on the update version is that it will only drive the same printers as your original ColoRIP software – hence the very low cost. You can drive multiple devices across your network and manage your printers remotely from any PC or MAC with a browser with the updated version. If you then wish to update further to support newer printers, you only need to pay a further upgrade fee to the version which would support your newer printer. For this fee, you get a new code for your dongle which will activate the other drivers.

As a guide, the update is available in the UK for £195.00 ex-VAT. By the way Chris, you don’t have to uninstall ColoRIP to use the update. You can still run either version on your PC and ColoRIP on all other PC’s to give you flexibility.

As a final note. All the profiles you currently use in ColoRIP will work in the new version but they are 8bit profiles and so you will only get the same quality you get now. Make sure you get hold of the newer 16bit profiles to see the full benefit of the update.

[Simon.Johnson]

quote George Elsmore:

Is it possible to print black on a cadet just using the black cartridge? using corel 11 and ripping in roland colourip? I have picked 100% K for the black but it still seems to mix inks….weird!!!

G

Yes, it’s easy to sort. Open your job in ColoRIP as normal, hover the mouse over any "black" area, right click and then select the "replace spot colours" option. this will open a dialogue box which will show you your current source colour (C0 M0 Y0 K255). Obviously this suggests it is already correct so what do you do? Above these numbers is a little radio button called "device bypass" check this and then OK your way out. As mentioned elsewhere, when prompted, change the name of your profile by adding some reference to pure black on the end of the original name.

Don’t panic if your displayed image no longer shows black but instead shows red stripes on everything that should be black. This is correct, it is just warning you that this colour is no longer being corrected – it will indeed print with just the black ink.

If your numbers are different from those above, you either did not select a pure black in Corel or you have colour management turned on in Corel and it is changing the values when you export the image as an EPS file.

OK?

[Simon.Johnson]

quote dynamicsjon:

Hi

It there a way to turn the printer on (from sleep) to do a test print remotely ?

Are you thinking ahead to the Christmas break and how to stop having problems with your printer when you return?

Unless you want to set up your own dial-in network or VPN you cannot remotely access your printer to trigger a test print.

If this is going to be an issue for you why not consider changing the printer back to Roland EcoSol Max inks and then you won’t need to worry about it.

For all Grenadier. Cadet Plus or Cadet users who have a machine running Uniform inks and are now faced with that same issue of the cost of flushing the machine over Christmas to avoid warranty or service problems when you return, there are other options you can now consider.

The debate over eco versus true solvent inks really ended when the 3rd generation eco inks including the Roland EcoSol Max inks came out. They offer the same kind of print performance as true solvent but without the service issues in the machine. B&P have already confirmed on this forum that they will continue to honour any maintenance contracts even if you change back to Roland inks.

There are some very interesting "deals" if you don’t have a service contract at the moment and your heads are already "knackered". I don’t know how far I can go with this post under your forum rules.

Robert please let me know how I can contact you outside of the forum and I will forward you details to post up.

[Simon.Johnson]

quote SteveP:

With the same problem as Smedia I found this thread looking for an answer to our problem.

Steve, Have you solved this issue yet? I could give you some quick tests to run which may help, are you fairly PC/network literate?

[Simon.Johnson]

quote SteveP:

With the same problem as Smedia I found this thread looking for an answer to our problem.

Steve, Have you solved this issue yet? I could give you some quick tests to run which may help, are you fairly PC/network literate?

[Simon.Johnson]

quote Martin Forsyth:

My Versacamm SP300 has just run out of warranty, I think it is about £900 for an extended warranty.

I too am considering whether it is better to not bother, and face each problem if and when it occurs?

Does it have to be Roland you call out, or are there any independent people who could do servicing repairs at a lower cost??

Martin,

You can take a warranty direct with Roland for around £700.00 on an SP-300 and I believe can also pay this monthly on a direct debit to spread the costs but you should check if there are any conditions on this as your warranty has already expired.

As to whether to or not – it’s a simple business question. A warranty is an insurance policy – it guarantees you a call out time and a fixed cost, no matter what, if anything goes wrong. If you don’t have a warranty you can still have exactly the same engineer visit and fit exactly the same parts but you pay the actual cost at the time and you take pot luck when he can fit you in. Do you typically need to send jobs out within 2 or 3 days of order and how much of your mortgage won’t be paid if the printer is out of action for 2 weeks? These question’s will determine your answer.

If the printer is key to your business, don’t even think about it, sign the direct debit mandate now.

[Simon.Johnson]

A tip for everyone using Corel Draw with a Roland printer running ColoRIP or Wasatch SoftRIP or TROOP who wants to match some Pantone colours from any of the Corel Pantone palletes.

Skipping all the science and detail, select the Pantone colour you need in Corel Draw as normal, now before you close the colour picker, note that Corel by default gives you the CMYK and RGB values for this colour. At the bottom of the colour selector tool next to the OK button is an options drop down menu. Click on this and change either value 1 or value 2 to "Lab". You can now see the LaB value for the Pantone colour you have selected (make a note of this value). Open the job in the RIP and use the spot colour replacement tool to change the input value (which will be CYMK if you output an EPS from CorelDraw) to the LaB values you noted. This will now use your output profile to make the colour match and, as if your profile is good, it should be very close. If you have doubts about whether the colour is printable, simply select the "info" tab from the options on the left hand side of the RIP window and hover over the colour on the screen. The "info" window will now give you the original input colour, the CMYK ink levels for the out put and below this a gamut alarm which will tell you if the colour is printable. Numbers in Red would be out of gamut and no amount of tweeking will make these colours print.( A value of around 4 in these number would be a litho quality colour match).

If your interested, this works because LaB values for a colour are device independent and so can transfer to any output device and potentially match if you have the right mapping software.

This is the short version of this explanation – if you don’t know how to use the spot colour replacement tool correctly within the RIP, I will be happy to explain this in more detail but it would be a long post.

[Simon.Johnson]

A good and very typical question with replies which are good but perhaps ask more questions than they really answer.

As a company, we are involved in this situation nearly everyday, therefore, for my reply I would like to give you (and others here) what I hope may be a clearer way of thinking about the issue of upgrading capital equipment as opposed to a first time investment.

(1) Don’t speak to suppliers about upgrades – with the best will in the world, and even if you have had a good experience in the past, we can only make money selling what we can supply today and this may not be what you need!

(2) Integrated print & cut versus printer and separate cutter. Suppliers can make an equally good case for either system dependent upon which they can supply. Print quality is the same for either system, and the end result can be the same from either system. The differences are that an integrated system takes up less space in your workshop and does not require manual intervention to complete a job therefore offering a potential saving on labour costs. A system based on separate components gives you the option to do two different jobs simultaneously provided you actually have this kind of work load. You will not get a better result from one of the other. Therefore, how much room/work have you got?

(3) Unless you plan to import some unknown system from the Far East, you really can’t buy bad equipment anymore – you can only buy equipment from bad suppliers. If you reflect on all the comments back and forward in this forum, you hardly ever hear anyone complain about their equipment, only the support pre and post sale and whether they have been well advised. Think of the old debate over Eco versus true solvent ink that raged on for ages. How many posts have ever come back actually stating that there has been any problems with one or the other solution which wasn’t down to the post sale support from the supplier or to the wrong advice given for the application in the first instance? Check your supplier as thoroughly as you check the system you intend to buy.

(4) JV3 versus Grenadier. Please consider this first. Both the JV3 and the Grenadier are actually older technology than the Cadet you are planning to upgrade. Both offer a wider print width and higher performance but neither can actually produce anything you cannot already produce (given the size limitations). You need to consider if this is a capital investment looking forward 3 years or a stop gap investment to solve an immediate problem. If the latter is the case, look at the buying a second user or ex-demo system, ideally from the original manufacturer. As the newer systems have come onto the market there are a lot of existing users upgrading meaning there is now a reasonable supply of very well maintained second user systems. If the former is the case please look at the new generation of machines such as the Roland PRO111 series or the JV5 which offer huge increases in performance.

(5) No bu sines should make a capital investment based on cost – it must be based on the revenue which the investment will generate which determines the return on investment based on the final cost. JV3 versus Grenadier in terms of integrated or separate print and cut is as (2) above.

(6) A final point for all players in the Sign Industry. The Sign Trade has for many years been a trade manned predominantly by well intentioned and skilled craftsmen who have been able to make up for a lack of business experience by being their own labour force and working with very low capital investment. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, as the Sign Industry matures, the successfully players will be those who can grow through sound business practice not just hard work.

If you want something to consider for the future, we are now a very over capitalised industry ( How much of your equipment is running 8 hours a day 5 days a week?) – in order to flourish, we must now get out and sell our services to make more use of our investment. Should we see "white vans" as a sign of our own failure?