Help choosing a second printer

[RichardG]

I'm looking for options for a second printer at our shop and am not real sure where to start. I was hoping some of you here could give any reccomendations and/or share your experiances(pros and cons).

We currently have a HP Latex 365 and use Feli for Rip and Print, which has been good, but would like something that may print faster and have better quality to replace it as our main printer. We do a variety of different signage but majority of it would fall into windows, walls and vehical graphics/wraps. I've read through a couple forums and it seems like people have had a spectrum of experiances with certain brands, with one comment even saying something along the lines of, "Get a Roland if you want a Tech at your shop every 2 months". If anyone has a printer that has been an absolute workhorse, please let me know. So far I've looked into the Mutoh XpertJet 1682R Pro 64" and looks good but I need to do some more digging.

 

[victor bogdanov]

Can't go wrong with Epson solvent such as S40600 or S60600

 

[MrDav3C]

I think there is a lot of negativity towards Roland on here and I don't doubt this is their own fault but I've always had Roland printers and purchased a truevis SG3 last year.

While I can't say if it's faster or better than other printers I can say it's served our needs well, was a massive improvement compared to our older Roland printers, hasn't had a single hour of downtime or required a Roland tech out whatsoever.

Maybe I've been lucky and how well this printer will perform over the next few years will be the true test. I'm hoping that many of the issues people had with the earlier Truevis machines have been overcame in the latest models.

One of the most important factors when purchasing a printer has to be what tech support you have available in your area and how good & responsive it is. Realistically every printer will have issues and this will result in down time at some point. I'm sure we would all like this to be a day or two rather than a week or two!

 

[MrDav3C]

Edited (Duplicate Post)

 

[MikePro]

i'd go with versatility and get a printer with white/silver or at the very least an expanded gamut beyond lmlc inks

 

[MrDav3C]

i'd go with versatility and get a printer with white/silver or at the very least an expanded gamut beyond lmlc inks

I was always under the impression metallic ink and especially white ink came with quite a bit of additional cost and maintenance and it's own number of potential issues, specifically with solvent printers.

If you can warrant the cost of these with enough jobs that require them then they could be a great addition to your business. Having just CMYK printers for 10+ years there have only been a handful of occasions where I have thought "if we could print white this would be better" to me it doesn't seem like it warrants the need for it. I'm sure other people's business models are different and would make great use of it - just not us!

I also thought that an expanded gamut sounded like a fantastic idea but ended up sticking just with CMYK due to the view that keeping things simple and having less bells and whistles will be less problematic. I'm certain that the additional colours such as orange, light cyan etc. do produce a better output but I'm also really happy with the colour and quality of our output and feel that for 95% of what we print that the additional increase in quality would go completely unnoticed and unappreciated.

 

[netsol]

i always wanted a rinter that prints white & ironically my white channel is loaded with MP31 cleaner
since current situation has me printing very little...

 

[MrDav3C]

Edited (Duplicate Post)

 

[Pauly]

I know a few people running Epson 80600's with no complains and superb quality

 

[MarkSnelling]

While someone may have had a bad experience with roland (tech there every other month) I'd disagree. We sell Rolands (I can't sell to you in Texas) and they are very reliable. They have the best warranty in the business and cover their print heads. Their new expanded color gamut is amazing, but you mentioned speed, so going dual CMYK on their VG platform will get you some good firepower.

 

[White Haus]

We recently added an Epson S60600 and have been really happy with it. I'd say it's worth adding to your list.

 

[RichardG]

Sounds like I should definitley take a good look at the Epsons printers! For those who have one or more, What is the warranty like? The exented yearly waranty for our HP has been huge for us and we would plan to get the same on our next printer if we can.

 

[RichardG]

Right now we're very interested in the Epson 80600L. If anyone has one I'd love to hear about your overall experiance with it. The 60600 was also taken into consideration.

I'd also like to know specifically what is the dry time like with darker colored prints? What the exhaust is like and maintenance/upkeep?

 

[netsol]

While someone may have had a bad experience with roland (tech there every other month) I'd disagree. We sell Rolands (I can't sell to you in Texas) and they are very reliable. They have the best warranty in the business and cover their print heads. Their new expanded color gamut is amazing, but you mentioned speed, so going dual CMYK on their VG platform will get you some good firepower.

i love my rolands (all older equipment) so i agree with you

 

[Solventinkjet]

For every brand of printer, you'll get people who love them and hate them. A lot of it comes down to which dealer you buy from and how good their support is. In my experience, most people who have really bad experiences with a machine are early adopters. The Roland TruVis series had some issues at launch so that soured a lot of people but now there's a good amount of people who love them once the issues have been worked out. The same thing happened with the Mutoh 1641SRs. Launch was bad, now they're solid. The Epsons are popular as you've seen. One thing I will mention however, out of the main stream brands, Mimaki is the only one left with a fairly lax tech mode. So if you intend on fixing your own machine, you might look into them. Everyone else restricts tech tools with login credentials now.

 

[RichardG]

For every brand of printer, you'll get people who love them and hate them. A lot of it comes down to which dealer you buy from and how good their support is. In my experience, most people who have really bad experiences with a machine are early adopters. The Roland TruVis series had some issues at launch so that soured a lot of people but now there's a good amount of people who love them once the issues have been worked out. The same thing happened with the Mutoh 1641SRs. Launch was bad, now they're solid. The Epsons are popular as you've seen. One thing I will mention however, out of the main stream brands, Mimaki is the only one left with a fairly lax tech mode. So if you intend on fixing your own machine, you might look into them. Everyone else restricts tech tools with login credentials now.

Interesting. I saw the same thing happen with the HP 700 series recently. We had an HP tech pretty much tell us to stay away from them due to them being the most printers he's serviced. He mentioned they had a really bad launch around 2020 as well and the early models had a lot of issues. I don't plan to be doing any of the repairs myself. Although it may be cheaper in most cases, I'm not confident enough in my abilities to service a printer.

 

[balstestrat]

For every brand of printer, you'll get people who love them and hate them. A lot of it comes down to which dealer you buy from and how good their support is. In my experience, most people who have really bad experiences with a machine are early adopters. The Roland TruVis series had some issues at launch so that soured a lot of people but now there's a good amount of people who love them once the issues have been worked out. The same thing happened with the Mutoh 1641SRs. Launch was bad, now they're solid. The Epsons are popular as you've seen. One thing I will mention however, out of the main stream brands, Mimaki is the only one left with a fairly lax tech mode. So if you intend on fixing your own machine, you might look into them. Everyone else restricts tech tools with login credentials now.

Not true, HP doesn't do it on the smaller machines. You get your hands on a service manual and you have full access to everything.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Not true, HP doesn't do it on the smaller machines. You get your hands on a service manual and you have full access to everything.

I forgot about HP!

 

[White Haus]

Right now we're very interested in the Epson 80600L. If anyone has one I'd love to hear about your overall experiance with it. The 60600 was also taken into consideration.

I'd also like to know specifically what is the dry time like with darker colored prints? What the exhaust is like and maintenance/upkeep?

On our S60600 - the dry time is insanely fast. I haven't pushed it or tested it, but it can lay down and dry ink faster than any solvent printer I've ever seen. (Coming from Roland Soljets)

We'll still throw heavy coverage prints on our dryer/fan set up overnight and laminate next day, but haven't seen any shrinkage/offgas-related issues at all.

I'm assuming the inkset is the same between S60 & S80 - it definitely has a strong smell when printing full/heavy coverage. Our S60 will stink up our production area faster than when 2 UV printers are going.

Not saying that to deter you by any means, but I'd invest in an air scrubber if you're planning on running one of these units in a area where people work/breathe.

 

[jfiscus]

You need an S60600, super fast printing, CAN laminate within an hour, but really you should wait until the next day if possible; definitely wait for vehicle graphics. We have 4 currently and just plain work them all day every day. No major issues in years, but every now and then you might have a damper or head go out from exhaustion (never had one go bad from a head strike or anything like that).