Thanks for the feedback. I provided the dealer with samples of what I was going to be printing, the size, and the material I wanted to use......and this was the machine he recommended. As far as 6, 7, and 8 color printers go, do you mean an Aqueous printer or is there an eco-solvent option? I'm still learning..
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Best Printer For Indoor Vinyl
- Thread starter kristab
- Start date
Thanks for the feedback. I provided the dealer with samples of what I was going to be printing, the size, and the material I wanted to use......and this was the machine he recommended. As far as 6, 7, and 8 color printers go, do you mean an Aqueous printer or is there an eco-solvent option? I'm still learning..
Christian @ 2CT Media
Active Member
Is there a reason why you don't want to go aqueous since all of your final products are indoors? They make aqueous vinyl.
You can also look at some of the new epson solvents that have 4pl droplets and 6+ colors.
You can also look at some of the new epson solvents that have 4pl droplets and 6+ colors.
I'm definitely not opposed to aqueous, I am open to anything at this point as long as it can give us the quality we need
do you happen to have any recommendations on brand for aqueous vinyl?
Christian @ 2CT Media
Active Member
I hear good things about Intellicoat Magics Aqueous Vinyls and Also Fellers Jexar brand line. I don't use Aqueous (other than Latex) so I'm not a good resource for the films that work best.
TomK
New Member
I spent a few hours a bit ago looking for roll Aqueous Vinyls, slim pickings...most of it is 6 to 9 mil or greater, and the options are very few and expensive.
I guess this eliminates using an aqueous printer. I want to print on a variety of vinyl. lol
I'll get this figured out eventually! Thanks for your help!
bilge
New Member
I understand that you wish someone points out specific printer. But it depends on several factors and which one you prefer from others.
If you go for an aqueous printer then it gives high quality prints, but you have to laminate prints on SAV and need separate cutter with optical sensor. The most aqueous printers nowadays use aqueous pigmented ink. It's scratch prone on SAV, because this ink is not designed for vynil, a thin layer of coating holds the ink. I have no idea how many vendors in your area sell SAV for aqueous inks. Media for pigmented ink and dye ink are different, so the media which you use on your Epson may not work on pigmented ink. If those are OK for you, next is the models. This is the choice between Canon, Epson and HP. Up to 44" Canon and Epson give best color gamut, Canon is the fastest but HP is the most reliable and economical. You'll get around 50 sqf/h speed. I'm holding HP Z5200 for now.
If you need over 100 sqf/h, above 44" width, then only choice is HP Z6XXX series.
You may look at A3 color laser printers too, if you print only 2-3" stickers. KM, Canon, Oki.
Where I live, everything is cheap, these small stickers from 300+ sheets of A4 usually done by offset.
If these are not suitable for you then eco-sol and thermal. Both have print/cut solution. Thermal is choice of Gerber and Summa DC. No lamination, get sharp, bold prints but not cost effective, not good for photo images. I had thermal Roland PC600 a long time ago.
The Roland and Mimaki printers I had, were very nice in the beginning, easy to work with. After a year or so, start to drop out. No error codes, no warning. Wasting too much ink for cleaning. Then the headache begun starting with replacing dampers, then captop, wiper, pump and end up replacing the printhead. Ouch! 2000 bucks for head alone.
Some people saying Roland is good, x amount of years without a problem. Not all Roland models are the same. SJ, SP, VP, XJ, XC, RS those are with DX4 heads -good, VS, RE, BN, XR, XF, XF, EJ with DX7 -so so, and VG, SG with Ricoh head -not clear yet.
Now I'm going to get L360, but in China it costs about 35000USD the nearest place I can get while Roland and Mimaki printers about 10000-20000 USD over there. Chinese guys are cheap, I'm not saying that Russell Peters said. The most of chinese count on every single cents, even though they buy latex dispite the crazy price.
Also not all HP latex is the same. Look only a model with OMAS "Optical media advance sensor" something like that. 110, 310 330 no OMAS.
In the end, the lessons I have learned:
1. I won't buy any printer with multichannel printhead. Couple of nozzles clogged, forced to dump a lot of ink. Very expensive to replace printhead, self replacement voids the warranty (exept Canon) difficult to troubleshoot.
2. Don't pay too much attention on picoliters. It's better to have 50x magnifying loop and see the prints. I misleaded by Epson head's 4 picoliter spec. It is the smallest droplet size, which achievable only on highest settings. They should mention the biggest droplet size also which is 40 something. You will get x,2x,4x dropsizes anywhere between the smallest and the biggest. When I print some drawings on Epson stylus pro 9900 in fast mode the lines and small letters were not perfect as my HP5500 which has 12 picoliter droplets.
3. Always see the printer in action and make test print own file before purchase.
All those things automatically lead me to HP. HP's not easy in the beginning, specially media load and profiling. After few days or weeks you will be familiar with it.
I'm not convincing you, maybe I'm wrong. This is just my little limited experience over 15 years in the nomadic land (end of my work today, outside temp- 13F below 0 right now). If it helps someone I will be happy, if not just ignore it.
TomK
New Member
kristab,
Just curious what you ended up doing? I'm currently looking at the Epson SureColor line, as they have a variable 4 picoliter variable droplet size.
I am also looking at the large format photo quality printers like the HP Z5600, Epson Surecolor P8000/P9000 and the Canon P4000. I been researching these for a few weeks now, and still confused since my main use is high quality indoor stickers, not glossy photos.
Let me know how you made out or what you did kristab!
Just curious what you ended up doing? I'm currently looking at the Epson SureColor line, as they have a variable 4 picoliter variable droplet size.
I am also looking at the large format photo quality printers like the HP Z5600, Epson Surecolor P8000/P9000 and the Canon P4000. I been researching these for a few weeks now, and still confused since my main use is high quality indoor stickers, not glossy photos.
Let me know how you made out or what you did kristab!
There is no way that printer can't print what you want correctly - we have an old Roland vp540 4 color in our shop (along side a new hp latex 365) and we've printed miles of vinyl on that old dog with perfect coverage that looks almost as good as straight coloured vinyl. Sounds crazy, but go download a profile for oracal/orajet 3651. This profile was our go to on that machine and it printed nearly everything perfectly regardless of the vinyl as long as the head height was set to the low position.
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dale911
President
I'm with TomK. Change profiles. Check the resolution of the print and resolution you are printing at. For a decal the size of those paint cans, you are going to be better off with super high resolution, high pass, possibly unidirectional prints. Not sure it will save you any money over doing what you are doing as it is a slow printing process but you will get the results you want. I can do super high quality on my Mimaki and HP all day.
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Sharing knowldege: Choosing the right Self-Adhesive Vinyl for your HP Latex printer