• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Question New Printer Recommendations

kfelkner

New Member
We are a heavy equipment manufacturer who produces all of our own safety decals and model name/number and company logos. We do not do any outside sales; we strictly produce decals for our own company. Most of our decals are small, but high quantity and I use a nesting program to fit to media width.

We are currently using a Mimaki UCJV300-130 but have had an increasing number of issues that has led to significant downtime and costs. We are unhappy with our current supplier and will not be going forward with them if we decide to purchase a new machine. We also have a Summa F1612 flatbed cutter so we don’t need any cut functions in a new printer.

We are less concerned about budget and more concerned about finding the perfect machine for our application. Downtime is quite costly for us, as well as being a major inconvenience, so reliability and quick service, (if need be), is most important to us.
 

balstestrat

Problem Solver
Then you better take a peek at this.

 

Solventinkjet

DIY Printer Fixing Guide
The UCJV300 was an oversell for what you're doing. Get a solvent printer. Mimaki JV150, Mutoh XPJ1641SR Pro are two good options.
 

kfelkner

New Member
Oh gotcha. Yeah solvent white isn't the best. The UCJV300 is usually a good machine but it matters who the supplier and tech is for sure.
We had great luck with it for the first couple of years but recently we have had compounding issues and have struggled with both service and with backordered parts.

I'm not opposed to fixing the machine we have, or with replacing with another of the same, but the downtime is extremely costly to us from both a financial and production standpoint.

If we do go with another Mimaki, I don't think we will keep our same supplier or tech, so I would be open to anyone's recommendation on that as well.
 

balstestrat

Problem Solver
I'm wondering why is your production so made to order? Do you make everything custom or what?
Otherwise imagining your industry shouldn't you be able to build stock so it isn't so time sensitive. Like you must know a machine is going out months before.
 

kfelkner

New Member
I'm wondering why is your production so made to order? Do you make everything custom or what?
Otherwise imagining your industry shouldn't you be able to build stock so it isn't so time sensitive. Like you must know a machine is going out months before.
I ask myself the same question all the time. Everything is supposed to have approximately a month worth of safety stock. The issues happen when inventory is off, or we are down for a significant amount of time. Some downtime is expected obviously, I'm just hoping to lessen the blow if possible.

I'm not sure if there is a lifespan on these machine or? Like I said, we ran basically problem free for about 3 years, but recently it seems like we can't go more than a month or two without an extremely costly repair.
 

White Haus

Not a Newbie
One of the materials we print on is Lexan so we needed to have the ability to print white.

You guys were able to print lexan roll stock on your UCJV? This was actually one of the reasons we bought ours at the time, but gave up on it as we couldn't get it to lay flat enough to avoid head strikes.

We were trying with .010 polished velvet, is that similar to what you're running?

(Sorry, don't mean to derail the thread)
 

kfelkner

New Member
You guys were able to print lexan roll stock on your UCJV? This was actually one of the reasons we bought ours at the time, but gave up on it as we couldn't get it to lay flat enough to avoid head strikes.

We were trying with .010 polished velvet, is that similar to what you're running?

(Sorry, don't mean to derail the thread)
Yes we are. We are using LEXAN HP01W Film, 10 mil. We have had great success with it until our printer issues started (not related to the LEXAN). It lays nice and flat for us.
 
Top