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Thinking of buying the SignWarehouse Vehicle Wrap Kit

cgozza

New Member
We already recycle a lot of our materials - we donate scrap coroplast, vinyl & pvc to schools & other organizations who use these scraps for art classes & building things & such. As far as the latex printer & supplies being recyclable, I'm going by what the sales rep told me - I can't claim to know exactly what he's taking about until I get my printer & the documentation (it's supposed to be delivered tomorrow). I'm guessing they can refill the ink cartridges - don't quote me on that though.
 

westcoastlocal

New Member
So, my company is considering buying the WRAPEXPRESS vehicle wrap kit, which is around $17k. It comes with the following...

Mutoh PrismJet VJ 48"
54" Q54 Vinyl Express Q-Series Cutter w/ARMS Registration Mark Sensor
54" EnduraLAM Laminator

We are not a vinyl company, but we want to use this equipment to provide promotional wraps. We will be wrapping ATV's, snowmobiles, motorcycles, not large vehicles. However we still would like to wrap our own vehicles, do interior & exterior vinyl work, banners, misc stickers, etc. So my questions are...

1) Are these 3 all quality machines?
2) Will they be suitable for our needs, specifically the 48" print width? Or will we be wanting more after we buy it?
3) Signwarehouse swears by the separate printer/cutter for efficiency. True?

Now as far as cost goes. Signwarehouse tells me it's going to cost about $2.00 a square foot to print these high quality, full color, laminated, durable outdoor wraps. Is that a true cost estimate?

Because these are promotional wraps (discounted or free), it's important we have an accurate materials cost prior to investing in this equipment. If our $2.00 sqft turns into $4.00, we'll be hurting. I believe she quoted me this for oracal orijet 3951 cast vinyl. Good stuff?

She also quoted me for....

Banners/Decals - $0.50 sqft
Indoor wall vinyl - $0.38 sqft
See through window vinyl - $1.09-$2.50 sqft

I just want to go into this fully informed, so any advice or info is appreciated.
i bought that set up about 9 months ago and instantly realized that the printer was too small,if u go that route make sure to spend the exrta buck and get the 54 inch printer you kinda limit urself with the 48 inch rolls of media unless u dont mind paying more to cut it down or doing it urself, and u can cover panels better with it.
 

MakeMyGraphic

New Member
well I am a noob here :p sorry! hehe if anyone has skeletons in the closet that got buried a long time ago I suggest they go away for a little while I finish rummaging here :)
 

visual800

Active Member
Why not outsource this item before you plunge into thousands of dollars of equipment? You can get prints so cheap now it wouldnt cost you much to learn the niche and then if it pans out go ahead and buy your own
 

Stuckup

New Member
Why not outsource this item before you plunge into thousands of dollars of equipment? You can get prints so cheap now it wouldnt cost you much to learn the niche and then if it pans out go ahead and buy your own


100%, when you get the install down, then look at producing yr own prints, besides you wont be paying for print head drop outs, wasted material etc. Printing is an art, install is an art, sales is an art, get em all Right then go all in.
 

lexsigns

New Member
:clapping:
So...Tomld...

I'm in the printed vinyl business. I print and cut decals and wraps for most anything people want.

What I'm thinking is that by printing several thousand of these special wraps that promote my vinyl business and wrapping a awesome vehicle such as you are providing...I could really reap some big benefits.

Of course, now I have to begin to manufacture a vehicle, similar to yours that I will provide my customers at no cost so that my vinyl wrap business will be seen world wide. Main reason for this is, I have to keep my costs down and really can't see any reason to support your business where you have already made the investment and time to be a professional at what you do.

So...can you please advise as to where I can obtain the very best equipment to make what you make? Sure hope you don't mind that I'm going to flooding the market with the same base product as you and take bread from your dinner table with each one I put out there.

You have been given some good advise here. Sub out the stuff you don't do in house and that you are not experienced at. I imagine that you are the type of business that will represent yourself in court in the event of a lawsuit because you can by books to follow! Sheesh.

Doug
 

brian_fellers

New Member
Because they're cost effective and the print quality is fantastic, maybe? Call me crazy but that's why we got ours.

Also, I know that you're satisfied with your SW experience, but you should really consider giving Fellers a shot at it. The Graphtec plotter is very good and the Seal laminator is definitely worth the extra money, the thing is bullet proof. Most importantly, Fellers service and tech support is second to none. That will be very valuable to you when you need it.

kstompaint:

As an outside sales rep for Fellers, thank you for the kind words! :clapping:
Prior to working for Fellers, I was also in the industry, and I ordered all my materials from Fellers for those exact reasons. Customer service, and great prices. Thanks again, I always love reading positive things about Fellers. :U Rock:
 

bayviewsignworks

New Member
I wish we had a 48 sometimes but a 64, no way. Most of the stuff we do we use 30" vinyl. For wraps it does mean more panels but less overhead. Beyond that the printer/cutter VP-300 we have works very well. Why have two machines when you can have one that does the same job(s). If you don't have a good cutter and are looking to replace it, and get one that has a marks reader, go for it. We print and cut the stuff we print right on the Roland - no problem. We are a small mom and pop shop and every dollar counts. If we had several employees with several work stations, etc. we would probably get larger capacity machines.
 

Ryan T

New Member
So, my company is considering buying the WRAPEXPRESS vehicle wrap kit, which is around $17k. It comes with the following...

Mutoh PrismJet VJ 48"
54" Q54 Vinyl Express Q-Series Cutter w/ARMS Registration Mark Sensor
54" EnduraLAM Laminator

We are not a vinyl company, but we want to use this equipment to provide promotional wraps. We will be wrapping ATV's, snowmobiles, motorcycles, not large vehicles. However we still would like to wrap our own vehicles, do interior & exterior vinyl work, banners, misc stickers, etc. So my questions are...

1) Are these 3 all quality machines?
2) Will they be suitable for our needs, specifically the 48" print width? Or will we be wanting more after we buy it?
3) Signwarehouse swears by the separate printer/cutter for efficiency. True?

Now as far as cost goes. Signwarehouse tells me it's going to cost about $2.00 a square foot to print these high quality, full color, laminated, durable outdoor wraps. Is that a true cost estimate?

Because these are promotional wraps (discounted or free), it's important we have an accurate materials cost prior to investing in this equipment. If our $2.00 sqft turns into $4.00, we'll be hurting. I believe she quoted me this for oracal orijet 3951 cast vinyl. Good stuff?

She also quoted me for....

Banners/Decals - $0.50 sqft
Indoor wall vinyl - $0.38 sqft
See through window vinyl - $1.09-$2.50 sqft

I just want to go into this fully informed, so any advice or info is appreciated.



I bought that printer and cutter when I first started my business and I worked the heck out of the printer for 5 years before the head went bad. I recently thought I was up grading to a Roland xr 640 and it was the worst mistake of my life! That little $8,000 Mutoh printed circles around my $25,000 xr 640. When the Roland works it is fast as hell but I have to print stuff 2 or 3 time and waste a ton of materials, it is over priced junk in my opinion. The Mutoh is not a speed demon, it is going to take 4-5 hours for a little car and 7-8 hours for a full size van to print. I would recommend it in a heartbeat. The Q54 is a beast, it is based off the graphtec and it will cut circles around my P.O.S Roland ! No exaggeration, my Q54 will do the same amout of work in 4 hours as my Roland can do in two days! You do have to be careful with sign warehouse because they are a little misleading or they were with me anyway. This was the first time I had bought and leased equipment so I was a rookie and they got me. In the lease they said there was a percentage buy out, when I asked what it was they expanded to me that it was just $1.00, when the lease was up my $1.00 turned into almost $3000.00. At the end of the day it was my fault, I should have had an attorney look at the lease for me, it would have saved me a ton of money. If you do have any problems with the machine you will have to ship it back to TX in the orginal box it came in, so keep them in a safe place because they charge you 400.00 for an orginal box to pack it in to ship it back. You will not get any one on one training, you get thrown to the wolves. They give you free phone support for a month or so then it's like 50.00 per call. At the end of the day I would by another machine from them but I would not use there finance company, I would call someone like Geniva Capital they had much better rates with a true $1.00 buy our option. I have attached a couple of pics so you can see the print quality. These are all after the printer was at least 3 years old or older with the orginal head!


As far as cost go I'm not sure what it would cost to print on the Oracal, I used it one time and wasn't fond of it. I use the 3m 180cv3 with the 8518 and I was around $3 + or - a sf.
Those prices you got quoted are in the best case scenario with the lowest ink consumption and zero wast on materials! Like I said they are a little misleading!

Ryan
 

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JBarraxSW

New Member
leases, printers, warranties and such

Hi Ryan.
I'm glad you're doing well with your VJ48. Lots and lots of customers like you have found it to be a workhorse that cranks out excellent print quality day after day.
I am sorry about your experience with that lease company. We have dropped them and partnered with a smaller company that has been much more customer friendly.
I just want to clarify something about warranties. We offer a one year on-site warranty for the PrismJET VJ48 (aka 1204). We have a full time technician who does nothing but on-site service for our customers.

The Q54 does have a three year warranty but, in the unlikely event you needed to have one repaired, it would need to be shipped back in the original packaging. So yes, save your boxes. Let me know if I can help you in any way.

All the best,
 

bayviewsignworks

New Member
We started with a Roland VP-300 and now have a Roland SP-540. We use 48" as my wife's arms long enough to even use 54" vinyl. Most of our wrap panels are obviously less than 48" and we use 30" for everything else. We have a Seal laminator. We got the Roland because it prints and cuts. I think there is a trade off print with quality-speed vs. having an all-in-one machine. I think the Roland prints well but there are limitations like light greens and grays that create banding. We also don't have space for another machine, a big plotter. You really may not need a big plotter as most wraps are panels and don't need to go back through to be contour cut. If it's a big logo that is being cut we'll panel and cut that on 48". Our work flow is print-laminate-cut-weed.
 
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