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We've also had good success with IJ40 + Avery DOL 2080 matte. Printed on our Mimaki UCJV so no gooey solvent prints = perfect combo for us. Really nice to work with and goes down smooth. I don't know if we've been lucky (knock on wood) that we haven't had to wrap any walls with super...

Good to know, thanks. We do have a Summa flatbed cutter that we can do coro etc. on but I'm realizing that (when we can afford the $ and space) a dedicated CNC would be a valuable asset. Do all the clean and/or roll stuff on the Summa, and leave the dusty/heavy duty cutting to a true CNC with...

That looks like a bada$$ setup! Is knowing g-code required for running a CNC like this? Any tips for learning/getting my feet wet with g-code? Would love to get a small CNC to play around with, rather than wreck our Summa F trying to run materials I shouldn't be lol.

I guess if they had a huge fleet, it would be worth vacuum forming a mold then repeating them that way, but that's a good point that you would still initially have to design/scan the original.

If I understand correctly, he's wondering if you could 3D print dimensional elements for vehicle graphics etc. Super cool concept, and I'd love to know as well. The first concern that comes to mind is getting vinyl to stick to those plastics...not very familiar with what the 3D printing...

Learning curve was a factor, but not horrible. Unfortunately we've slowed down quite a bit since we got this unit and learning on and off has been super inefficient, but it's fairly easy to use. If you're familiar with printers and roll plotters, it's not really that different. As far as I...

Like Sean pointed out - what do you really want/need out of the machine? We just picked up a Summa F1612 last year and are pretty happy with it. Routing aspect definitely has some limitations but as a digital cutter it's been great. Price point and footprint were a big deciding factor for us...

Hey Derek, welcome to Signs 101 from another newer business owner. Been just over 3 years for me since I bought the business. Lots of great info here once you weed through it and find out who the good contributors are. Hint hint.... one of them already posted some great advice! Enjoy.

Glad you got some answers already Patrick!

Welcome to Signs 101. Interesting business you guys are in! Sent you a LinkedIn request. :thumb:

I would DEFINITELY be interested in this! Checked out some of your Filemaker videos and really enjoyed them. Anything that can help me grow my business is well worth the time investment. Thanks for thinking of us sign folks and I look forward to checking this out if you get it off the ground!

Yep, Coroplast just went up 15% as of today for us. (We got a head's up a couple months ago) I was pretty close to getting another skid before it went up but we don't have any room to store it until we finish the one we're working on, and not a huge demand for now. Dirt cheap lawn signs isn't...

Fun fact since it's Friday, there is also a new(ish) version, 201HTAP-AE which is high tack + air release. It's become our go-to vinyl for any larger decals that are applied by our customers. (Non-vehicle decals)

They're at it again!! I got out at 100 during the first frenzy a few weeks back. Made a few hundred bucks. I'm still holding out on AMC, but will probably cash out today. All this watching the stock market takes away from what I should really be doing.....making my business more profitable.

Thanks, I will have another chat with him. I believe we discussed it a while back but decided it wasn't worth the investment as we rent our unit, and it wouldn't be able to move with us if we ever upgrade to a bigger shop. That being said, with the year we've had, we won't be upgrading anytime...

Interesting. Not to get too far off topic, but does the fact that LED inks cure over time explain the color shift that happens between fresh prints and day old prints? Specifically on our Mimaki UCJV, the color shift is HUGE.

The vinyl/laminate is to blame. We used to use 2923EZ + 210 gloss on all our flat vehicle work, but realized the laminate and/or vinyl would fail prematurely. Anything touching a vehicle we use 3M IJ180cv3 + 3M 8518. Don't love the way the vinyl installs, but it never fails.

We're running an Oce Arizona with 256 inkset and Mimaki UCJV with LUS-170 inkset - both smell awful. Have both of those and our Roland running Nazdar inks running all day and you can taste the ink when you walk in the room! Definitely need to invest in some better ventilation/air filtration.

Good post! Way to look at it from a mobile marketing perspective instead of how much does it cost to throw some "stickers" on a trailer. I wish more people would look at it this way, it would definitely move the pricing back in the right direction.

I know when we first got our Oce they recommended not having it in the same room as true solvent printers. At the time we had 2 Roland eco-sol machines and they said it wasn't an issue. But as mentioned, you'll want at look at venting and/or cleaning the air. UV printers stink, plain and...