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Suggestions 25K Budget what printer??

BigfishDM

BigfishDM

Merchant Member
2CT Media said:
I personally like liquid lam vs film for everything but vehicles. we are moving to a more liquid lam company and there are some new liquid lams out that I feel are way better than film for many reasons including hardness.
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Have you seen these coaters?
 
d fleming

d fleming

Premium Subscriber
Gino said:
I personally don't have a source. I've been being told that more and more by others in the industry. However, a year ago, we were bidding on a job for a long hallway in a school and in the specs, it said it could not be any form of solvent inks used in the process, which on our flatbed is not, but the company who received the bid, does not have a safe type ink system. They said the laminate would stop it from off-gassing. That though, is not the case. I've heard this discussed elsewhere on this site, too.
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Amazing you and I are even alive after all the years of playing with solvent. Kids these days would die from playing in a mud puddle.
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
d fleming said:
Amazing you and I are even alive after all the years of playing with solvent. Kids these days would die from playing in a mud puddle.
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Got that right !!

When we did everything by hand, my pants could stand up in a corner by themselves with all the leaded paint on them. Wash my hands several times a day in turpentine or kerosene. Get a cut and use turps to stop the bleeding. How about all the paint in your cuticles and under your fingernails ?? Not to mention, I used to use the inside of my elbow after cleaning out a brush. How may times did ya burn your a$$ cheek, cause ya left a turps rag in your back pocket ?? Yep, and now they can't breathe this sh!t in or be in the same room unless you have all kindsa scrubbers and things running all around your shop. Not to mention the dunderheads who run this sh!t in their bedroom and think it's bad for the dog or a baby. Who'dathunk you'd ever be lettering a sign in the dining room or assembling it on the kitchen table ?? We used to do thumbnails on the table or in the living room, but the shop was where all the real work was done.
 
Chase

Chase

New Printers for Christmas!
BigfishDM said:
No, I wouldn't recommend it for that. The thickness of the traditional 2 Mil Cast lam really helps with installs on vehicle wraps.
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So for vehicle wraps they use the roll lam and we are preferring liquid lam on wall covering ect.
 
Chase

Chase

New Printers for Christmas!
Now there is a new issue I'm running into after wallcovering is printed and before lamination I now see that the HP365 doesn't print edge to edge. So now I'm looking at a machine that costs as much as the printer just to trim the edges flush to the print and trim the ends.

What other trimmer options are there?

Would a graphtec 64" plotter with arms do?

Even a manual trimmer tool "pizza cutters" ?
 
tomence

tomence

New Member
Chase said:
Now there is a new issue I'm running into after wallcovering is printed and before lamination I now see that the HP365 doesn't print edge to edge. So now I'm looking at a machine that costs as much as the printer just to trim the edges flush to the print and trim the ends.

What other trimmer options are there?

Would a graphtec 64" plotter with arms do?

Even a manual trimmer tool "pizza cutters" ?
Click to expand...

This is what you need

 
dale911

dale911

President
Nice to know about he 365 printing edge to edge. I am not familiar with any other printers doing that.

To add to the OP question, I started with 1st gen latex. I still have a love/hate relationship with her. I am running 3rd part inks at $69 per cartridge and cranking out prints everyday. The limitations I have found are materials that are heat sensitive and the high heat in the 25500 causes some slight distortion of large panels, making seams a nightmare even though I rotate every other panel to maintain the meeting edges getting the exact same heat treatment. There is very little I can't print on. I have even printed on the Alumagraphics. (That stuff is awesome and I put a sample in front of the door of the store and it looked like new almost a year later)

I bought a Mimaki last year. Both of these printers have their positives and negatives but if I could only have 1 printer, I would go with latex. The fact that I don't have to wait a day to laminate is hands down one of the biggest reasons. Epson is saying "same day lam" but that is still 3-6 hours. I sometimes literally print something while the client is in the office and carry it to the laminator and install it while they wait. HP has come a long way with the printer and I look forward to what is next. If they had white ink, I would have bought one instead of the Mimaki but I needed white ink for a lot of the decal work I do. I can also do overprinting with the Mimaki so I can get fantastic prints on clear for backlit printing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Chase

Chase

New Printers for Christmas!
2CT Media said:
The HP 365 does print edge to edge. You need to use the ink collector and set your margins to plus .25". You need to build that loss of image into you artwork.
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Great to know I'll be reaching out if I have trouble getting it setup like that.

We will print lots of 30' x 8' wall coverings
What rip software should we look at to stream line the process using this technique with the HP365?
 
Christian @ 2CT Media

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
We use ONYX, sometimes begrudgingly, but it works well. I hear great things about Caldera and have used it a few times in testing.

I'm sure you could use Flexi, I'm just personally not a fan of Flexi at all.
 
Chase

Chase

New Printers for Christmas!
2CT Media said:
We use ONYX, sometimes begrudgingly, but it works well. I hear great things about Caldera and have used it a few times in testing.

I'm sure you could use Flexi, I'm just personally not a fan of Flexi at all.
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Great looks like ONYX x12.1 for $2,300 sound right?

We were looking at the StarLam 1600R liquid laminator for about 10K
Some samples arrived without lam and we are surprised about the scratch resistant HP pvc free wall covering.

So now we are thinking do we really need the liquid laminator?? and it looks like liquid lam is going out for roll to roll?
 
Christian @ 2CT Media

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
Chase said:
Great looks like ONYX x12.1 for $2,300 sound right?

We were looking at the StarLam 1600R liquid laminator for about 10K
Some samples arrived without lam and we are surprised about the scratch resistant HP pvc free wall covering.

So now we are thinking do we really need the liquid laminator?? and it looks like liquid lam is going out for roll to roll?
Click to expand...

Onyx for $2300, That must be RIP Center... it should be Closer to $3500 for minimum Postershop or Thrive 211.

Yes the Starlam is about $10,000... there are a few vendors selling for around $9,000. Yes the Latex is very scratch resistant but its not impervious to everything. a Liquid Lam just adds more layers to get through and can alter the finish.

Do you need a laminator is a tough question, it may be required by your application due to health standards.
 
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