Are big names over rated ?

[Custom_Grafx]

I believe the RIP is iPRINT. I don't personally know this RIP

Of course I second all your opinions and I always say:
"Your machine is as good as your service guy"

But in my company there is a tradition : whenever there is a problem - I fix it within 2-3 hours. And when I told my boss that I am not familiar with eco solvent, all he said was : you will manage !

I am trying to push my boss to at least consider a used mutoh or roland.

Thnx guys for reminding me the Importance of Things !!!

In that case, get one, and tell your boss what to expect. If he's ok with it, go for it. His loss. Just make sure you tell him in advance what he's in for.

 

[andy]

I don't know, from the video I saw it looked pretty simple design.
Carriage + tubes, a service station, feeding rollers. But as I said cannot be sure unless I tear it appart.
What I fear most are quality issues like banding. I don't know how stable Eco solvent technology is in this aspect. Thnx

Can you live with these 10 things;

1) Chinglese instruction manuals which make absolutely no sense and have huge chunks of important information missing.

2) Badly coded, poorly designed control software which is counter intuitive to use, crashes often and has many on screen buttons which link to important functions the Chinese coders couldn't be bothered to finish off...including the all important "help" knowledge base.

3) Machine stands made from very low quality recycled steel. The welding might be good, it might be horrific. You might get a suitable size and thickness of steel...you'll probably get thin, cheap sections which wobble and work their retaining bolts loose when the machine is running. If the Chines fabricator was in a good mood your frame will be square, plumb and true. If he was having a bad day the frame will be so badly out of true you'll have to toss it.

4) Plastic machine covers and guards made from the cheapest crappiest plastic known to man. These will be roughly the right shape but not absolutely spot on (this lack of precision flows through everything on the machine).

5) Cheap, domestic Chinese motion control cards and motors which are weedy and prone to failure. If you're lucky the Chinese electrician will have wired your motion controls properly... if you're unlucky they will have not bothered adding the right suppression components which will mean lots & lots of blown drives. Teeny underpowered stepper drives with an accuracy envelope a mile wide.... no expensive servos with feedback just rough steppers which loose position for fun.

6) All electronic components sourced from weird & wonderful Chinese sub contractors... no component markings mean you don't know what the components are and have no way of sourcing replacements. Even if you do know what the part number is you'll have to buy replacements from China....re buying the same $hit quality parts which let you down in the first place.

7) Old fashioned technology.... people like Mitsubishi and Siemens aren't stupid. Chinese machine manufacturers are allowed access to certain types of components... big US, European & Japanese manufacturers won't sell their latest technology into China because they know it'll be ripped off within a week. The Chinese get 1st or 2nd generation technology to play with.

8) Paint finishes which fall off in a stiff breeze.

9) Unhelpful "get flucked" attitude towards questions & complaints. "you say it broken we say you are stupid moron.. machine good.. you bad". Every tech support question is a least one day away and limited to email. If the Chinese can be @rsed they'll answer your query... if you're becoming a pain in the @rse expect an empty inbox and a deafening silence. If you want an on site engineer to call you're paying for a someone to fly over from China and stay in a hotel... you'll also need to speak Mandarin or else it's all finger pointing and thumbs up.. thumbs down.

10) A warranty which really is utterly worthless. Chinese supplier with a Chinese warranty issued under Chinese law.... they tell you to "fluck off" and you've got to sue them in China using a Chinese lawyer relying on the vagaries of a legal system run by the Chinese communist party.

If you've ever played with a Chinese made vinyl cutter you'll know exactly the type of thing you're going to get when you buy a printer.... a poorly designed, badly made machine which is chock full of cheap components bolted onto some of the most badly designed, poorly executed control software you've ever seen.

The Chinese cutters made in 2011 are frickin horrific even compared to the antique machines made in the late 1980's. If you don't know any better then they're a cheap tool...if you know all about vinyl they leave you slack jawed in amazement... "how can they make such $hitty machines in this day in age... how is that possible".

Buy a secondhand machine from a UK supplier....save yourself a huge amount of @rse ache and get printing stuff you can actually sell for a profit from day one.

 

[astro8]

I think andy summed it up pretty well.

 

[signmeup]

I think andy summed it up pretty well.

I think andy is seriously deluded. If he opened up his Japanese printer I would be gobsmacked if he didn't find it full of Chinese electronic components. Most Japanese products are now manufactured in China as are most of the planets products. There is nothing inherently wrong with Chinese workers, designers, engineers, etc. The low quality andy speaks of is a result of greedy importers wanting higher profits. The Chinese are fully capable of manufacturing whatever quality you order and are willing to pay for.

 

[V-P]

Whhhoooohh. Andy !
I couldn't expect a more detailed answer !
Thank you sir !
I will print your post and show it to my boss !
I strongly believe we will go for a used one and NOT Chinese.
Can you point me to some dealer web site so I have some info ?
Thnx again !

 

[BargainSigns]

I have 3 Mimaki cutters, two of which we've had for 20 years (yes, that old) and besides replacing rollers and blades, they have never failed (knock on wood). When it came time to buy a printer, we stuck with Mimaki (and also bought a CG-160FX cutter). These things have been work horses for us. If I have a problem, there is a tech down the street. I'm sold on the big names. You get what you pay for. My $.02!

 

[kimd]

Parts..........

While back I use to work for a tool company and all their products were made from China. The biggest complaints from consumer were parts. It was a lot easier (and cheaper) for the tool company to replace the tools.

Compare any cheap electronics like dvd player or tv's. The knockoff brand quality is below par compare to a name brand. Name brands tend to last longer.

I own Mimika printers and cutters. They're awesome, the support is great and no complaints.

 

[artbot]

i'd expect to have to do some fit and finish if the printer was hastily assembled. printer function on a specific requirements for the vacuum to work, for the ink to run so slightly downhill into the head, etc. all the right parts may be there. hell, the capping stations and stuff that i use on my jv3 are from china. but is it all drilled and level and lined up perfectly? also, just in case, i'd ask for maybe two extra belts, an xy motor, pully, pump, etc. worst that can happen is you'll have them in stock. but they could need replacing soon if the printer was produced on a budget.

 

[andy]

I think andy is seriously deluded. If he opened up his Japanese printer I would be gobsmacked if he didn't find it full of Chinese electronic components. Most Japanese products are now manufactured in China as are most of the planets products. There is nothing inherently wrong with Chinese workers, designers, engineers, etc. The low quality andy speaks of is a result of greedy importers wanting higher profits. The Chinese are fully capable of manufacturing whatever quality you order and are willing to pay for.

If your Japanese printer is made in China it doesn't mean it's Chinese... it means it's a printer built to a Japanese design & a Japanese standard overseen by Japanese engineers mass produced using master tooling made in Japan.

If you remove the Japanese expertise from the equation you loose the precision engineering, the extensive R&D database and the inherent understanding of what Professional Quality looks like to a western buyer.

The only way you will see whether I'm deluded or not is to pony up for Chinese printer and see what falls out of the shipping container... until you actually see and work with a genuine designed & made in China machine you won't actually know.

As far as the OP goes... I check out the Impact Vehicle Outline fella... last time I looked on his site he had plenty of used printers for sale.

 

[signmeup]

If your Japanese printer is made in China it doesn't mean it's Chinese... it means it's a printer built to a Japanese design & a Japanese standard overseen by Japanese engineers mass produced using master tooling made in Japan.

If you remove the Japanese expertise from the equation you loose the precision engineering, the extensive R&D database and the inherent understanding of what Professional Quality looks like to a western buyer.

The only way you will see whether I'm deluded or not is to pony up for Chinese printer and see what falls out of the shipping container... until you actually see and work with a genuine designed & made in China machine you won't actually know.

As far as the OP goes... I check out the Impact Vehicle Outline fella... last time I looked on his site he had plenty of used printers for sale.

Is this what you did?

 

[andy]

Is this what you did?

Luckily the only thing I've wasted my money on have been a pair of cheap Chinese vinyl plotters which hit the bottom of our skip in fully working condition.

I don't cut much vinyl these days but even so these Chinese Junkers weren't worth keeping even though they still worked perfectly, in the Chinese sense of the word.

What did I replace these chit piles with? A pair of rare-as-hens-teeth Vyteks from the early 1990's. Compared to 2010 Chinese technology these antique Vyteks look like a vision from the future... properly made, properly built, a product which isn't worn out even after 25 years of hard, commercial use.

If you want to buy brand new Chinese machinery that's upto you... my experience tells me that it's an utter waste of time and money. Quality is more important than price... always.

 

[signmeup]

You are comparing products that cost vastly different amounts of money. You have astutely observed that you get what you pay for.(aren't you a clever one) If I purchase a cheap anything I expect that it will require more diligence and care on my part to have it perform in an acceptable fashion... and not expect it to perform as well as a machine costing 10 times as much.

 

[iSign]

Well, he is answering a direct inquiry from someone not entirely yet sold on that astute observation at the time of this posting... so don't shoot the messenger, as they say... when someone did ask for the message...

 

[signmeup]

Well, he is answering a direct inquiry from someone not entirely yet sold on that astute observation at the time of this posting... so don't shoot the messenger, as they say... when someone did ask for the message...

Andy seems to be comparing a cheap plotter he bought years ago with a new wide format printer he has never seen. Not a very useful comparison in my humble opinion. I was merely pointing this out.

I think it would be interesting to try one of these printers out and see if it worked. Not take the word of someone who has never even seen one. The problem appears to be that no one has seen or tried these things, yet they are happy to tell you how bad they are. I wouldn't condemn a companies products if I had no knowledge of how they actually performed. They may be awful... they may be great... I don't know.


Myself... I would probably buy a new or used brand name. I'm quite smitten with the new 20" Roland, truth be told.

 

[astro8]

If you go to the chinese sign shows like we do you can see for yourself.

I personaly know 3 chinese sign shop owners, just in this street. They are always over there looking at stuff. They bring back containers of acrylic, aluminium extrusion, some acp and 'celuka'. Some of the slimline lightboxes are ok. No way will they buy chinese printers, plotters, cnc routers, lasers or print media...no matter the price, they reckon it's all junk. They want big name stuff although one did bring back a hand crank applicator.

We're going to the next chinese sign show with one of them to take a look but I don't hold any hopes of coming back with any machinery because like they say...it's all junk!

 

[Custom_Grafx]

+1 to astro;

I think they might get there eventually... but still a long way to go. I mean... they can't even make a simple machine like a guillotine that cut perpendicular... that says a lot re precision etc.

Once the Chinese find the right balance between price and quality, I think they have the potential to be leaders... but till then, they are continuing to damage their own reputation as a result of their current attitude.

I've detected that there are some products seeping through slowly which have demonstrated their ability to produce quality... but until that quality is demanded exclusively, and buyers are will to pay for it... it is exactly that. Junk.

A good saying I hear a lot of in manufacturing.

"The poor man pays twice".

and from what I've seen... sometimes three, four, five, six, even seven times.

Why don't you get one Chinese one, and one Brand one... use the Chinese one till it screws you... then try to fix it when it does... and when you can't fix it, just start using the brand one?

 

[signmeup]

Does anyone on this forum actually have a Chinese wide format printer or are we doomed to suffer more anecdotal evidence?

 

[Custom_Grafx]

Signmeup you are right. I apologise for speculating without actual experience with the printer and providing anecdotal content.

 

[bob]

Does anyone on this forum actually have a Chinese wide format printer or are we doomed to suffer more anecdotal evidence?

It's not so much anecdotal as it is inferential. It is perfectly reasonable to presume that if someone cannot do X then they cannot do X' as well.

The general consensus from those, myself included, that have experienced Chinese cutting tackle that this sort of gear created, as in designed and implemented, in China is not even close, in all regards except perhaps price, to the same gear made elsewhere.

That being the case it's not fallacious to assume that their printers, which exhibit all of the characteristics of a plotter with the added complexity of squirting ink in lieu of merely dropping a blade on the media are no better designed or constructed.

Pot metal fasteners, holes that don't come close to lining up, incomprehensible but often entertaining manuals, equally incomprehensible control panel sequences, non-existent technical support, repeatability that's a joke, seemingly endless parts replacement if you're sufficiently fortunate to be able to actually get parts, and generally mediocre, at best, performance. If you have an obscure brand Chinese machine and think it performs well I would give good odds that you've never wrangled a brand name machine.

 

[astro8]

signmeup, I've seen chinese printers running, not working & pulled apart. I know two unfortunates who have bought them. They have then had me print their workload whilst they were trying to fix them and get them running. They have then tried to offload them to some other unfortunate.

I've seen chinese printers at trade shows with 'techs' all over them trying to get them running. I've looked inside them, behind them and up their arse...they're junk.

Good luck trying to sell a chinese printer over here and a second hand one...forget it.

They'll get better in time no doubt, just like the japanese, then the taiwanese and lately the koreans have.