Are HP Latex 800W printers actually okay now?

[Jake Indiana]

I have an HP800W that is absolute garbage. We bought one of the first 800s in our area and had so many problems with it that they replaced it with another printer. Unfortunately this printer is just as bad. It's cost me around $15,000 between repairs and ruined material. Not to mention all the downtime. Now I'm stuck with this money pit machine and I'm trying to figure out our next steps. I've heard people say that the new 800Ws are okay now but it's hard to trust that with the experience I've had. Is there a better Latex printer out there or should I take my chances buying another HP machine?

 

[balstestrat]

It 100% depends on what issues you currently have. Not just having to swap printheads but is it a real problem that is not fixed or are you just having a "feature".
But if anything I'd wait for L830W to come out.

 

[Jake Indiana]

Do you know when the 830 is coming out?
As far as problems, I've had the ink lines replaced twice. I've had the data cables going to the printheads replaced twice. I've had the motherboard go out. And I replaced all of my printheads last week and I've had 2 go out since. Its a connection problem more than a printhead problem.

 

[balstestrat]

I honestly have no idea but all the signs point to that it will be released very soon. Personally I think before the summer. Maybe in some next big trade show Fespa ex.

You've had some bad luck there. I haven't replaced any SRK since the rework for old units. No motherboard either. And I can only speak from my experience but not too much issues overall as of lately, like I already said before.

If you have some contract on it I would push them more.

You don't happen to have a lot of problems with OP?

 

[FlyingSquirrelBrigade]

Epson r5070 works great, doesn't do white though. Doesn't require numerous head swaps and the ink doesn't expire in a jiffy either. Doesn't do white though. s80600 does all our roll to roll whites. We had the HP 570 and it was a thousand problems like your 800. Couldn't get rid of that thing fast enough. Someone paid $8,000 for it and I was over the flipping moon. Almost two years on the r5070, only irritant has been some weird auto stop on prints when it thinks a roll is done and it isn't. We figured it out, more of a settings/feature issue.

 

[bERT bRYAN]

We bought a 700W last year and have had a ton of problems with it. Not sure when you bought your 800W, but our printer is almost to the one year mark this month, and we've had HP techs out to our shop 3 different times fixing the white ink system and printhead trouble. Thank the Lord for the Warranty.
One of HPs biggest selling point was how long the printheads lasted and how cheap they were VS. an eco-solvent printer, but I've had to replace every printhead at least once, some of them twice. That adds up quickly. It stinks too because I like to have spares of the most important parts on the printer, so I've bought extra printheads as a backup so we can swap them out if we ever get a headstrike because we can't afford the downtime.

I've heard the 700/800W has the best white on the market, I know Roland has a White ink option but I have heard the color gamut on that specific printer isn't great.
Oxford Graphics in Little Rock, AR has 2 800Ws, the main man over there likes them a lot, but he definitely hasn't had the problems me and you have had lol.

We are not far from swapping back to an eco-solvent if we have any more trouble.

 

[Jake Indiana]

It's tough because when the printer works, I do actually like it. Its fast and the white is very good. It's just a lot of maintenance/repairs/downtime which we can't afford either. It feels like I've been playing catch-up for months now. HP just closed my case because I didn't have time to sit on the phone with them but I have 2 printheads that went out last week.

 

[Jake Indiana]

I honestly have no idea but all the signs point to that it will be released very soon. Personally I think before the summer. Maybe in some next big trade show Fespa ex.

You've had some bad luck there. I haven't replaced any SRK since the rework for old units. No motherboard either. And I can only speak from my experience but not too much issues overall as of lately, like I already said before.

If you have some contract on it I would push them more.

You don't happen to have a lot of problems with OP?

I haven't had too much more trouble with OP than the rest of it. I do remember I had a leak in that line and it pooled in the printer casing. My last issue was with OC. I printed an entire roll of 3M Optically clear vinyl and the OC just stopped printing 20' into the roll. That was expensive. Also just remembered (because it just happened) but I've had a lot of problems with the cutter. I've had it grab the cutter while printing and cut the material, it's "dropped" the cutter a few times in the middle of cutting and it's knocked the cutter off the end of the rail so it fell off into the bottom of the housing.

 

[bigben]

I've had the 700w for around three years now and never had any problems with it. Last fall, HP issued a recall on the tubes and motherboard (I think), and everything was done for free, even though the machine was out of warranty. The technician had to replace the tube system 24 hours later due to a manufacturing defect in the part. As compensation, HP sent me a full set of ink cartridges.

I love the opacity of the white ink, and we’ve learned how to use it creatively to give our prints a different tint. We mainly use it to create our own frosted vinyl with gradients and/or patterns. Yes, we occasionally get minor print issues like banding, but we've learned how to fix it. I just wish the color gamut were wider and the droplets smaller.

 

[balstestrat]

Do you know when the 830 is coming out?

Maybe you noticed but it's out now with all the nice improvements.