Big Hybrid vs Medium Flatbed for display and signage?

[PrintItBig]

Hi,


We've been looking at flatbeds for a while and are at the point where we need to stop procrastinating and make a decision. Due to various reasons that I won't go in to these are the 2 models available to us.


We want to print all kinds of display related products, Foam PVC, ACM, Acrylic, Banner, Vinyl, Correx, Eflute, Bflute, etc. Some of our stuff is for close viewing and some is not. I just wanted to get some subjective opinions on which one to chose. We realise they're quite different machines and there probably isn't a right or wrong answer, we're just trying to gather as much opinion as possible to help us make a decision.


Jetrix KX6
True flat bed with a roll to roll option
Max sheet size = 2440mm x 1220mm (8ft x 4ft)
Max roll width = 2.2m (86”)
Cheap ink
Permanent white ink
2 year warranty including heads and subsequent years at £6.5K ($10K) per year
Very good quality print
Roughly 2 to 3 times quicker than the HP for similar quality
Roll to roll not as good as HP


HP FB750
Big hybrid
Max sheet size = 2500mm (98.4") x as long as you like
Max roll width = 2.5m (98.4")
Better ink adhesion than Jetrix
White ink involves switching out the Light Cyan and Light Magenta inks - £40 ($40) each way
1 year warranty (no heads) and subsequent years at £10K ($15K) per year
Print quality not as good as the Jetrix
Has to be slowed down to print without banding
Pretty reliable roll to roll


It's a tough one because we're torn between the quality, speed and white ink of the Jetrix vs the unrestricted size and better ink adhesion of the HP.


The Jetrix is about £5K more than the HP but the running costs are lower.


Anyone have an opinion? What would you do?


Thanks.


http://jetrix-usa.com/index.php/PRODUCTS/jetrix-kx6/
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/commercial-printers/scitex-presses/fb750.html#!&pd1=1

 

[artbot]

having used both a belt feed and a true flatbed, i much prefer the work flow of the belt. i would never have predicted this because beforehand, i was anti-belt. but then i'd used neither.

 

[PrintItBig]

Thanks for the reply Artbot.

So if it was your money and it was choice between those 2, you'd go HP?

 

[Gino]

Something very basic to keep in mind.

Up until you get one, size has never been an issue for you, because you ordered what you needed and worked around any problems. You either laid the vinyl on or subbed it out and size restrictions were someone else's worry. I based almost all production work around 4 x 8 until we got our flatbed. Now, the amount of times we use 5 x 10s 5 x 12s 4 x 20 is amazing. If you restrict yourself to the 4 x 8, you will be doing yourself a disservice. Having the larger capabilities is a huge plus. Once you are set up and running and wanna dive into a second flatbad, then consider a high end true flatbed.

 

[artbot]

when looking/choosing flatbeds we obsessed about resolution and color and speed. after having one on the production floor, we ended up obsessing about the actual things that you really need: adhesion, speed, heads being warm and ready without purging, heat warping, vacuum strength to avoid head crashes, where to set up a sheet/where to off load. the latter is the real world vs the "flatbed fantasy".

 

[PrintItBig]

Something very basic to keep in mind.

Up until you get one, size has never been an issue for you, because you ordered what you needed and worked around any problems. You either laid the vinyl on or subbed it out and size restrictions were someone else's worry. I based almost all production work around 4 x 8 until we got our flatbed. Now, the amount of times we use 5 x 10s 5 x 12s 4 x 20 is amazing. If you restrict yourself to the 4 x 8, you will be doing yourself a disservice. Having the larger capabilities is a huge plus. Once you are set up and running and wanna dive into a second flatbad, then consider a high end true flatbed.

Thanks for the reply, I hear what you're saying, I'm just not sure whether having to print everything slower (half the speed minimum) is a good trade off compared to the times we'd have to work around the size issue? We do have roll to roll machines and a laminator so can still do 5ft x whatever just not as easily, quickly or cheaply.

Also, the white ink on the HP irks me slightly. I can see us just never using it due to the changeover cost. It's quite difficult to anticipate how much we'll need / miss certain features until we get the machine.

 

[PrintItBig]

when looking/choosing flatbeds we obsessed about resolution and color and speed. after having one on the production floor, we ended up obsessing about the actual things that you really need: adhesion, speed, heads being warm and ready without purging, heat warping, vacuum strength to avoid head crashes, where to set up a sheet/where to off load. the latter is the real world vs the "flatbed fantasy".

Thanks for the reply. Does that mean you're voting hybrid or flatbed?

 

[artbot]

i'd go hybrid. that's me. the vacuum strength (on mine) is triple what a true flatbed has. smaller plenum equals more grip? i like clunking the sheet into the stops, feeling it really lock in and "i'm square". other flatbeds have pins that pop up to register, mine didn't. maybe that's a wash. you feel you are always close to the print. the screen is to your right or left, the head is passing at that same point. on a true flatbed, if you feel that just maybe there's a vacuum issue on one corner, or you want to make sure your white is behaving, you might find yourself running around this giant ping pong table to say "yep, we're good" or "eek...pause!" (in this case the pause button is 14' away). the size of the printer and it's foot print is customizable. say you are printing tons of 24 x 36's. you can set a group of stops on the bar, take away all the tables and you are stepping right up to the belt and loading while it's printing. i don't even want to know how this work flow is supposed to go with a true flatbed. also, when the print is done. the head carriage parks and is ready to go. true flatbed?.... "uh.... wait, i have to jog back.. .alllll the way back to home. it's a pain. you want to load a sheet but you are jogging back home.

if you like walking, waiting, running, leaning, hoping, slapping, taping, squinting... go true flatbed.

 

[Zendavor Signs]

This is very interesting. We have been die hard true flatbed, but I was tainted by or first colorspan hybrid that was a nightmare. I know the belt fed systems are better, just been skeptical, especially of odd shaped pre cut pieces.

 

[klmiller611]

I have no background with a true flatbed, other than watching one at a nearby shop. We have the AGFA Anapurna Mv which is a hybrid with the roll option.I can that in our case, the varnish has been a total waste of time, only used it once or twice in the time we have had the machine since December 2008. In fact, those heads were flushed out and have flushing solution in them all the time. We considered the Fuji Acuity, with the white ink option, but ultimately decided to get the Anapurna for two reasons, one it was about $30,000 cheaper, second, we could only see an occasional use of white ink. The maintenance and cost of it would be beyond our use, which is pretty much the same to be said for the varnish.


The roll to roll option is more than a bit of a pain, I don't really print a huge amount of roll stuff, and usually, it is a one off item, not multiples. Moving the feed tables out, threading up the vinyl/banner whatever is a pain in the butt and usually takes longer than it does to print the job. So, I do what the Agfa guy told me they do for demos, they just lay the roll out on the table, line it up and let it roll. Normally that works fine.We print mostly hardboard, gator, foam, sintra, coro and styrene. The biggest complaint I have on this machine is the belt feed. The belt should have been designed with a sprocket feed as getting it tightened to run perfectly straight is near impossible for me.


I feel like a hybrid offers some great options, but one thing to keep in mind is that belt needs to be kept clean, no overspray, dust dirt, as it all causes you to lose some vacuum pressure, and with the heat of the lamps on stuff like coro, with less vacuum, it is far easier for the coro to pop loose from the table, causing a head strike. This is particularly a problem with the heavy coro, 12mm, I think, if I print that, I have to stand there and hold it down to keep it from bowing from the heat. I've given up printing those and now print vinyl and adhere it, as it almost always popped on the second side print, rarely the first! Gee, imagine that.

If I had it to do over again, I think I'd still opt for the 6 colors, but I would skip on varnish or white.Good luck and keep us posted


Ken Miller

 

[ChrisN]

Having operated both a hybrid (Anapurna m4f) and a flatbed (CET Q1000), I will say that there are benefits and downsides to both.

Roll-to-roll is one obvious benefit of a hybrid versus the flatbed we have, since CET doesn't offer a roll-to-roll option. Since Jetrix does offer a R2R option, the benefits of the HP over it are not as great. But, I really like HP's short run roll feed solution. Just plop your roll on the roller trays included, and feed through with the belt.

One benefit of a flatbed versus a hybrid is the increased vacuum strength. Just the other day, I printed onto a warped sheet of 10mm coroplast. Just tape around the board, and it sucks down flat. I could never have done that on our hybrid. HP does have warped media hold-down rollers, but using them subtracts ~24" off of the usable length of the board.

Another benefit of a flatbed is much easier registration. With a hybrid, you are just registering one end of the sheet, and when fed through the machine, it tends to "walk" to one side. With a flatbed, you throw the sheet on, slide it against the pins, registering the whole side, and the sheet doesn't move while being printed. Of course, getting perfect double-sided registration on a substrate with wavy edges such as coroplast is still not as easy as a slide-it-against-the-pins straight-edged substrate, but much easier than on a hybrid.

White ink is a really nice option to have, but if you have to flush lines & heads every time you want to use it, you probably won't use it nearly as often as you would on a system with dedicated white ink.

My advice is, if you want to do mostly sheets and double-sided printing, a flatbed is the way to go because of the superior registration. However, if you want to do mainly roll to roll with the option of running sheets through every now and then, a hybrid might be your best bet.

 

[artbot]

maybe vacuum strength is a printer by printer basis. my old H700's vacuum strength is insane. the CET FK i used previously was tepid. i saw an Oce' xt (new) just recently, though very quiet compared to my H700, it wasn't very strong but it was decent.

one thing to point out. vacuum strength has to do with the holes being clean. i did take off the belt about a year ago and cleaned the plenum and all it's holes, and the belt got a nice solvent bath. my vacuum strength went from decent to "violent grip". on any flatbed what looks like a hole can eventually become lines with semi cured ink, dust, etc. every time you plop a sheet on a flatbed hybrid vs true, that vacuum system becomes a vacuum cleaner and sucks all the particles off the back of the sheet. it can really build up over time.

 

[Andy D]

I know this isn't what you asked but I thought I would throw it out there.
We went with the Anapurna 2500i, its a 98" belt fed with 98" roll to roll.
It has CMYK LC LM and White.
I'm not crazy about the GUI but I Love the printer, I has worked flawlessly
with a few exceptions and Agfa had people on site the very next day to resolve
a few hiccups.

We paid $190k and got 4 years "bumper to bumper" warranty.
I even had a head strike that didn't effect the heads but put the print plate
out of level and they fixed it no questions asked.

I think the price has dropped to the $180k range
It might be worth a look.....