Mike - that Novus IS pretty "different" eh? I love the 3 year warranty (especially on new technology) and the fact the inks are more green with less VOCs than UV. I'll get bashed for it, but a lot of our customers here in the NW require us to be as green as possible, one of the reason we went with the large latext roll-to-roll. Dang hippies!
Just wish it was farther along and I could see sample prints, specs, etc...but April isn't that far out I guess!
Gino - How has service been for you? Are they local? Average response time, etc?
We got our machine in February of '10.
They came, set it up and we had it running by the end of the first day. By lunchtime the next day we were producing signs. He went home early.
He hasn't been back since. Well, once. He was doing some work locally in another shop and dropped in to say hi and look at his baby, again. We've had no need for a tech on site, but have made a few inquiries over the phone which other than one time when he was on vacation and another time he was in another shop doing an install, they take our calls immediately. Agfa themselves in less then 2 hours away from us. We've never really needed their help either.
In our shop, I'm blessed with a very good and creative right-arm man. He is so techie, it ain't funny. He has actually helped the techs out when they call
us for information. He has done things with this machine, the rep asked how we did it and he just says read and common sense.
However, on some issues about adhesion or profiles, we took some shortcuts and like I said..... the people were most helpful.
I'm not pushing the Agfa, but I think you need to do like any smart business person and take files and lots of them to a dealer and have them demonstrate one for an entire day and make sure it does everything you want or expect it to do. Do this with the same files with all of the distributors and then make decisions. All of us have a certain amount of sentimental value connected with our machines and want to feel we've made excellent decisions, so we recommend them. What works for us or someone else on this site, might not be your cup a tea.