Changing To Mimaki From Roland

[Bingleardicus]

I recommend the Epson SC-S80600. Here are some points in favor of it compared to other printers:
- very sharp output, even with bidirectional printing
- deep blacks, widest color gamut of all. Hitting Pantone colors is no problem with standard profiles. Try that with any other brand or printer.
- gloss of media is kept. The ink of a UCJV is matte, and you need a special laminate to reduce the effect of slivering.
- ease of use of maintenance and setup of different media types. 30 memory slots for media types. With Mimaki it’s 4.
- much more silent than a JV300, smells less
- the available media profiles that you can download from Epsons cloud are very good. Gray is neutral.
- you can use your 10th ink slot for white, metallic or a cleaning cartridge, and swap if you want too.
- the ink costs less than standard SS21 ink from Mimaki. It’s even cheaper if you get the 80600L
- WAY less banding issues compared to Mimaki
- the media take up system is a lot better. It only winds up if instructed. Mimaki’s take up system constantly pulls the media

And last but not least: get a demo on all machines you consider of course

Are the experiences youve mentioned with Mimaki units first hand?

 

[yannb]

Are the experiences youve mentioned with Mimaki units first hand?

Yes it is. I do tech support for both Mimaki and Epson at a dealer in Europe. Mimaki’s got some great products, like their flatbed UV’s. The UCJV is a fine choice if you need a roll to roll UV for the opacity of the white, for the scratch resistance of the ink, the possibility to print in up to 5 layers at a time, or compatibility with low cost media, all combined with cutting on the machine. Do not consider it as a replacement for a solvent printer if sharpness, great color or speed is what you’re after. The color gamut is less than stellar because the ink is matte. Forget prints for vehicle wrap purposes. The LUS170 ink breaks more easily, cracks if you are curing 3M SV480 at the recommended temperature. UV light has an impact on vinyl too. It becomes brittle, so if you want to remove it, it breaks more easily. The solvent JV300 (Plus) is capable of good prints too of course, but it’s nowhere as good as the 80600 or 60600. Everything is so much harder to accomplish. An example are the profiles. Forget about printing neutral grey with the profiles Mimaki bundles. If you want to print large dark solid colors, make sure you’ve set their MAPS to manual and finetune media feed, or you’ll get banding. The 80600 prints these solids with ease at 8pHQ or 12p. Try to get a demo for these machines, and bring a file that has large areas of the same colors, like dark brown, olive green, medium grey, orange. Pick Pantone colors for the ease of use. You’ll be amazed how good the color fidelity of the Epson is. Also let them print an RGB greyscale photo, some very small text. Listen to the sound the printers make when they’re busy. Look at the size of the after heater of the Epson and JV300, the difference in build quality of the under carriage. Mimaki’s Rasterlink rip is not very good with PDF’s too. It doesn’t like multi page PDF much (freaky behavior sometimes), and totally disregards embedded ICC profiles in PDF or overprint settings.

 

[BigfishDM]

I do need white ink. I am going to be printing on a lot of large engine turn metalized material. But have not pulled the trigger on anything yet and I’m still open to suggestions.

I have seen a lot of success on the Mimaki UCJV series. I can print some file for you if you wish.

 

[Rickey J]

I have seen a lot of success on the Mimaki UCJV series. I can print some file for you if you wish.

Thank you! I actually just received the printer today and it will be inked up and ready on Monday. How is your machine inked up?