I was considering the sinocolor. Ask them if it's a legit copy or cracked... My bet is it's cracked, but you can buy an official Flexi and it'd still work. Or "rent" it... I believe it's $100 a month.ikarasu I'm currently looking at sinocolor brand for a mini flatbed printer. Especially to make braille and tactile products. I want something cheap to get my feet wet before going with a big brand. It's pretty hard to compared one brand to another mainly to see their after sales service. But I like they can provide flexisign as the software for extra bucks but was concern it could be a cracked version. I'm looking at their A2 version with the roll&laminate kit and the price is around 7k$usd before any shipping. I've estimate around 12k$cnd after all expenses to be here in Canada.
What make you buy your particular brand, what was the cost of the machine and the final price at your door?
I researched a few companies - it wasn't the best looking printer out there, but they printed and recorded some samples for me, and the colors were accurate as well as they looked nice.. I sent a design with a dark grey, light grey, and white image on it... Most suppliers sent me photos of a light blue because it didn't print grey good ... I knew color profiling a Chinese printer would be a pain so I went for the one that was closest.
Make sure you buy from Alibaba and not direct.... Alibaba has very strict protections, and they always side with the buyer.
Just checking out my bill... I got a 33x60... Slightly bigger than most of the desktop flatbeds... And I paid $3420 usd shipped, and with 2 liters of each color of ink.
Only downfall of mine is the software, yours may be more due to Flexi - is it an xp600 head? I also went with the budget / slower heads thinking I'd be going through them like crazy... But haven't killed one yet. would I pay 3-4k more to have Flexi? Not while I'm still getting my toes wet.... This printer works, very good for braille and tactile, I only hate the software because of white ink.
Send them / their support questions during your business hours, see how long they take to respond.
Ask them for real time videos of a sample file with braille and tactile printing... I can print braille in 30 seconds, an 8" x 8" stair tactile sign takes about 15 mins each...
Ask about ink and shipping as well. I pay $30usd per liter for ink, but shipping is expensive, it has to go by air so it generally takes a week only, I get 3 liters of each at a time and shippings $1-150.
And I know I've said it, but I can't stress it enough... Buy it through Alibaba. If it gets damaged during shipping, or they send you cracked software while saying it's not.... Or you have an issue after a week of it working, Alibaba has your back... Your cc company will not.
And get familiar with WeChat if you're not. All support goes through WeChat... It's like their version of WhatsApp!