Discussion Convince me not to buy a Colorado...

[Johnny Best]

Because it cost as much as a Bently.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

You allowed to vent print fumes directly to the atmosphere? Doesn't sound good

 

[victor bogdanov]

You allowed to vent print fumes directly to the atmosphere? Doesn't sound good

Dump the fumes into your shop is better?

 

[nssignguy]

If I recall aren't you in Winnipeg? If Grimco is the problem have you looked at other suppliers like ND Graphics?

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Dump the fumes into your shop is better?

Shouldn't it be filtered before it exhausts to atmosphere?

 

[victor bogdanov]

Shouldn't it be filtered before it exhausts to atmosphere?

Probably not as bad as spray paint or nail polish or your favorite green activist billionaire taking a flight to eat dinner

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

That's right... I forgot you live in Houston. Chemical cloud leaks and big booty hood girls. It's a whole other world down there.

 

[victor bogdanov]

That's right... I forgot you live in Houston. Chemical cloud leaks and big booty hood girls. It's a whole other world down there.

Not far from Pasadena, my printer fumes are a paradise compared to what they're breathing in Pasadena

 

[Pauly]

Do you have an addional fan to blow the air out, I could vent mine pretty easily. Can you share what set up you used

To do it properly. Canon will come and remove the filter+ the fan and install the aluminium shroud.
The required CFM is in the manual, it's quite low. i used a basic inline fan from the hardware store which was more than enough CFM for the application. same OD as the shroud.
the ducting we bought has he same OD as the shroud.

 

[Pauly]

Thanks Pauly, good to hear you've had a positive experience with yours.

That's also good to know about the quality compared to Epson, that's a big factor for us and most of what we do. (small stickers)

Knowing how much you guys are spending on filters, I'd probably opt to vent the unit outside. It wasn't terribly expensive to have our fume extraction installed for the laser and I don't love the idea of yet another expensive consumable to add to the list.

Our Epson seems to be mostly back to normal, and despite 2-3 days of delays I've finally received some phone support from a couple of different dealers. We still don't know what happened to this thing, but we've run a few rolls successfully without it throwing any errors, so that's progress.

I think for now I'll slow the pace and do some proper research on this printer. I was very close to pulling the trigger on the M5 but now that the urgency is gone I'd be wise to make sure this is actually a good move for us.
I'd like to see/handle sample prints from our files and compare to output from the Epson, and get some hands on experience with one of them.

There is still a scenario where we could use all 3 printers for their own best uses, but if I'm spending that kind of money on a roll to roll printer it better be able to handle most of our work.

Thanks again for all the valuable input, I really appreciate it.

From what i've learnt in the last few years. CPP ANZ vs Canon america (what ever Oce is now called over there) are completely different in their customer service. Country size etc does have a part to play, but we're an hour away from their head office in melbourne but we still get same day response if we get a breakdown.

I personally think it's worth spending $2-3k on extraction. it'll cost the same in filters for a few years. It doesn't smell bad or anything. but it does make a difference in the air around.

IMO
you want the quality of the epson. get more of them. get the successor to the 80600 which i think its the P20500.
The colorado will be a downgrade in quality, but a nice speed bump and cheaper to run.

At this point, you're looking at what you're producing vs what you need.

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

The Colorado line seems like a fairly good printer but if you're not a shop that needs to print at least 5 rolls a day it's not your best bet.
Redundancy is also important for volume shops, too.
I've been selling the Epson S60 with an additional 4 years of warranty for $25k with inks and full install so my customers can buy 2 printers that have a full 5 year service plan and still be less than one Colorado.
Also, ink cost, on the standard S60 it's 24 cents per milliliter but the Bulk ink version, the S60L it's 16 cents per MlL Which is typical as a square foot cost during printing.
Here's a video of me running tests for a customer in 4 pass high quality mode printing more than 1 linear foot per minute.

Bruce

 

[tudouqiezi]

I'm on the fence too, I want faster printing speeds, the easy to use white ink is fantastic, and I hate the occasional battle with laminating stained dust and the time wasted reprinting prints waiting for them to dry. But then came the downsides, it doesn't have the same color gamut as my Epson 80600 , and I'm worried about whether the car wrap will go well.

 

[White Haus]

The Colorado line seems like a fairly good printer but if you're not a shop that needs to print at least 5 rolls a day it's not your best bet.
Redundancy is also important for volume shops, too.
I've been selling the Epson S60 with an additional 4 years of warranty for $25k with inks and full install so my customers can buy 2 printers that have a full 5 year service plan and still be less than one Colorado.
Also, ink cost, on the standard S60 it's 24 cents per milliliter but the Bulk ink version, the S60L it's 16 cents per MlL Which is typical as a square foot cost during printing.
Here's a video of me running tests for a customer in 4 pass high quality mode printing more than 1 linear foot per minute.

Bruce

Yeah we're definitely not running 5 rolls a day here. I thought the barrier to entry for Colorado was more like 10ish rolls a month? Either way, more machine than we need for now.

I wish we had options like you're offering here in Canada, the Epson dealers up here don't know what they're doing when it comes to tech support, let alone profiling.

Now that we've gotten our S60 back up (still don't know what happened) it's back to being a great unit.

We're not printing anywhere near those speeds however. I'll send you a PM regarding the profiling if you don't mind, would love to pick your brain regarding how we can create some good fast profiles for this thing. I built a handful when we first got it and haven't had time to build or recalibrate since.

 

[MarkSnelling]

Yeah we're definitely not running 5 rolls a day here. I thought the barrier to entry for Colorado was more like 10ish rolls a month? Either way, more machine than we need for now.

I wish we had options like you're offering here in Canada, the Epson dealers up here don't know what they're doing when it comes to tech support, let alone profiling.

Now that we've gotten our S60 back up (still don't know what happened) it's back to being a great unit.

We're not printing anywhere near those speeds however. I'll send you a PM regarding the profiling if you don't mind, would love to pick your brain regarding how we can create some good fast profiles for this thing. I built a handful when we first got it and haven't had time to build or recalibrate since.

If you think the Colorado is too much of a work horse (and it is), then take a look at the Roland XP 640. You can load it up with two rows of CMYK for awesome speed....6 pass on banner is going to be in the 350sf/hour (sorry for being a dumb American...I think that is something like 30m2/hr). It is priced at $21K USD plus ink, installation, and shipping. The best part of this machine is they are practically giving away the ink at only $.10/ft2 which is crazy low for Roland solvent ink. I'm sure you have a few Roland dealers up your way.

 

[TSC1985]

We got an M3. 5 year lease at ~$900/mo and contact at ~$750 for 5000sqft/mo. Did I need this machine? Absolutely not, and there are times where its sitting around doing nothing but it has changed our business for the better. We found a few customers for large qty white ink on decals and window graphics. Plus being able to print 2 full transit wraps in a day and keep an extra printer available is handy. I feel more confident being able to scale our business with this as the foundation. We did ~40000sqft last year and hope to do maybe 30% more this year. I do think that if I had been smarter I would recommend most looking to grow and scale to go with 2 machines and a standalone plotter, rather than the one canon. But if you think you can get into the high qty print market its an amazing machine.