Epson s70670 for very high-end Wallcoverings? (metallic or non metallic)

[nezer10]

Hi People. I am new to this forum all the way from Africa and i need support pls. After 1 year internship at a local digital printing company, I have decided to start my own business and start making Wallpapers. I know i still have much to learn, but i need to start doing .

I will soon get funding via an angel investor and i don't want to make bad decisions. Originally I planned on getting the new Epson sure color s70670 solvent printer with metallic and white ink config, however i have heard a lot of horror stories about metallic inks and how they slow down the printer. Can i get better advice here for the best type of printer for printing wallpapers and the best ink configuration 8/10 .

I know the metallic inks are costly but it is quite rare here and my target market/audience are high earning and can afford it.

Hp Latex is not an option for me because it doesn't print metallic besides i heard it consumes a lot of power and power is a luxury we don't have here because we generate our own limited power supply via generators. I would have gone for the Roland versacamm which i have a lot of experience with (without metallic inks), but i am not satisfied with the output resolution and print quality compared to an epson gs6000 at a rivals digital printing shop. Aqueous based printers can offer much higher resolution, but their inks and compatible media are more expensive compared to solvent inks and they will require full lamination always to be scratch proof.

Assuming the Epson s70670 is as good as it promises with the highest resolution print for outdoor, the problem with gambling on the metallic ink config is the significant slowing down of the printer. Also i hear metallic inks need to be laminated always, how true? This will be the first printer and main printer in my upcoming studio so i need to know, just how bad is the metallic inks option?

When i am not printing with metallic inks, will the printer still be slower? Can i uninstall the metallic ink and white ink option later on if i am not satisfied with the print speeds and how do i do this?

Please i also need a mentor or consulant with experience in digital printing and manufacturing of Wallpapers to go to for advice like best materials to use, where and how to get very good graphics and international contributing graphic artists, profiles, color management and so on.

Thank you all

.

 

[artbot]

for high end, none of the above. you'll need a uv flatbed or the new oce' uv led small roll to roll. with it, you can load all sorts of high end metallic papers, do traps with white and print color. anything else is going to give you wall paper, but not high end wall paper.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

for high end, none of the above. you'll need a uv flatbed or the new oce' uv led small roll to roll. with it, you can load all sorts of high end metallic papers, do traps with white and print color. anything else is going to give you wall paper, but not high end wall paper.

This. And uv will give you by far the most durable product as well.

 

[nezer10]

for high end, none of the above. you'll need a uv flatbed or the new oce' uv led small roll to roll. with it, you can load all sorts of high end metallic papers, do traps with white and print color. anything else is going to give you wall paper, but not high end wall paper.

Hi artbot thanks for the reply. Apart from uv printers being very expensive, local print technicians and repairmen aren't used to this technology yet and cant fix it should there be a problem with the printer in the future, so this is a big problem in the developing world.

Why do you say that the solvent inkjet printer will produce ordinary results? The VersaUV LEJ Hybrid UV-LED Flatbed Inkjet Printer that i can buy locally has the exact same maximum output resolution as the epson solvent printer (1440x1440dpi). Am i missing something?

I know UV flatbed printers can print on more types of material/media but does this mean the output result for wallpapers vinyl is better than solvent inkjet printer? How can i achieve spot color metallic effects around the print with the high-end metallic wallpapers you are talking about, since UV printers dont have metallic print options.
[h=1][/h]

 

[nezer10]

This. And uv will give you by far the most durable product as well.

hi insignia thx for the reply. I know uv is better, but this is the developing world and the local printer repairers, technicians and engineers are crude and dont know uv tech yet so any problem will require flying in a technician from south africa which isn't cheap believe me, not to talk of the cost of the equipment itself which is double the cost of ecosolvent wallpapers.

When you say durability what do you mean? The prints are indoor also, so i am more concerned with print quality. I might have to laminate rolls of media, but i don't mind so far i get the best sharpest print quality.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Lets go back to the beginning... You said you're printing "wallpaper". Can you give us a much more detailed description of what you mean, what medias you're wanton to print on and what the final product will be?

 

[artbot]

also, resolution will not be an issue for wall paper. just about any resolution will do. 360x720 bidirectional at 140dpi will be as high as you need to go.

there are so many factors ruling out solvent and latex for what you described.

ideally a "high end" wallpaper should not be laminated or coated. coating or laminating will shift the reflection ratios between metallic, gloss, and matte on your substrates and look cheap for interior decor purposes. it's not just the image you will be wanting to capture, but textures, glare ratios, translucency, metallic flash. you'll need a uv printer for this.

also, the cured uv ink (at least the CET uv ink which i have experience with) is extremely durable, MEK won't even remove it after curing. because of this you will not need to laminate or protect you finished product (that's essential for the look, but also a cost savings in material and labor).

as for the traps with white. instead of using these horrible silver inks, you could be printing in 3M dinoc films of sorts of opalescence and silvers and golds and amazing wood grains. by using white you can do traps revealing the background.

the largest concern is viability. a one year internship is not nearly enough experience to be taking money from an investor. just the questions alone that are being asked shows that this partnership is, with all due respect, questionable (polite way to say doomed) going forward. i'd slow down an become more aware of the craft. and even then, you'll have to figure out marketing, product development, get the line refined, samples, catalogs, websites, shipping, tradeshows, installs..... just having a printer and one year of experience is a bit of a wreckless start.

 

[nezer10]

Lets go back to the beginning... You said you're printing "wallpaper". Can you give us a much more detailed description of what you mean, what medias you're wanton to print on and what the final product will be?

.

Hi @ insignia thx for the reply.

When i say wallpaper, i mean digitally printed custom vinyl wall coverings for interior decoration or branding purposes. The wallpapers will be designed with artworks and or photographs from local contributing artists, photographers, or corporate clients. Later on we plan to go into other business's like skins for gadgets but wallcoverings is the main focus for now.

I haven't decided on the particular media brand yet, but i have heard good things about korographics.

The final products will be wallcoverings featuring artworks, patterns, textures, metallic effects that we will sell and install for interior decoration and or branding purposes.

i used the term "high-end" to highlight that it is not some cheap made-in-china so called wallpapers. Our wallpapers will feature different textures and metallic effects (this is what i meant by high-end).

What i want to know is if this kind of high quality artwork digital printing for wall coverings is possible with solvent inkjet printers?

99% of digital printing companies know little or nothing about color management or making custom icc profiles and this is really important for achieving great results in printing artworks.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Ok, then you definitely do not want a solvent printer. We print a LOT of Korographics media, we used to run it on either our Mimaki JV33 or our Epson GS6000, neither of which are really truly up to the task.

Wallpaper media forst and foremost does not like much heat, it will distort and stretch easily with the heat present in solvent machines; I cannot imagine trying to run it through a latex lachine.

You'll be printing on textured medias, which means ultra-hugh resolutions are sort of irrelevant, as any texture (including the very lightly textured stuff) can mask lower resolutions.

In addition, being textured means laminates are not an option at all. Which means your ink is going to be exposed to whatever "elements" are present in it's installed environment. In interior applications, abrasion resistance and solvent/cleaner resistance need to be your biggest concerns; and those concerns are VERY real. Solvent ink flat out does not have the abrasion resistance needed for this environment. We eventually started liquid laminating all of our wallpaper, and that barely helped. It was still a sub-par product.

We switched to UV printing our wallpaper on our CET machine and the results are absolutely night and day. Even running at a relatively low-res "production" mode of 600x600dpi, it is impossible for the average viewer to tell the difference between that and the prints off of our GS6000, as far as resolution goes. Increase the resolution to a high-quality 800x1200dpi and the results are actually noticeably better. Scratch and chemical resistance isn't even in the same arena, solvent inks may as well be aqueous in comparison. No more liquid laminating and no more worrying about scratching during installation or post-install.

I understand you want to print metallics, but listen to Artbot's advice, being able to print metallic colors also means you will be selling a sub par product in all other aspects.

Check out Roland's RTR UV printer: http://www.rolanddga.com/products/printcut/lec300/, no metallics, but it does print gloss varnish, which is a real plus for a relatively inexpensiev entry-level UV printer. By combining this with some specialty medias, you will be able to offer a truly high-end, durable, unique product that covers all of your bases.

 

[ProColorGraphics]

I've had great luck running Dreamscape material on my latex printer.

 

[nezer10]

also, resolution will not be an issue for wall paper. just about any resolution will do. 360x720 bidirectional at 140dpi will be as high as you need to go.

there are so many factors ruling out solvent and latex for what you described.

ideally a "high end" wallpaper should not be laminated or coated. coating or laminating will shift the reflection ratios between metallic, gloss, and matte on your substrates and look cheap for interior decor purposes. it's not just the image you will be wanting to capture, but textures, glare ratios, translucency, metallic flash. you'll need a uv printer for this.

also, the cured uv ink (at least the CET uv ink which i have experience with) is extremely durable, MEK won't even remove it after curing. because of this you will not need to laminate or protect you finished product (that's essential for the look, but also a cost savings in material and labor).

as for the traps with white. instead of using these horrible silver inks, you could be printing in 3M dinoc films of sorts of opalescence and silvers and golds and amazing wood grains. by using white you can do traps revealing the background.

the largest concern is viability. a one year internship is not nearly enough experience to be taking money from an investor. just the questions alone that are being asked shows that this partnership is, with all due respect, questionable (polite way to say doomed) going forward. i'd slow down an become more aware of the craft. and even then, you'll have to figure out marketing, product development, get the line refined, samples, catalogs, websites, shipping, tradeshows, installs..... just having a printer and one year of experience is a bit of a wreckless start.

@ artbot.Thx for your concern. My biz plan has an exit strategy into the advertising market i am more familiar with. I need to figure out the craft of making digital printed wall coverings first. The main problem is i cant find enough technical expertise locally for advice on equipment and other aspects of the craft relating to product development, that is why i am turning to you guys. I will still go abroad to more developed countries like England and South Africa to learn more about the craft, but i can start learning here right?

Thanks for the heads up. I'll do the research on reflection ratio shifting as a result of laminating wallpaper material. I had no idea this could be an issue. I planned to laminate with matte, gloss or lustre overlaminates and i thought it would all be good.

Textures can be achieved by the media type, don't you think? Korographics come in various textures and i hear they are even better than UV textures.

The metallic inks are horrible you say. Just how horrible are they? We'll be using them (the metallic inks) to highlight just a few sections of the wall coverings. Full metallic materials and overprinting with white and trapping the metallic effect areas sounds way more stressful although less expensive than printing metallic inks considering laminating costs.

Any other factors ruling out solvent that i should know of? by the way, i know some custom wall covering manufacturers like rollout.ca use aqueous based inks, so how can solvent be that bad?

I see your point about UV inks being better than solvent in scratch resistance. Also more textures, embossing effects, clear coating and more opacity through white inks are huge selling point, however, UV has a major limitation in my country. Apart from the high cost of equipment (50-70,000USD), i know one of the few owners of a UV digital printer (roland lej) in my area that his machine has been faulty for 8 months now and he has tried many local engineers/printer repairers, imported many parts but all to no avail. The total cost of getting someone capable from abroad just to come down and look at it is so monstrous (5,000USD), he's back to using his gs6000 primarily for production. I dont want to be making the same mistake, i need a machine that can be easily serviced and repaired locally.

If i find out that laminating is that bad, then perhaps i'd have to consider going UV but that is a big risk considering if anything should go wrong, it will cost a lot.

Thanks for taking the time. God bless.

 

[nezer10]

Ok, then you definitely do not want a solvent printer. We print a LOT of Korographics media, we used to run it on either our Mimaki JV33 or our Epson GS6000, neither of which are really truly up to the task.

Wallpaper media forst and foremost does not like much heat, it will distort and stretch easily with the heat present in solvent machines; I cannot imagine trying to run it through a latex lachine.

You'll be printing on textured medias, which means ultra-hugh resolutions are sort of irrelevant, as any texture (including the very lightly textured stuff) can mask lower resolutions.

In addition, being textured means laminates are not an option at all. Which means your ink is going to be exposed to whatever "elements" are present in it's installed environment. In interior applications, abrasion resistance and solvent/cleaner resistance need to be your biggest concerns; and those concerns are VERY real. Solvent ink flat out does not have the abrasion resistance needed for this environment. We eventually started liquid laminating all of our wallpaper, and that barely helped. It was still a sub-par product.

We switched to UV printing our wallpaper on our CET machine and the results are absolutely night and day. Even running at a relatively low-res "production" mode of 600x600dpi, it is impossible for the average viewer to tell the difference between that and the prints off of our GS6000, as far as resolution goes. Increase the resolution to a high-quality 800x1200dpi and the results are actually noticeably better. Scratch and chemical resistance isn't even in the same arena, solvent inks may as well be aqueous in comparison. No more liquid laminating and no more worrying about scratching during installation or post-install.

I understand you want to print metallics, but listen to Artbot's advice, being able to print metallic colors also means you will be selling a sub par product in all other aspects.

Check out Roland's RTR UV printer: http://www.rolanddga.com/products/printcut/lec300/, no metallics, but it does print gloss varnish, which is a real plus for a relatively inexpensive entry-level UV printer. By combining this with some specialty medias, you will be able to offer a truly high-end, durable, unique product that covers all of your bases.

Wow. Thanks a lot for the heads up. Very helpful.

i dont know much about uv, so i have to start researching.

The VersaUV LEC and LEJ are about the same price, although LEJ Sounds better because its flatbed. i'll get a seperate cutter. Which one would you pick for this application?

In theory, is it possible to combine the two? say print the spot color metallics colours and then position printing of the the graphics via a UV flat bed.

What is the ink cos per square foot printing for your CET uv printer? do you use the flexible type ink (like eco uv-s) or the normal one for (like eco-uv) for wallpapers?

Have you tried texture effect printing with your uv printer? what is it like? Can you compare uv textured effect to the texture in korographics?

Another advantage of uv printing is it doesn't have to run everyday without risking the print heads getting clogged. Can you confirm this?


Going on this info alone means i will have to change my biz proposal which will admit incompetentcy. i'll have to do it though.

Thanks a lot for the info. God bless.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Textures can be achieved by the media type, don't you think? Korographics come in various textures and i hear they are even better than UV textures.

Korographics has some amazing textures available yes. But, you flat out can NOT laminate this stuff with a film laminate because of the texture, it's not going to happen. There is physical way the laminate will conform or settle into this texture, which is why extremely durable ink is so critical, beyond what solvent can offer. And like I said previously, liquid laminate is OK at best, it offers only a little in the way of abrasion protection, and any laminate, film or liquid, is a "blanket" finish, if you're wanting to be able to use spot varnish to create additional pop, any laminate will basically hide this.

 

[nezer10]

I've had great luck running Dreamscape material on my latex printer.

hi. thanks for the info. i'll check out the dreamscape material.

 

[knucklehead]

If you didn't absolutely have to have the metallic inks, I'd say Epson 11880 and PhotoTex material.

We used to screen print some nice metallics, but I don't think you would ever duplicate that look digitally.