flat bed printers

[mark galoob]

hi all...

right now we have a mutoh 1304 54" printer, lam and cutter all comparable size.

i am in the begining stages of thinking about adding a flatbed. unfortunatly i am kind of in the dark with flatbed printers. my hope is that anybody that has made a recent purchase to flatbed type printing will respond with ideas, challanges, comfort level, basically the whole 9 yards.

thanks in advance

mark galoob

 

[CS-SignSupply-TT]

mark_galoob, you have come to the right place. Please refer to a contributor on signs101 with the name 10sacer. He is long time experienced and knowledgeable in the FLATBED arena

 

[Gino]

It's a step, you'll never regret.

Ours runs about an average of 8 hours a day. Some days less, some days.... night and day. Our inkjet runs much less.... maybe 3 or 4 hours a day.

You're gonna wanna figure out if you want to specialize in a certain kind of product or want a general all-around type.


I know Dave & Chris at GRS have some nice deals going. Also, the CET's are real workhorses. Agfa and all the others are great. Remember, to get one in your shop, you're gonna need some really big doors, cause for the most part, these things are assembled ahead of time and delivered in one huge piece.

Good Luck....................

 

[CS-SignSupply-TT]

Gino, as always, thank you for your input!

 

[mark galoob]

So what's the ink cost typically w a flatbed per sq ft.


Also what kind of maintenance does it usually require

Mark Galoob

 

[HulkSmash]

what do you want to know, i'm sure i can answer any question you have.

 

[chrisphilipps]

So what's the ink cost typically w a flatbed per sq ft.

Also what kind of maintenance does it usually require

Mark Galoob

Maintenance is not much harder than an eco-solvent. Because it is UV inks you don't have the any issues with the inks drying up in the head. The reason you might get clogs on UV printers is if you don't use the printers for a while and the ink settles in the head. To fix this you typically just have to flush them out with the UV cleaning solution and it doesn't take much time to do. The only other maintenance would be greasing certain parts. As for the inks the Flora will run you arround $0.11 per square foot.

 

[Jack Knight1979]

How do the heads clean themselves? On eco sols we have pumps that suck ink through the heads.

Do you have to manually flush flatbed heads every time there's a clog or pressure problem?

Is there some kind of priming system that bleeds ink through the heads if needed?

 

[WYLDGFI]

With Vuteks....they purge ink thru the heads. On our QS there is a capping station that actually sucks the waste ink off the surface of the printhead and extracts any residue from the heads. Sometimes a hand wipe is necessary to maintain the heads as well.

 

[HulkSmash]

Most flatbeds prime themselves. They will throw some ink out during the cleaning, and you just wipe the caps. It depends on the flatbeds though. Also most inks will circulate.

 

[chrisphilipps]

All of the UV printers I have seen, Flora and CET included, don't have capping stations. Instead of dampers the units use a negative pressure system to keep the ink balanced. When you start up the unit in the morning you purge the inks, the printer reverses the pressure and forces the ink out of the head. Then you have to wipe the ink off of the head, on the Flora unit you can either do this manually or use the automatic cleaning feature.

 

[jasonx]

We just had a HP FB700 installed. Been about two weeks. Totally love it. It's one of those things you don't know how you did without it before.

The UV inks will have a lower sheen compared to what you are used to with eco solvent. Can't wait to start playing with more substrates.

 

[benjakes]

Mark,

Pm me if you want to know about flatbeds. I've had quite a few. The last two I had are CET color ( the XPress, and the fk512 (this is the model they designed years ago with flora, that flora now sells direct).

I just came back from the show. Two printers stood out Oce and CET color.

Oce 480-smart but expensive.

CET had two models. The 75k q series, and the new 20 heads Ricoh. Both awesome.