Flatbed Printers

[supersignmart]

Thanks Guys

Thanks everyone for your comments, please keep them coming. I've talked to more owners of Gandi's than owners of Vutek's. I will be at the show to see for myself. HP refuses to address my problems, I had a Tech at our shop last week Monday to Thursday. I have had a Tech in my shop at least once a month since I've owned it.

 

[wonsngis]

Anyone running white in there Jeti's?

Feedback?

It's not worth the lc/lm ink loss for us. It's neat and all but we haven't really had much reason to use it. If (when) we had a second gandi, I might consider running it 4c+w/clr all the time so we could make full use of it.

 

[KR3signguy]

FYI:
the 4c
image quality is garbage.
Don't even bother.

 

[wonsngis]

I've run 4c and I didn't think it was bad, just gritty looking- considering you are printing for the proper end use.

I'd never run POP stuff in 4c, but site signs, pump toppers, etc would be fine.

 

[ksc]

2200 hours = 1 year @ 40hr work week x 52 weeks a year lamp change a lot of print shops run 10-24 hs a day $500.00++++ (down time)

 

[wonsngis]

2200 hours = 1 year @ 40hr work week x 52 weeks a year lamp change a lot of print shops run 10-24 hs a day $500.00++++ (down time)

I'm a bit confused due to your lack of punctuation. What are you trying to say?

Down time is minimal. If it took you more than 1hr to change the bulbs, you're doing something wrong. Every machine requires maintenance and, obviously, the more you run per day, the shorter your maintenance intervals are.

 

[biggce55]

We run a Jeti 1224 with the 30pl heads at 300x600 dpi.

1. Actual print speed on the production speed.
-For the type of work you describe- 6 minutes per 4x8 easy. (about 320 sf/hr). On the other hand, ultra high detail at about 18min per 4x8 (about 106 sf/hr), though I rarely run that slowly. Having said all that, for your work I'd recommend getting the 80pl heads and sacrificing a bit of resolution for higher speed.

.

How many passes your running to achieve 6 minute 4x8? Are you running at 2000mm/s? We tried to run a job, 400x800, 12pass, 1700mm/s and it was taking around 13minutes for a 4x8 sheet. We also have the 30pl heads.

This might be alittle off subject, but anyone else with a 1224 having ink issue? We are running the Flexform inks, and wanted to switch to the Sun Premium but Gandi told us not to since they are having issues in the field with the Premium inks wrecking heads. This is straight from Hary Gandi mouth. We are having issues with the Flexform ink, being expired, and clogging up heads. Once again, Hary told us not to worry about the expiration date on the inks(although there tech support site says the ink has a one year shelf life). All the inks we get from Gandi that aren't expired we don't have any issue with our jet outs. The inks that we get that are already expired(some expired by 4 months, dusty, and beat up containers) give us one heck of a time with our daily jet outs. We are ink priming those heads 3x as much as the others, and running 4x8 sheets of styrene of those colors just to get within the 5 jets out per head.

Also I'm really curious on the lamp prices. They seem really pricey for the size. Our 38" and 42" UV bulbs we have on our 6c automatic, and 200 watt dryer, go for around $180 a piece. We get them through Primarc, and they work better than any other bulb we've purchased. Our sales rep(Jackie) told me to get in touch with her when it's time to replace the bulbs in our 1224, since they probably could hook us up with a replacement.

 

[biggce55]

I have plenty of times but don't think it's worth the hassel.
The white can be useful especially when backing up a contour graphic on clear acrylic.
Sometimes you gotta double strike it to produce a nice white but you gotta have a job that's really worth the money in order to flush the lclm. That's what other flatbeds have over gandi but it's quite a nitch workflow. I'd rather be running boards all day long.
The clear coat also serves as a great "ghost" image or sheen that can appear on selective parts of a graphic as oppsed to the whole flood coat.
Playing with the lamps produces a glossier or duller look depending what your going for.
You can produce some sweet stuff with these options but there's too many people looking for standard boards to be printed. It's all good

What settings do you use for the glossier look? Colin told us to use 55L-5T or 50L-0T to make our prints glossier. Although this didn't do well for us. We just run the material on our Jeti, down our 200 watt shuttle lamp, and it glosses it right up! The only thing is you have to rack the parts after, or they will stick together after being recured.

We won't use the white in the machine. Any white we have to use use print on our single color clamshell. So far, we have not had an issue with our screen printing ink on our digital ink creating too many issues. As long as we rack them and allow them to post cure, or leave the material masked on one side, it's mint.

 

[benjercorp]

Dilli neo Plus very good flatbed and reliable also have white ink and about the lamps it depends and how you use it because i had one which happens to be my baby for a year and used it 3 times a week around 3 or 4 hour per day and the lamps last for more than a year and even so they say the lamps only last 500 hours

 

[tylercrum]

EFI Rastek

Anyone heard anything (good or bad) about the Rastek. I've heard mixed reviews of Raster Printers but not sure if EFI's done anything to improve it.

 

[ksc]

The ion printer is cool .........It does all that they say it will do...it uses more ink thin my old UV printer did But the work actually gets done....short learning curve....Prints on almost every Thing......self adjusting highth sensor for materials works flawlessly...

 

[JS]

What is the 4c

I've run 4c and I didn't think it was bad, just gritty looking- considering you are printing for the proper end use.

I'd never run POP stuff in 4c, but site signs, pump toppers, etc would be fine.

What is the 4c Is it the HP455000 ???

Thanks

 

[ScotJ]

Glad I found this post- we're looking at getting a UV printer for printing on certain materials.

It also helps that Gandi is about 10 minutes from our office!

Anyone know what the cost is of the NanoJet UV printer they sell?

 

[wonsngis]

What is the 4c Is it the HP455000 ???

Thanks

On the Gandinnovations Jeti flatbeds, you normally run the printer in a 6 color mode (CMYK+ Light Cyan & Light Magenta). However, you can choose to flush out the Lc & Lm ink channels and use them for white and/or clear inks. When you do this, however, you are sacrificing detail quality in your prints by running in a 4 color (4c) mode.

 

[wonsngis]

Glad I found this post- we're looking at getting a UV printer for printing on certain materials.

It also helps that Gandi is about 10 minutes from our office!

Anyone know what the cost is of the NanoJet UV printer they sell?

I'm not sure on the price of the nanojet. I saw it run at graphexpo in chicago and I wan't very impressed. The prints weren't much better than our 30pl (Spectra SE heads) 1224. There have been very few things that our 1224 couldn't print high enough resolution for, so I don't think the Nanojet is all that necessary.

If you NEED super high resolution, the FUJIFILM Acuity HD 2504 may be a better option for you. With variable dot heads, it can print as small as 6pl. The Nanojet is a 15pl drop.

If you want a real production machine, however, the Jeti 1224 is a great machine.

 

[Twowrist]

We have an OCE T220 that has printed on most any substrate including vinyl and Sunbrella (it's a solvent based machine). Others are correct to advise taping down.
Last summer we bought an Epson R2R machine that does some really nice work at 2800dpi.

As they say "ain't technology grand!"

 

[KR3signguy]

I'm not sure on the price of the nanojet. I saw it run at graphexpo in chicago and I wan't very impressed. The prints weren't much better than our 30pl (Spectra SE heads) 1224. There have been very few things that our 1224 couldn't print high enough resolution for, so I don't think the Nanojet is all that necessary.

If you NEED super high resolution, the FUJIFILM Acuity HD 2504 may be a better option for you. With variable dot heads, it can print as small as 6pl. The Nanojet is a 15pl drop.

If you want a real production machine, however, the Jeti 1224 is a great machine.

I 2nd that!
the 30pl is just fine!
same machine different heads.