Gerber: Ink, Service for Gerber CAT UV to be provided until at least 2018

[twmiller24]

"In support of the continued print demands from our Gerber CAT UV and Solara ion installed printer base, Gerber is pleased to announce our successful negotiation with Konica Minolta to provide ink for an additional two year period. The two year extension will allow Gerber to provide ink at a minimum through the summer of 2018, instead of April 2016 as originally communicated. ... Gerber will continue to provide access to service and support for your printer."

Good news from Gerber for us!

 

[stickerhed]

"In support of the continued print demands from our Gerber CAT UV and Solara ion installed printer base, Gerber is pleased to announce our successful negotiation with Konica Minolta to provide ink for an additional two year period. The two year extension will allow Gerber to provide ink at a minimum through the summer of 2018, instead of April 2016 as originally communicated. ... Gerber will continue to provide access to service and support for your printer."

Good news from Gerber for us!

Have you found any 3rd party inks for this printer?

 

[TimToad]

We got a letter from GERBER yesterday with an inventory list of what they still have in their warehouse, but no quantities. We have no idea if they have 5,000 pouches of ink or 50. The heads and other parts that are manufactured by others for other similar machines are available from other sources and I have found a Chinese company who according to the data sheet we were sent makes what appears to be a chemically identical ink for a third of the cost. If the machine is going to turn into a boat anchor anyway, no sense paying $314 per pouch to the company who has abandoned its owners when you can pay $100 until you can determine if the ink is just as good.

In the letter, the prices GERBER is charging for the remaining parts are identical to what they have always charged, so they aren't even willing to part with their inventory for an obsolete machine for less than full retail to help offset the inconvenience of those who have one.

 

[SSI Alex]

We got a letter from GERBER yesterday with an inventory list of what they still have in their warehouse, but no quantities. We have no idea if they have 5,000 pouches of ink or 50. The heads and other parts that are manufactured by others for other similar machines are available from other sources and I have found a Chinese company who according to the data sheet we were sent makes what appears to be a chemically identical ink for a third of the cost. If the machine is going to turn into a boat anchor anyway, no sense paying $314 per pouch to the company who has abandoned its owners when you can pay $100 until you can determine if the ink is just as good.

In the letter, the prices GERBER is charging for the remaining parts are identical to what they have always charged, so they aren't even willing to part with their inventory for an obsolete machine for less than full retail to help offset the inconvenience of those who have one.

 

[SSI Alex]

The company I work for is looking to offload a low hours in complete working condition Gerber Solara Ion printer, VERY VERY CHEAP for anyone who is interested! Great to get extra parts from and scrap the rest.

 

[SSI Alex]

"In support of the continued print demands from our Gerber CAT UV and Solara ion installed printer base, Gerber is pleased to announce our successful negotiation with Konica Minolta to provide ink for an additional two year period. The two year extension will allow Gerber to provide ink at a minimum through the summer of 2018, instead of April 2016 as originally communicated. ... Gerber will continue to provide access to service and support for your printer."

Good news from Gerber for us!

Hello, My company is looking for someone to take a low hours complete working condition GERBER solara Ion printer for CHEAP. We are located in Ferndale Michigan please feel free to message me if you are interested. It would be great too have for extra parts since it will come at such a cheap cost.

 

[TimToad]

Good luck on finding anyone who will take the whole printer with such huge shipping costs and uncertainty about remaining inventories of ink and parts.

 

[SSI Alex]

It would be best for a local person to take it, we can break it apart for parts to send out and Anyone who is looking for replacement parts can feel free to contact me, since they will be so much cheaper than what the company sells them for.

 

[TimToad]

Have you found any 3rd party inks for this printer?

I found a company operating in China that appears to be reproducing the ink, but we've been hesitant to try any until we knew for sure whether or not GERBER was going to allow Konica/Minolta to keep making the ink as it has been doing for the last several years. The manager sent me the datasheet and most of the ingredients look the same, but you never know until you get it here and try it. We're already shopping for a new printer, but hope to run this thing until we run out of supplies for it.

I'm about to order one pouch of black from the foreign vendor to see exactly whether it is identical or not.

Here is GERBER's remaining inventory of ink pouches as shared with me by my distributor this morning.

Cyan - 11

Black - 19

Magenta - 11

Yellow: 10

Not very much considering there are several thousand printers out there.

 

[Gerberhackuv]

I have a gerber cat uv that I am able to experiment with, if there is enough intrest and people wanting detailed results with different uv ink types i am willing to put in the r&d time for a conversion kit or reliable ink source. This problem may be better off solving as a collective community and a go fund me type approach.

 

[Cuantekusa]

We are in the process of coming up with compatible 1Liter UV ink bags for the GERBER CAT UV printer.
The inks are made in the USA. The bags are just like the OEM, same square shape and same ink valve; so it will be a plug and continue printing solution, no need to tweak the printer's ink system.
Currently we have two customers testing our ink solution, we are making sure that the colors are compatible as well as ink adhesion is as expected.
If all goes as planned we will have these inks available for sale by the end of this month (Aug/2018).

Contact me if you have one of these printers and are in need of ink, or let me know your intention to order in the future, so that we can produce enough for the demand.

Francisco Garcia
francisco@cuantek-usa.com
Cell: (210)388-2993
San Antonio, TX. USA