Gerber Ion Feedback

[econolinesigns]

With another week under our belt with the Ion and so far we are finding the ink usage about what we expected based on the amount of work produced. The cleaning is taking more time than we thought it would with a morning, noon, and end of day cleaning (about one hour total). We hope this will decrease as our guys get more used to doing this. We have not experienced any problems due to the temperature and humidity but we are in Northern CA and so far our we have been able to control temp and humidity just by keeping the roll up and other doors closed to the bay of our shop that the Ion is located in. We did invest in one of the temp and humidity sensors at Home Depot so we can monitor where the readings are at. I know that other UV manufactures also set temp and humidity limits which from what I saw are not that much different from the Ion. A Gerber tech told us that with only about 80 of these out worldwide so far that those of us who are getting the first ones are kind of beta testers right along with their beta sites. Lastly, we had a bad bag valve in the cyan ink tray that was leaking ink, parts arrived on Friday from Gerber (one day after called) and the tech will be out on Monday to repair. This has apparently happened with a few other machines so they knew exactly what needed to be done.

 

[synergy_jim]

I saw it running at SGIA.

Not bad at all.... seemed a little slow, but the output looked very nice.

 

[ksc]

ksc

I just had my ion installed a month ago all materials prints great except for to day... Coroplast,,, my humidity was 56 % heat was 69 degrees in the past coroplast printed good.... gerber states 40-60 on humidity is ok heat 69? ink not drying???? Help please

 

[econolinesigns]

Try setting your lamps to high and see if that helps. Since the lamps are cooler than other manufacturers, it should not damage the material. Also, all UV inks actually take 24 to 72 hours to cure completely. It could also be what you used to clean the material off. We have found 99% Isopropal Alcohol at airgass.com for a really good price and this seems to work best for cleaning without having to buy the really expensive cleaner from Gerber (which is made primarly from the same stuff). We have found that if we try to print metal with ours and we are close to the humidity cap that the ink does not cure right away. We even printed on some white painted aluminum the other day past 60% humidity and while it took the ink about two days to finish curing, we ended up with a gloss finish and not a mat (although not perfect).

 

[ksc]

Ksc

Ksc (Gerber ION INK $$$)
ink Price???? We have had our new ion for 2 months now.. The inks are tougher than most any thing... the only thing i cant find out is per sq. ft ink price Gerber says 25 cents ????? any body know????

 

[mmorse]

Are you still pleased with your Ion? Any significant issues with it?

 

[mmorse]

We are having huge curing issues with the Ion. did you ever resolve your issues?

 

[econolinesigns]

We are extremely pleased with our Ion. It does what it was designed to do, prints signs. If someone wants a fine art printer, this may not be it (but they do have a new one coming with 14pl heads) and Gerber is going to make the new heads available to those who want to purchase the upgrade.

We have found curing to be an issue if we are up close to or above the max humidity. I have also heard it can be an issue if close to or below minimum humidity. The updated inks they are introducing are also supposed to help with the humidity issues.

If you are having problems and they are related to the Ion, not the humidity, call and schedule a tech. Gerber is great about taking care of business.

 

[Tony Teveris]

Cleaning is a very important thing when using UV inks. If you do not follow the mantiniance schedule in cleaning the heads the ink will start to cure in the head something you do not what to happen. We are working on better clean proceedures and methods to insure that machines keep running.