Question Got offered a good deal on an HP Scitex FB500

[DL Signs]

Not overly familiar with these, but I was offered a great deal on a tech refurbished one.
All new print heads, has the roll to roll option, comes with extension tables, just need to do the white ink conversion.
Opinions on quality??? Reliability??? PITA to convert to white?
What's the good, bad, or ugly about these machines.

 

[Boudica]

We used to have one, it was our first flat bed. I'd say it's a good starter machine. Our biggest issue as I recall was that HP kept sending us "underperforming" ink - typically black and cyan. We'd report it and they would send another box, but printing crap is no fun until you realize the issue. We always printed on high quality, so the quality was good. The white ink conversion does take a while. When we first got it, the tech that set it up for us and trained me on it suggested we have a "white" day (save up white ink projects to do in the same day), because it takes hours to change it over. We ended up not doing white all that often on it.

 

[ikarasu]

It's slow. It's not a bad machine... But I believe it's close to the end of service life, which means no parts... No consumables.... You'd be stuck after market for everything and using old stock.

I believe it's eol in 2024... If it hasn't already.

Aftermarket ink is better than OEM ink for this one, so that's not an issue.. but I'd worry about getting parts for it.

 

[cornholio]

FB500 is how old by now? 20 years?
I was trained on the successor FB550-750 10 years ago...
I would also go for aftermarket ink, if at all.
There are still some machines in use in our customer base.
End of service life is July 1st 2025.
For the FB550-750, there has no EOSL been communicated yet.

 

[balstestrat]

End of service life is July 1st 2025.
For the FB550-750, there has no EOSL been communicated yet.

It's next year for 550/750 as well.

 

[FrankW]

Old machines with heavy costs for print heads, UV-lamps and spare parts (if they are still available). No white ink conversion kit available anymore as far as I know. FB500 was replaced by FB550 in 2015 as far as I remember.

I were a trained technician for that machines in 2014 - 2019. Would never buy one anymore, and would refuse to touch it for repairs. Some really cool technical solutions, but completely outdated.

 

[DL Signs]

Thank so much everyone.

Being refurbished, all new heads, a very clean machine, and being fairly local, it was a tempting deal for the price as an addition.
Being past it's service life is what was making me leery, especially with HP who's rather notorious for no parts availability after EOL . Hearing parts are already getting hard to source, would need the white conversion kit to be useful...

If Frank wouldn't touch it, I think I have my mind made up. I'll let this one pass on to someone else.

Have a great weekend everyone