Help me decide! Anyone out here with either the Roland RF-640 or EJ-640?

[ALTEREDIMAGEDESIGNS]

I am upgrading my current XC-540 due to the insane trade amount that my dealer just offered me.. Literally cannot pass it up. I am looking at both the RF-640 and EJ-640. Do any of you have any hands on experience with either.. I am trying to decide and am having a hard time doing so..
Also deciding between Graphtec FC8000-160 and the Summa 64" cutter...
Any help and input is valued. Notes worth pointing out. I do a lot of long run prints specifically on mesh more so than anything.
Thanks everyone

 

[reQ]

I will be upgrading to RF640 myself early next year. Currently running SP540i which is not enough anymore. In my situation, speed of 640 will be plenty. but if you want even more speed - EJ might be better option. Just keep in mind that listed insane speeds are not for all medias. Yes, banners you can print like crazy, but vinyl is not made to get crazy amounts of ink that fast. So it will also depends on what you want to print.

 

[rjssigns]

IIRC certain HP latex printers have some sort of ink collector specifically made for mesh.

 

[Gene@mpls]

Had a RF for 18 mo- very happy. If you are getting a cutter I would get a Roland GX, it makes production seamless. Gene

 

[PHILJOHNSON]

I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the Summa cutter or how it compares to the Graphtec if you would like. My email is philj@summa.us or I can be reached at (800)527-7778, ext 112 if you would prefer to call. Please feel free to reach out if I can help.

Best regards,

Phil Johnson
Summa Inc.

 

[BigfishDM]

I am upgrading my current XC-540 due to the insane trade amount that my dealer just offered me.. Literally cannot pass it up. I am looking at both the RF-640 and EJ-640. Do any of you have any hands on experience with either.. I am trying to decide and am having a hard time doing so..
Also deciding between Graphtec FC8000-160 and the Summa 64" cutter...
Any help and input is valued. Notes worth pointing out. I do a lot of long run prints specifically on mesh more so than anything.
Thanks everyone

I would say your buying the wrong machine for what your doing, if you have an "insane" amount of work you probably want to go with Latex. Oh and you don't have to wait a day to let your prints dry.

 

[BigfishDM]

I am upgrading my current XC-540 due to the insane trade amount that my dealer just offered me.. Literally cannot pass it up. I am looking at both the RF-640 and EJ-640. Do any of you have any hands on experience with either.. I am trying to decide and am having a hard time doing so..
Also deciding between Graphtec FC8000-160 and the Summa 64" cutter...
Any help and input is valued. Notes worth pointing out. I do a lot of long run prints specifically on mesh more so than anything.
Thanks everyone

Long run prints? Can you do unattended printing with any of those Rolands? With Latex you can print all night long unattended because the take-up reel actually works and your prints are actually dry so they don't get ruined like what normally happens.

 

[ALTEREDIMAGEDESIGNS]

I would say your buying the wrong machine for what your doing, if you have an "insane" amount of work you probably want to go with Latex. Oh and you don't have to wait a day to let your prints dry.

I was saying that the Roland dealer offered me an "INSANE" amount on trade in. I am literally only losing $800 since i bought it 4 years ago. Is latex good for everything?

 

[reQ]

BigFish started pushing latex strong against solvent printers recently, not sure what the deal is. Both technologies have advantages & disadvantages. There is no perfect machine.

 

[ALTEREDIMAGEDESIGNS]

BigFish started pushing latex strong against solvent printers recently, not sure what the deal is. Both technologies have advantages & disadvantages. There is no perfect machine.

From what I read about latex there is more cons to pros.. From what I see anyways.. The big advantage is immediate finishing.. But I factor that into my jobs anyways.. I dont like the print head situation with latex. Sounds to me that the life is not all that long.. But I have never owned one either. Latex ink is definitely less money for sure tho!

 

[ALTEREDIMAGEDESIGNS]

Had a RF for 18 mo- very happy. If you are getting a cutter I would get a Roland GX, it makes production seamless. Gene

Hi Gene, does the media handling seem better on your RF then previous machine? That is my one major issue with my printer, other than that its been a great great machine.

 

[BigfishDM]

I was saying that the Roland dealer offered me an "INSANE" amount on trade in. I am literally only losing $800 since i bought it 4 years ago. Is latex good for everything?

Lol oh I see what you meant now. PM what the final offer is and I will give you a gods honest opinion off this main thread no problem. I don't care if you buy it from me or not, but I am very confident in the latex technology and would love to help educate you on the benefits AND THE CONS.

 

[BigfishDM]

BigFish started pushing latex strong against solvent printers recently, not sure what the deal is. Both technologies have advantages & disadvantages. There is no perfect machine.

Lol actually I have been pushing Latex harder than anyone in this industry a whole year before they ever even came to market. Its just official now that we have an HP dealership so I can openly put stuff like this out there. I sell Solvent/Eco-Solvent machines also but only when it makes sense for the end user.

The advantages really depend on what you plan on doing with the equipment, I can show you WAYYYYY more advantages with Latex than with Solvent. The better question is why would you buy Solvent over Latex, not the other way around.

HP also has more techs available than anyone else because they have more market share than anyone else. (More than Roland, more than Mimaki, more than Mutoh)

The bottom line in my mind is which machine can I make more money with and that answer is pretty simple, LATEX. I can do more applications with Latex over Solvent/Eco-Solvent machines and I don't have to wait for out-gassing.

Just my 2 cents

 

[BigfishDM]

From what I read about latex there is more cons to pros.. From what I see anyways.. The big advantage is immediate finishing.. But I factor that into my jobs anyways.. I dont like the print head situation with latex. Sounds to me that the life is not all that long.. But I have never owned one either. Latex ink is definitely less money for sure tho!

Please feel free to list all the cons you can think of. HP is #1 in this market for a reason, the biggest users in the industry use Latex technology, they can make more money with them vs Solvent. I have a lot of fire power against the other guys so feel free to reach out to me. Your not even in my area to sell you this machine so let me help educate you on why you should CONSIDER latex technology. No pressure to buy I promise you that.

 

[klmjff]

I agree with Fish. Latex is WAAAAAY better than solvent, its not even close.

It's old, unhealthy technology. Our Latex 360 has been the BEST purchase ever.

Yes, you need to make sure your profiles and heat are working in tandem, but as with anything else, you need to work on it to be successful.

Also, the ink and printheads are dirt cheap.

Face it, solvent will soon be gone like Quark...

 

[reQ]

Face it, solvent will soon be gone like Quark...

Not going to happen any time soon.

 

[CanuckSigns]

I agree with Fish. Latex is WAAAAAY better than solvent, its not even close.

It's old, unhealthy technology. Our Latex 360 has been the BEST purchase ever.

Yes, you need to make sure your profiles and heat are working in tandem, but as with anything else, you need to work on it to be successful.

Also, the ink and printheads are dirt cheap.

Face it, solvent will soon be gone like Quark...

Sorry print heads are not dirt cheap, they cost around $150 each, there are 6 of them, that's $900 to change them all, based on conversations I've had with shops that run latex, they change the print heads about 3 times a year. $2700 per year is not "dirt cheap". Considering I've run my rolands for over 4 years on the original head (DX7), If my head went tomorrow I would still be further ahead.

We considered latex for our recent purchase, but in the end decided to stick with Roland, we've had 4 rolands now and they've all been workhorses, stick with what works.

 

[TomK]

Sorry print heads are not dirt cheap, they cost around $150 each, there are 6 of them, that's $900 to change them all, based on conversations I've had with shops that run latex, they change the print heads about 3 times a year. $2700 per year is not "dirt cheap". Considering I've run my rolands for over 4 years on the original head (DX7), If my head went tomorrow I would still be further ahead.

We considered latex for our recent purchase, but in the end decided to stick with Roland, we've had 4 rolands now and they've all been workhorses, stick with what works.

I've had my HP Latex machine for 9 months now, and have not had to replace a single print head, yet. I'm not a huge shop by any means, but I run it 3 to 5 hours a day, 5 days a week and have been through 10 or 11 750ml ink cartridges so far.

And when I do have to replace one, I don't have to replace them all at once, just one at a time.

 

[Triggerhappy]

sticking to the question at hand

Productivity: rf=xc. Xc still has the cutter so basically even if exchanging 1 to 1 you need to buy a cutter to do the same amount of work, as you did before with the xc.
ej=2xc (with some materials) so yes, it would be a step forward, however it`s a fresh product and i would wait a bit to see some feedback from users.

 

[Gene@mpls]

Hi Gene, does the media handling seem better on your RF then previous machine? That is my one major issue with my printer, other than that its been a great great machine.

I moved from a VP540- which was a good printer, but the material handling system is way superior on the RF. We print mostly one material but we do a lot of different materials so I built a piggy-back old style roller system to feed over the main roller holder for the other materials. I sold the Roland takeup roller and built my own for the same reason- so materials can be switched out easily. if you print the same material all day the situation may be different. I think the XC is probably faster tho (don't know that for a fact) - but as far as I can see all the on-board cutters are compromised. Our GX cuts a lot of 20-25 foot logos that I don't think the on-board would ever do, or at least not as fast.

The new head (DX-7?) is really trouble free- I clean the printer once a month, not because the prints deteriorate but but by then I get jiggy about not doing any maintenance at all. I also converted to a bulk ink system which is way better- and seems to use less ink (I know it doesn't make sense- maybe just because you are not always switching cartridges). Gene