How much ink does the LG-640 really use? - 1st large format printer purchase, need advice.

[RONIN]

Hi,

I'm currently in the market for a roll to roll UV printer. This is a huge investment for me to make and I don't want to get it wrong. I've been split between the Roland LG and Mimaki UCJV series of printers. I'm based in the UK and leaning more in the direction of the Roland as I've heard they're more reliable of the two as far as technical support and downtime. The reason I'm particularly interested in UV is for the embossed effects that can be done, as well as the white. I've seen some people mention that there's an insane amount of ink wastage with the LG machine but not sure if this has since been rectified or I may have misunderstood? - I saw someone say 200ml of ink is wasted per day!. I would be looking at printing 20 layers of clear to get the effect that I'm looking for with almost full coverage for the area. I would really appreciate it if someone could help me in estimating what the cost would be per m2 to achieve this and what the running costs of having this printer would realistically be.

Many thanks.

 

[nreklam]

Kupio sam nedavno UG 641 i zadovoljan sam ali ga svakako želim staviti na zamjenske UV boje koje su puno jeftinije od originala
Roland strojevi su pouzdani, ja ih koristim već 30 godina

 

[SGC]

I’m sure you can find a LEC540 or LEC2540 used in your market. Epson heads, no crazy ink wastage, both can do stacked clear.

The UCJV330 is a great machine and isn’t a tinker toy like the 150 or 300, and doesn’t have the “be our test subject” ink wastage issue like the LG does.

 

[Figolux]

We originally had an LEC2-640 with gloss. We now have CMYKOrangeRedWW it's similar to the MG.

I recommend the white for building up texture. Gloss is a nightmare to use because of dust, it also seemed to need more gloss layers than white to get the same texture.

Ink use is reasonable both printing and not printing. Colour and quality are very good at 720x720 uni or bi.

We use between 1 to 25ml per M2 but average 8ml per M2. Ink is flexible and adheres very well to everything.

We can print white before or after CMYK in a single pass as there is a white channel on both the left and right side of the head.

It's slow, reliable and not expensive to buy or run. 16 pass 720x720 CMYK only or white only, uni-direction 3600mm long = 120 minutes.

For faster output I'd get a second printer, probably the LG

Roland support is excellent both from our dealer and Roland UK.

After 3 years of use we are about to extend our warranty for another year.

Works well with VersaWorks and Print Factory.

 

[nreklam]

I recently bought UG 641 and I'm satisfied, but I definitely want to put it on replacement UV colors that are much cheaper than the original
Roland machines are rel
able, I have been using them for 30 years

 

[RONIN]

I’m sure you can find a LEC540 or LEC2540 used in your market. Epson heads, no crazy ink wastage, both can do stacked clear.

The UCJV330 is a great machine and isn’t a tinker toy like the 150 or 300, and doesn’t have the “be our test subject” ink wastage issue like the LG does.

Thanks for the reply and suggestion. After speaking with someone via DM who has an LG, I think they have improved and reduced the amount of wastage thankfully. Still not the best though.

We originally had an LEC2-640 with gloss. We now have CMYKOrangeRedWW it's similar to the MG.

I recommend the white for building up texture. Gloss is a nightmare to use because of dust, it also seemed to need more gloss layers than white to get the same texture.

Ink use is reasonable both printing and not printing. Colour and quality are very good at 720x720 uni or bi.

We use between 1 to 25ml per M2 but average 8ml per M2. Ink is flexible and adheres very well to everything.

We can print white before or after CMYK in a single pass as there is a white channel on both the left and right side of the head.

It's slow, reliable and not expensive to buy or run. 16 pass 720x720 CMYK only or white only, uni-direction 3600mm long = 120 minutes.

For faster output I'd get a second printer, probably the LG

Roland support is excellent both from our dealer and Roland UK.

After 3 years of use we are about to extend our warranty for another year.

Works well with VersaWorks and Print Factory.

Thank you for taking out the time to give me such a helpful reply, I really appreciate it. What's amazing coincidentally is I was offered a LEC2-640 in the last couple of weeks from a dealer and after some negotiation, I just placed the deposit on it a few days ago - excited! The company that I'm purchasing it from have told me that it's exactly the same as the MG pretty much - the mg is really just a new shell + different UV curing lamp.

The configuration that it's coming with as Stock CMYKWWGLGL. I hear what you're saying about the dust attraction, I saw someone else comment the same thing. I'm planning to invest in some decent air filtration as I'm going to be running this from my apartment, along with a smallish laser cutter, for myself as well as not to upset any neighbours in the area with smell, fumes etc. I'm hoping it will be able to control the dust to a reasonable degree but still need to do a bit more research to find the absolute best solution.

I was actually going to ask if the layers could be built up with white instead but then thought obviously not so didn't bother. That's really interesting, can it do it the same degree or is it more blocky?

The ink consumption does sound reasonable from what you're saying, which is great.

For the print time estimate you gave, is that for a 1.5m roll? Based on that, I think it's roughly 5m2 per 2 hours, which for my needs at the present should be fine.

Really happy to hear your positive feedback about it. As I'm sure you know, it's a big investment to make, so your feedback has put my heart somewhat at ease.

The biggest worry I have is about production having to stop and waiting a long time to get the machine back up and running, so decent support is critical I think - especially if you're running on a single machine.

I recently bought UG 641 and I'm satisfied, but I definitely want to put it on replacement UV colors that are much cheaper than the original
Roland machines are rel
able, I have been using them for 30 years

Thank for responding and giving your recommendation. Glad to hear it's working well for you. The only thing is I think you need to be careful with using any non official ink if you're planning to keep the machine under Roland Service as I think it might void the warranty.

 

[SlikGRFX]

Thanks for the reply and suggestion. After speaking with someone via DM who has an LG, I think they have improved and reduced the amount of wastage thankfully. Still not the best though.

Thank you for taking out the time to give me such a helpful reply, I really appreciate it. What's amazing coincidentally is I was offered a LEC2-640 in the last couple of weeks from a dealer and after some negotiation, I just placed the deposit on it a few days ago - excited! The company that I'm purchasing it from have told me that it's exactly the same as the MG pretty much - the mg is really just a new shell + different UV curing lamp.

The configuration that it's coming with as Stock CMYKWWGLGL. I hear what you're saying about the dust attraction, I saw someone else comment the same thing. I'm planning to invest in some decent air filtration as I'm going to be running this from my apartment, along with a smallish laser cutter, for myself as well as not to upset any neighbours in the area with smell, fumes etc. I'm hoping it will be able to control the dust to a reasonable degree but still need to do a bit more research to find the absolute best solution.

I was actually going to ask if the layers could be built up with white instead but then thought obviously not so didn't bother. That's really interesting, can it do it the same degree or is it more blocky?

The ink consumption does sound reasonable from what you're saying, which is great.

For the print time estimate you gave, is that for a 1.5m roll? Based on that, I think it's roughly 5m2 per 2 hours, which for my needs at the present should be fine.

Really happy to hear your positive feedback about it. As I'm sure you know, it's a big investment to make, so your feedback has put my heart somewhat at ease.

The biggest worry I have is about production having to stop and waiting a long time to get the machine back up and running, so decent support is critical I think - especially if you're running on a single machine.



Thank for responding and giving your recommendation. Glad to hear it's working well for you. The only thing is I think you need to be careful with using any non official ink if you're planning to keep the machine under Roland Service as I think it might void the warranty.

Wait, you’re going to run a UV printer from your apartment? Do you think that’s a good idea?

Apart from the health issues of being around these printers, UV inks smell really badly and I can’t imagine how you are going to deal with that for yourself or your neighbors.

When our Roland was delivered, I could smell the inks before they even opened the trailer it was in. Even if you build an airtight clean room where will you extract to? Your neighbors will smell this thing down the street.

 

[RONIN]

Wait, you’re going to run a UV printer from your apartment? Do you think that’s a good idea?

Apart from the health issues of being around these printers, UV inks smell really badly and I can’t imagine how you are going to deal with that for yourself or your neighbors.

When our Roland was delivered, I could smell the inks before they even opened the trailer it was in. Even if you build an airtight clean room where will you extract to? Your neighbors will smell this thing down the street.

Hey, thanks for responding. My thinking is to use it at home for the short term so I can take my time to get familiar with it and the other equipment I'm looking to buy. Also it gives me time to try and hopefully get some sales for the products I'm looking to make, and if they don't, I could take my time trying something else. Once I've got a bit of momentum, I could then move everything into a proper commercial space. London is really expensive for commercial property and leases tend to be quite long. I don't want to trap myself into something from the get go until the business proves viable to some degree. As far as taking care of the smell, one of the dealers I spoke to recommended a BOFA unit to me. I know for laser cutters - imagine burning plastic, wood, etc! some people use high end purification units at indoor fairs without exhausting out at all, because they're so effective. After going through so many kg's of carbon the air should be clean and smell free. They're not cheap though. At least that's what my research has told me but admittedly you have got me second guessing it.

 

[SlikGRFX]

Hey, thanks for responding. My thinking is to use it at home for the short term so I can take my time to get familiar with it and the other equipment I'm looking to buy. Also it gives me time to try and hopefully get some sales for the products I'm looking to make, and if they don't, I could take my time trying something else. Once I've got a bit of momentum, I could then move everything into a proper commercial space. London is really expensive for commercial property and leases tend to be quite long. I don't want to trap myself into something from the get go until the business proves viable to some degree. As far as taking care of the smell, one of the dealers I spoke to recommended a BOFA unit to me. I know for laser cutters - imagine burning plastic, wood, etc! some people use high end purification units at indoor fairs without exhausting out at all, because they're so effective. After going through so many kg's of carbon the air should be clean and smell free. They're not cheap though. At least that's what my research has told me but admittedly you have got me second guessing it.

UV inks themselves smell, not just the smell emitted during printing. As a test you should order a UV ink cartridge, open it, and leave it in your apartment for a day. They just emit a strong chemical smell, all the time. We store ours in a sealed cupboard.

Dealers will tell you anything to sell you a machine. We run a BOFA filter when we are printing. It helps during printing but it's not a perfect solution. Firstly it's loud, like running 2 vacuum cleaners at the same time. Can you hear your neigbours vacuuming their apartments? Secondly it will pull in all the dust from your room into your printer. So unless you have a clean room set up, you will have problems running anything with varnish or that requires multiple layers of print.

What will building a clean room cost you? How will having a smelly printer in your apartment affect your life? Have you looked at finding a sign shop or commercial printer who run UV printers who can print these jobs for you? There must be loads of companies in and around London. Whilst I understand the attraction of having your own printer, it might be a good solution for you in the short term, to see if your venture is viable and you won't lose time and money experimenting with a printer.

 

[Figolux]

Times quoted in my earlier post are based on "full width scan".

White ink is great, detail and registration with CMYK is perfect - it's a single head machine.

EUV5 ink stinks during printing and waste bottle always stinks. Smell gets into everything including clothes - who knows what chemicals will go into your lungs - you will probably become unwell.

A BOFA or other extraction is essential. It will probably spread dust around your room and ruin your gloss prints.

Budget £2.5K to £3K p/a for a service contract and daily maintenance costs. I've heard rumours that one UV lamps costs £8k - maybe someone else knows?

I definitely would never put the machine in a living space.

I recommend that you to get someone else to print for you until you have a dedicated space.

 

[RONIN]

Wow, really that bad even with the BOFA? It sounds like this printer needs to be buried 50 metres from the earths core and I need to purchase a hazmat suit.

More worried now about how customers are going to react when they receive the prints themselves.

I've decided to go ahead and look into renting a commercial space near me. Found a few that seem interesting and with short term leases so hoping for the best. Going to take a look later on today.

I don't think getting someone to print for me is really an option. Looking to do everything personalised and with textured/embossed prints.

Going to invest some decent filtration.

SlikGRFX
Thanks for the advice and concern, I appreciate it.

Figolux
Yea, definitely going to keep the machine under Roland care, it's worth the peace of mind. I'll have to experiment with the white as well. Do you do a lot of textures? that's really what I'm interested in.

 

[SlikGRFX]

Ha ha, not sure about a hazmat suit but you'll definitely need gloves. You don't want UV inks on your skin

I'm not trying to scare you away from UV, it produces some cool effects, but I have worked around eco/solvent printers for almost 20 years (I even had a Versacamm in my bedroom when I first started) and I was shocked at how smelly the UV ink is. It's the first thing I smell when I open the door every morning.

The prints themselves don't really smell because the ink is cured.

All the best with your new business!

 

[Figolux]

Yes, we print some textured items.
2 or 3 layers of white provide enough texture for our needs.
Roland RIP has some textures in their swatches as does Illustrator.