HP 560 Latex vinyl waste

[eahicks]

Did some calculations, and I came to this nauseating conclusion. With this 560, always losing the first 1.5-2' of material that has to be fed out before printing, I estimated throwing away around $7000 worth of vinyl per year (based on our standard intermediate vinyl, 54" - this is likely higher when you factor in premium vinyls, backlits, etc.) JUST from this printer alone. That, for us, translates to maybe $30000 worth of revenue in a year. Makes me hate this printer even more. Didn't try to factor in the restarts and reprints due to head strikes and other jams this thing does on a daily basis.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Is this because you’re switching rolls often? Or just due to the amount of rolls you’re putting in?

Our Colorado can print on about the first 3mm of any new roll of vinyl but wastes about 3’ at the end of every roll that it won’t print on (as it stops printing the minute the paper/vinyl comes off the core).

If it’s due to switching rolls often it sounds like it’s just a bad fit for you having a HP. If its because there’s wastage from the start of each roll, there’s not many printers on the market that will let you print on the *full* roll.

I do remember the days with our mimaki CJV30 I’d just put my finger over the sensor and it’d print right up to the pinch rollers. Not advisable though lol.

 

[P Wagner]

That, for us, translates to maybe $30,000 worth of revenue in a year.

Re the waste: use of a reusable leader would bring that lead-edge waste to near 0, s you can consistently and reliably print to within inches of the print media's front edge, while the leader provides the forward tension that minimizes the potential for crashes.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Your total revenue from in-house print production is around $2,500 per month?

I think he meant the 7k worth of vinyl would have translated to 30k in actual sales?

if they were doing 30k a year in revenue but were losing 7k a year from 1.5-2’ worth of vinyl every now and then I’d be super worried lol

 

[ikarasu]

For our cheap material we just waste a foot.... never 2 Ft. For our expensive material, we do what P.wagner suggested and use a leader - Some material we find will get strikes unless it's on a take up reel...

So we have a few empty cores of various sizes with 4-5 FT of end roll material on it - We just load that core, tape up the end to the vinyl and away we go. In reality it doesn't take any longer than waiting around and attaching it to the core once it's ready to go, so it's worked great for us. Almost zero waste at the start of jobs.

 

[WYLDGFI]

We have a 560 as well as 1500s. If you really want to get some vomit in your mouth..we thread up 6 ft of material on the larger latex printers just to go roll-to-roll. We have at minimum... 3 ft of waste on those for anything from 54 inch paper or SAV up to 126 inch banner. As stated above, we maximize material and job runs as best we can to use the most material from the roll. Nesting jobs and even upgrading a small economy job to a premium substrate at times helps with waste reduction.
On the smaller latex printers, we found that getting the material out from under the heater door initially and attaching a spring loaded clamp on the end of the substrate can work. It gives it some weight and tension. As long as you have tape and a core ready to go, you can minimize some waste there. Downside is you have to hang around for the printer to get to the point where you can tape it on and make sure all is ok before walking away.

 

[BigfishDM]

Did some calculations, and I came to this nauseating conclusion. With this 560, always losing the first 1.5-2' of material that has to be fed out before printing, I estimated throwing away around $7000 worth of vinyl per year (based on our standard intermediate vinyl, 54" - this is likely higher when you factor in premium vinyls, backlits, etc.) JUST from this printer alone. That, for us, translates to maybe $30000 worth of revenue in a year. Makes me hate this printer even more. Didn't try to factor in the restarts and reprints due to head strikes and other jams this thing does on a daily basis.

I will now offer a $9 discount per roll for Latex users, that should more than cover it.

 

[eahicks]

I think he meant the 7k worth of vinyl would have translated to 30k in actual sales?

if they were doing 30k a year in revenue but were losing 7k a year from 1.5-2’ worth of vinyl every now and then I’d be super worried lol

Yes that's obviously what I meant...LOL. We run maybe $80k in digital print every month. Even with that throwing away that much wasted vinyl is a lot. Sure we have waste factored into our pricing, but maybe not enough after seeing these figures.

 

[balstestrat]

Yes that's obviously what I meant...LOL. We run maybe $80k in digital print every month. Even with that throwing away that much wasted vinyl is a lot. Sure we have waste factored into our pricing, but maybe not enough after seeing these figures.

If you print that much do you keep changing the rolls for fun to get so much waste? Should be pretty easy to pile up jobs and not print every job as a single.
I of course can't know the figures but I calculated you would throw away 15-30 feet a day. That's 7-15 roll changes/beginnings a day even with the max 2 feet waste.

 

[MikePro]

yeah i definitely miss my old jv3 for this reason. used to be able to treat the printer like a plotter in the sense of loading any size piece of scrap vinyl and even covering the media-in sensor with a piece of tape to be able to print until the pinch wheels were no longer able to hold on.

loading waste and difficulty printing on certain materials like reflective vinyl made me lose interest in the 560 and have not been disappointed by my upgrade to the 365 from the 26500.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Yes that's obviously what I meant...LOL. We run maybe $80k in digital print every month. Even with that throwing away that much wasted vinyl is a lot. Sure we have waste factored into our pricing, but maybe not enough after seeing these figures.

So how many times a day are you switching rolls on the HP? Is it running 24/7?

Again, If you’re switching rolls often it may be that the HP is a bad fit.

But again, even on our Colorado we waste 3’ at the end of every roll (though we can use the vinyl) so there’s going to be a decent bit of wastage from pretty much every technology. Just it only happens at the end of our rolls. Sounds like it’s an issue every time you start a new roll on the HP.

 

[MikePro]

my workaround for load/feed limitations, is to simply save your scraps and tape them onto the leading/trailing edge. then you can flip the script, and declare how much $$$ you're actually saving annually, with a little bit of DIY.

 

[Bly]

Just allow for a reduced usable roll length when working out your pricing and you should find it doesn't really add much to your prices.

 

[jawdavis]

We run 2 360's and a 570, and we change rolls a lot, each day, on each printer. We offer a wide variety of print materials, offer a specific turnaround time, and while we try our best to gang up jobs as much as possible, it's not always feasible to run a complete roll start to finish. In fact, we may only print 12-15' on a roll before swapping out for a new material. So I know your pain, and as someone who considers all of our waste, not just from a financial perspective, but from a environmental/landfill perspective, it also sucks to throw away any more than you absolutely need to. P Wagner is right, leaders are definitely a solution, but it takes more than just a few seconds, and unless you align them just right, you may wind up getting some lifting and cause head strikes which wastes material anyway. Obviously some materials are better than others about being able to do this, but if you barely feed the material into the heating chamber on the 560/570, then leave the curing door open, you typically only waste about 6" and I can live with that. One thing that has long irked me about the HP machines is the ambiguity about where the print will start on the page. On my old Roland, I knew within a millimeter where the print would start on every single run and I could change origin on the machine accordingly. On the 570, there is a different leading gap depending on if the roll was just loaded or the printer was recently restarted than if simply prints the next job. Sometimes it's within a few inches of the leading edge and sometimes it's well over a foot, with little explanation (have tried 3 diff RIPs, same result). In almost 4 years of running that machine, there's still a lot that doesn't make sense to me about the thought and design process of material handling and certain components. Roland has been making bulletproof printers for decades and I just wish HP would borrow a few ideas about what a well-built, reliable machine can be instead of a mostly disposable plastic printer. My old XC-540 that was purchased in 2008 is still printing daily at a shop down the street. Most of the printheads are the originals. If you take care of something it should last, but oh well....sorry, looks like I wandered off topic.....

 

[zillion29]

If you watch any of HP's videos on the machine, and the Onyx series about it, they go to great lengths to emphasize that this machine is for people who are printing end to end on rolls and just changing out empties. The salespeople pushing the machine, on the other hand, seem to do gymnastics to conceal this from buyers. It was never meant for shops that are swapping out materials 4 times a day.

 

[RaymondLoewy]

I have wasted so much alumigraphic on our 360 today it is disgusting.

 

[jimmmi]

Personally using a leader on my 360, i lose 5-10cm which nothing. It takes less than a minute to tape it. It helps to put the printer in move material mode because vacuum works so its super easy. It holds the leader by its own and you just put a narrow tape. 30" hassle.

 

[ironchef]

I sure hope the new 700/800s new loading system will fix that waste issue.

 

[balstestrat]

I sure hope the new 700/800s new loading system will fix that waste issue.

Lets just say that it's still there, maybe somewhat better. Difference is that on L700/800 if you print from pinches it pretty much consistently works all the time with that material. And if it fails from pinches that material wont ever work from pinches.

So more consistent result, very rare to have crashes and no need to use edge holders but still some materials wont work from pinches.

 

[Kentucky Wraps]

Did some calculations, and I came to this nauseating conclusion. With this 560, always losing the first 1.5-2' of material that has to be fed out before printing, I estimated throwing away around $7000 worth of vinyl per year (based on our standard intermediate vinyl, 54" - this is likely higher when you factor in premium vinyls, backlits, etc.) JUST from this printer alone. That, for us, translates to maybe $30000 worth of revenue in a year. Makes me hate this printer even more. Didn't try to factor in the restarts and reprints due to head strikes and other jams this thing does on a daily basis.

It's not wasted if you priced it into the job and factored it into the equation. EVERY job has "wasted materials" if you think about it. Heck, look at weeding and taping, how much goes into the trash unused.
Look at having a 36" job using 48" material etc.
Price the waste into the job and you've lost NOTHING.