HP FB700 Purchase

[ForgeInc]

Sorry to hear about your printer going down, but also appreciate your honesty. You never want to hear just the positives on a piece of equipment. I want to hear about all the real world experiences and headaches that you face on a day to day basis.

I hear ya. Many will attest that I have spoken very highly of our machine up until this point. We had occasional minor issues, but nothing a quick call to our local tech couldn't fix in a day or so. Our reseller has been great, but I am not a very big fan of dealing with HP.

The machine prints beautifully when it's running right. Better in my opinion than many higher priced machines (if a bit slower) so I really don't want to become jaded and am hoping this new tech can fix it, otherwise we will be demanding a new one. Stay tuned.

 

[ForgeInc]

Just wanted to post an update. So the HP tech flew in yesterday, and spent most of yesterday and today completely recalibrating our machine. Things like belt tension, high end and multiple alignments, tracking, etc etc. After about 12 hours of work our printer seems to be functioning 100% again.

I do want to also point out, another shop we know of that bought the same printer had similar issues as us. We saw some samples and their prints also appear to have an occasional head drop out (though the tech swears that's not what's happening.) It's like all of a sudden you get a stripe about .25" wide that appears to have no magenta or other color.

Our gut says, this machine is great for the single 8 hour shift type of shop. But we run ours about 16 hours a day. With heavy usage, I think it's going to need occasional routine maintenance that end users simply can't perform.

Could be wrong, I hope so. If we have any further problems I'll post em up.

 

[johnnysigns]

No heat necessary, you can fold a piece of coro and the ink will not crack or peel.

I'm not sure if you're understanding what I'm asking.

Are people heat bending HIPS w/out cracking?
Are people bending coroplast w/out cracking? 4,5 & 6mil Coro?

 

[johnnysigns]

Care to elaborate on what you mean by "occasional routine maintenance" out of the scope of what an owner/operator can handle?

You mean recalibration of major systems on a regular basis to get those kinds of production hours out of the machine?

 

[ForgeInc]

Johnny - yup...exactly. Well said.

 

[SBTJC]

Love mine, flawless and maintains itself pretty much. Just do what the printer asks and it will serve you for many years.

To white or not to white. Be aware that when you do your switch over to white the printer will be down for 4 hours total. Two hours for switching from LC/LM to white, then two hours switching back. Not to mention an average loss of 15% of your inks being switched. So make sure you batch your jobs. I almost wish I hadn't wasted the money on white. No enough work in my area to really justify it. And what work I do get, I have charge astronomical prices to take into account the extra ink loss and downtime of the printer.

Roll to Roll is a MUST! The extra tables, unless your loading sheets in excess of 5' long there is no real need for them, they tend to take up room and get cluttered up with other things on top of them. I know they fold, but we usually end up using them as extra table space for other things.

 

[SBTJC]

When you purchase the printer, during the install. MAKE SURE the tech that does the install doesn't just power the thing up and run some test prints. Mine printed just great out of the box, but after the tech spent another three hours calibrating and aligning she prints perfectly! I have to say Garry White from Proveer was my installer, and if there is ANY way of getting him to your shop for the install DO IT!

 

[parrott]

ForgeInc: Any updates?

 

[ForgeInc]

yeah...our problem came back and another hp tech flew in and was at our shop for a few days. i have to say my opinion of this printer has lowered dramatically. We print lots of styrene with solid colors and rich blacks, as well as cardstock with similar coverage. We've been battling cure banding a lot too. Not sure if its a new problem or one we just never noticed because we didnt do graphics with tough coverages like solids and blacks after initial purchase.

We've had it since April, we're growing and thinking on moving to the oce 550xt, (we initially considered another FB) the higher speeds and stationary table are attractive to us. If we do get a new flatbed, we'll probably run both for a while, perhaps even sell the FB down the road a ways.

Again, for a small to medium volume shop they might be fine. Running them 16+ hours a day....not so sure.

 

[PE3185]

As per leaving the white ink in, prints are ok depending on usage and size of signs.
But but for the smaller size jobs the color is so very much cleaner and smoother.
Also with white ink in all the time you will go crazy with all the automatic head flushes and head cleaning to keep the white in printing correctly. It seems every time you go to print your waiting for some sort of head cleaning or flush

 

[JustinXarisma]

Help please FB700

We have a FB700 and it runs fine for the most part. I am having one issue with it leaving a mark on 4 mil Poly Styrene. It appears to be coming from the thickness sensor (the roller and just on the edge of it). We have cleaned it off many times but it does not seam to help. It looks like it is leaving some kind of liquid on the material causing it to pick up any dark color ink in the air. If you look in the printer while it is printing the mark is there before it even gets to the print head and right after the roller goes over it. I have searched around and not seen anyone else having this issue so it may just be me. If anyone has any ideas as to fix this problem I would appreciate it. Oh and also what is the number of prints that you do between purges?? I have been playing with this trying to see how long between is the the most cost effective verse the quality of the print. Thanks

 

[ForgeInc]

We've experienced lots of issues with our FB printers, but not this one yet...sorry can't be of any advice on it.

But, I can say that after having a few HP techs in here...they have also said it might be a good idea to manually clean the heads every once in a while and not solely rely on automatic cleaning. We are also supposed to be getting a detailed list of maintenance and other things to try and stay on top of in order to keep the machines running smoothly. I'll share em once received.

 

[hydo1]

We've experienced lots of issues with our FB printers, but not this one yet...sorry can't be of any advice on it.

But, I can say that after having a few HP techs in here...they have also said it might be a good idea to manually clean the heads every once in a while and not solely rely on automatic cleaning. We are also supposed to be getting a detailed list of maintenance and other things to try and stay on top of in order to keep the machines running smoothly. I'll share em once received.

Is the list of maintenance procedures additional to the ones listed in the manual? We run an FB500 and I am manually cleaning the heads every few weeks.

 

[ForgeInc]

Is the list of maintenance procedures additional to the ones listed in the manual? We run an FB500 and I am manually cleaning the heads every few weeks.

Yeah. It's good you are manually cleaning the heads, because I don't think it says that in the manual.

We have 2 FB700 machines now and run the heck out of em, and because of that seems like we have issues every now and then. They are both running pretty smoothly now after an HP tech was here 3 days last week. They do need to be babied and maintanied though, they seem to be pretty finicky. At least for us...

 

[particleman]

We have a FB700 and it runs fine for the most part. I am having one issue with it leaving a mark on 4 mil Poly Styrene. It appears to be coming from the thickness sensor (the roller and just on the edge of it). We have cleaned it off many times but it does not seam to help. It looks like it is leaving some kind of liquid on the material causing it to pick up any dark color ink in the air. If you look in the printer while it is printing the mark is there before it even gets to the print head and right after the roller goes over it. I have searched around and not seen anyone else having this issue so it may just be me. If anyone has any ideas as to fix this problem I would appreciate it. Oh and also what is the number of prints that you do between purges?? I have been playing with this trying to see how long between is the the most cost effective verse the quality of the print. Thanks

I havent seen this issue either on ours. Sounds like you need to call HP and get a tech out to look at it.

We are cleaning the bottom of our heads once a week or so also.

We just passed the 1 year mark on our machine. Overall very happy with the machine. However, like forge ours is finicky. The machine has a sensor for EVERYTHING so when one little thing is off it lets you know about it whether or not it is important.

 

[JustinXarisma]

Purging

Thanks for the quick responses on my question. I was also wondering at what interval you have the purges set at.

 

[sandraF]

From my understanding the HP 700 is not suitable to run roll 2 roll, about 12 to 14 hours a day... switching daily a wide range of media (scrim vinyl, canvas, poster, cling, poly film).
If not, what's the closest machine offering similar capabilities?
I'm looking to purchase one, but need to make sure it can crank out about 2500 sq. ft. / day of combined media... Any thoughts ?

 

[Robert Gruner]

I offer my FB700 prospects a L26500/61" latex ink printer or the roll feed option for the same price; and, if they must have 98" width, then I offer them L28500/10" latex ink printer for the price they would pay for roll feed option plus an additional $15K+.

 

[sandraF]

Can you leave the FB700 print 3 to 4 hours at night alone (R2R) or does it need constant supervision?
I'm talking regular scrim vinyl in production or Signage Plus mode.
Thanks

 

[particleman]

Although you can, you really shouldn't. UV lamps in general on any of these machines are hot enough to start a fire. On more than one occasion I have seen UV printers jam up, melt the substrate and nearly start a fire. For that reason alone I would say it isn't worth it.