Do you do much contour cutting of printed/laminated jobs? I ask this as Im hoping you can provide feedback as to the accuracy of the cutter, my cjv30 was NOT very good at doing this on larger jobs. Like if I had a printed/lam/cut decal job for a van for example and the logo or lettering was multiple colors and longer then the width (54") I would usually do it in 2 pieces when there was a break in letters if I could.
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Hp latex 315 or Mimaki cjv150
- Thread starter Jb1983
- Start date
Do you do much contour cutting of printed/laminated jobs? I ask this as Im hoping you can provide feedback as to the accuracy of the cutter, my cjv30 was NOT very good at doing this on larger jobs. Like if I had a printed/lam/cut decal job for a van for example and the logo or lettering was multiple colors and longer then the width (54") I would usually do it in 2 pieces when there was a break in letters if I could.
equippaint
Active Member
Our cjv150 is very accurate and we cut laminated prints all of the time over 54". Once in a while 1will be off but nothing out of the ordinary.
Well I thought I had my decision made on the HP 315 Latex print and cut combo and then I was made aware of 1 issue that could be a deal breaker. There seems to be a common problem when printing larger jobs like wraps where due to the wearing nature of the printheads the tiles can vary slightly in color..... To me this is a Major problem as if that happens during a wrap its either live with it and provide a customer with a sub par job or start all over again. At this time I don't do a lot of full wraps, but I certainly do a few vehicle/wall wraps as well as larger coroplast signage where we put multiple sheets together. Im looking to grow and I don't want to buy another machine just to print the larger tiled jobs....
This now has me leaning towards the Mimaki and also the consideration of looking in to a Roland print/cut machine.
This now has me leaning towards the Mimaki and also the consideration of looking in to a Roland print/cut machine.
equippaint
Active Member
I like the Mimaki and for general small shop use Id go that way (and did myself) but from all that I have read, you can deal with the color variations on the latex. It seems to be popular with companies that are heavy in wraps so it can't be that big of a deal or you would hear about it much more. Ask bigfish, he sells both.
Are these tiled with multiple pieces though? Im not worried about slight color variations from 1 job 1 week and another a month later, that's to be expected. What im worried about is printing a 40ft wall wrap or a 20ft trailer wrap where im doing say 4-10 vertical tiles and each tile at the seam doesn't match perfectly. Hope that makes sense?
Thanks for the input, really appreciate any honest feedback as I want to make the right choice for my usage.
Yes. They like us to wrap around the doors, so we print front bumper, front door, back door, back bumper, on each side .So 4 pieces, all about 6 ft long each, all join together... No color variation at all.
I don't even do the color calibration... Only time I do it is when you put a new ink in, it'll ask you to. Half the time I do, half the time I don't, and no problems yet.
I also just tiled 9 8x8 jobs that joined together... No issues.
The color change is from different heat settings.. so the left side might be a bit warmer than the right side. What you do is tell Flexi or onyx to flip every other tile... So the joins get printed on the same side, and that prevents any color inconsistencies.
But to be honest... I've printed 15 ft of a solid color for a wrap, and it was the same color all around, so I don't know why people have an issue with that either. Colors never been a problem for our machine. We print for a lot of clients that need specific pantones for matching. Usually were pretty bang on, and it's consistent. So I wouldn't worry about the color shifting too much... Maybe the older latex machines were affected, but the newer ones seem to be way better .
I don't even do the color calibration... Only time I do it is when you put a new ink in, it'll ask you to. Half the time I do, half the time I don't, and no problems yet.
I also just tiled 9 8x8 jobs that joined together... No issues.
The color change is from different heat settings.. so the left side might be a bit warmer than the right side. What you do is tell Flexi or onyx to flip every other tile... So the joins get printed on the same side, and that prevents any color inconsistencies.
But to be honest... I've printed 15 ft of a solid color for a wrap, and it was the same color all around, so I don't know why people have an issue with that either. Colors never been a problem for our machine. We print for a lot of clients that need specific pantones for matching. Usually were pretty bang on, and it's consistent. So I wouldn't worry about the color shifting too much... Maybe the older latex machines were affected, but the newer ones seem to be way better .
Solventinkjet
DIY Printer Fixing Guide
Let us know your thoughts!
Go for the HP Summa combo.
I know Mimaki and Roland printcut machines. I service them.
They are ok, but i'd go for latex.
Latex prints are ready for delivery or mounting or cutting right after they are printed.
Latex 3rd generation inks are more scratch resistant than any ecosolvent inks. Often you can skip lamination.
Printheads can be changed by the operator and they are cheap.
With the printcut combo, you get a Flexisign at a super price.
Summa makes the best roll cutters, period. I service them since over 25 years.
When the printer goes south, you can still use the Summa cutter for another 20 years or sell it.
SightLine
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Many here know I'm not an HP fan. That being said, the only time I've seen a color variation due to the nature of the heads wearing was on very large wraps, like a 54' trailer or 40' bus. On those I have seen it, take the first panel printed and put it next to the last panel printed and there was both a noticeable change in color and to a lesser extent a slight degradation in print quality. In general though, the HP prints we see do look just fine. We do not run HP here but we do plenty of contract installs and I've talked to many places that run them. For the most part they are good machines.
On ANY machine, you can sometimes see a difference in printing from the left edge of the machine versus the right edge. This is specifically why some RIP software has a tile flip function. It is so that two panels edges are coming from the same side of the printer greatly reducing the chance that there will be any visible difference. I know Flexi has that, it is the "Automatic Tile Flip" check box and you should always have that on. No reason not to....
On ANY machine, you can sometimes see a difference in printing from the left edge of the machine versus the right edge. This is specifically why some RIP software has a tile flip function. It is so that two panels edges are coming from the same side of the printer greatly reducing the chance that there will be any visible difference. I know Flexi has that, it is the "Automatic Tile Flip" check box and you should always have that on. No reason not to....
Well ive had the HP Latex 315 print and cut solution up and running for 2 days now.
My thoughts are the latex print quality is better than the Mimaki cjv30-130 overall. The colors may be slightly less vibrant but theres NO banding at all, it prints black a 100 times better! I did 4 banners today, 2 pull ups, and 2 4'x8' hanging, and I was able to trim them immediately after print, hem and grommet the 2 and install the other 2 in the stands immediately! wow.
As for the cutter, it absolutely blows the Mimaki printer cutter 2 in 1 machine away! The barcode function is effortless, It turns jobs of 3000 print/cut labels in to a cinche, as soon as its done one block of labels it scans the next bit of media for another barcode, finds it and cuts that, I did 10 blocks of 300 and it cut it deadly accurate from the first one to the last. thoroughly impressed with the cutter!
Another bonus from the latex for print/cut stickers is when doing un laminated ones the latex does not curl the vinyl or saturate it so it becomes flimsy like the solvent does, they handle like un printed vinyl, very nice.
I gave a customer there stickers today and the first thing they said was, oh I like this material better! I laughed as it was the same material, just a different ink!
Flexi is way more complicated than rasterlink and im not even going to attempt to use it for design work. Im using Illustrator for design and just sending it thru flexi for RIP. Ive found it easy as I am a Keep it Simple kind of person.
Overall very happy with my choice.
My thoughts are the latex print quality is better than the Mimaki cjv30-130 overall. The colors may be slightly less vibrant but theres NO banding at all, it prints black a 100 times better! I did 4 banners today, 2 pull ups, and 2 4'x8' hanging, and I was able to trim them immediately after print, hem and grommet the 2 and install the other 2 in the stands immediately! wow.
As for the cutter, it absolutely blows the Mimaki printer cutter 2 in 1 machine away! The barcode function is effortless, It turns jobs of 3000 print/cut labels in to a cinche, as soon as its done one block of labels it scans the next bit of media for another barcode, finds it and cuts that, I did 10 blocks of 300 and it cut it deadly accurate from the first one to the last. thoroughly impressed with the cutter!
Another bonus from the latex for print/cut stickers is when doing un laminated ones the latex does not curl the vinyl or saturate it so it becomes flimsy like the solvent does, they handle like un printed vinyl, very nice.
I gave a customer there stickers today and the first thing they said was, oh I like this material better! I laughed as it was the same material, just a different ink!
Flexi is way more complicated than rasterlink and im not even going to attempt to use it for design work. Im using Illustrator for design and just sending it thru flexi for RIP. Ive found it easy as I am a Keep it Simple kind of person.
Overall very happy with my choice.