HP or Agfa

[Graphiki]

We are looking at getting a flatbed printer.
Narrowed down to 2
HP FB500 or an Agfa M4F
Just wondering about Maintenance costs and Square footage ink costs on both.
I haven't really seen a comparison and no one can really give me one for the HP
Agfa is saying that theirs runs at .12 per sq.ft.

Also a little concerned with ink adhesion
Any thoughts?

 

[HulkSmash]

Agfa has the best ink cost in the industry. ink adhesion is great. I took some coro they printed on, bent it. scrapped it.. no problem.. same with hp no issues at all.

Love the HP FB 700.. we're actually in the process of buying a new flatbed, and those 2 are in the running.. but we're looking at the 700 instead of the 500.

we're leaning on the HP more because we have a local tech here...

 

[Graphiki]

We had 3 we were looking at originally CET, HP, and the AGFA
Heard great things about CET but was not overly impressed with some of the print quality.
Size is a big issue as well. I don't want to take up my whole production area.

I lean towards HP for ease of use as I would not be the one running it all the time.
I worked for another company a while back that had purchased a colorspan before HP bought them. Worked great when I was running it and not being told to try and put things through that it just couldn't print.
After I left there it sounds like everything broke.

I want to decide this week before the end of year.

 

[Graphiki]

Oh yeah... Just some rough numbers
We did about 70k in coroplast last year printed from a jv33
And probably around the same in wood and alupanel.

If we get this I think we can push way more through
We would be keeping the jv33 for our wraps and other misc stuff. Hopefully we can keep it going for a while it's coming up on 5 years old now

 

[ppisales]

If size is an issue the FB500 which is smaller and almost half price, takes up 5' x 11' just for the printer, with the base (smaller) tables the length in 10'; none of this takes into account the clearance space around the machine. Also you are going to want to keep the RIP nearby so you will need room for a computer and monitor. If you get the extended table option you are going to need another 10' which is why we opted out on that.