I know there's no perfect printer, but help me get close...

[neil_se]

I already posted my opinions in your other topic, but my experiences reflects some of those above. I've had Rolands for 6+ years and still have 2 XC540s, but have had a HP L26500 for about 9 months and wouldn't dream of printing my wraps on anything else (actually I print 90% of my signs on the latex).

Last week we had a car in to wrap and the graphic designer had made a mistake with a measurement, and it needed reprinting the day of fitting. No problem for the latex, can print and fit immediately after whereas there's no way we would do that with the Rolands (the vinyl becomes very soft and tacky so difficult to fit, and we have experienced failures in deep recesses due to insufficient degassing)

Warm up definitely takes longer than the Rolands, but if you plan well and can keep it rolling then actual print speed is equivalent or better than the Roland. If you've got a full wrap to print that will take a few hours then you can confidently leave the HP alone or overnight as it will detect and account for printhead issues and has larger ink cartridges. It does generate a fair amount of heat, mine is with my Rolands in a room approx 200sqft and it does need the aircon on (the dryer elements on the Rolands generate a fair amount themselves).

There's lots of other pluses to the latex but those alone are significant. Before I got mine I didn't even want one, I just got one 'free' as a bonus with my HP FB500. Out of that deal the latex has proved to be much more valuable than I had anticipated.

 

[milchad]

I'm 10 minutes from the Speedway off of Weddington Road. Drop by one day and we can chat about printers. I don't do any vehicle wraps as Jim from Red Eye is a good friend of mine and I see what a hassle it is and anyone with a roll to roll printer and a business card thinks they can do wraps - so the market is pretty saturated. I started with a UV flatbed and grew out from there.

I could tell you why they don't like latex - but not here.

Sean

Interesting... Feel free to PM me on the comment highlighted in red. I talked to Jim from Red Eye yesterday and he was very helpful. He didn't have anything negative to say about the HP latex printers, so that is promising. The bottom line is that if this project comes to fruition, I will have a major role in which printer is chosen and the last thing I need is to make a bad decision with somebody else's money.

 

[P8106jr]

Speed

"listed print speeds" for the L26500 are below:

4-pass bidirectional 22.8 m²/hr (246 ft²/hr)
6-pass bidirectional 16.5 m²/hr (178 ft²/hr)
8-pass bidirectional 10.6 m²/hr (114 ft²/hr)
10-pass bidirectional 9.0 m²/hr (97 ft²/hr)
12-pass bidirectional 7.6 m²/hr (81 ft²/hr)
16-pass bidirectional 6.3 m²/hr (68 ft²/hr)

I never get to run in 4-pass (i'm always trying to show quality) but the 8 and 10 pass prints are excellent. 6-pass works great for banners. still your standard print speed will be about 100sqft/hr. And you don't have to worry about letting the print dry (which people say is a myth anyway), immediate finishing/installation and all the stuff.

Also, another high volume shop in NC (Motorsports Designs) runs 2 ancient Vuteks, 2 JV33s, 2 L25500s and 2 LXs. They say they hate the HPs, and love the JV33s, so everyone has their preference. Every shop has the printer that is right for them, you just have to find the vendor that will help you figure that out (rather than sell you the flavor of the week).

Lot of printer manufactures tell what you can run the printer. Not what you sell. Hp's own internal documents. Talk about the 114 sqft per hour on adhesive back. Make sure you get your files printed on the printers you are interested. Make the dealer run them speeds other than max quality. So you know what you are really getting.

 

[SpeediGary]

Roland

We have had our Roland VP-540 for 7 years and love it. It's a major workhorse and have had 0 problems. We previously used a Roland PC-600 and loved that machine too. Way too expensive to print with now, but in it's day it was a great printer. Has been relagated to cutting vinyl these days....