Question Is my 360 a lemon, and should I buy another HP?

[Solventinkjet]

For every brand of machine you will hear the story about the guy who has a tech out every week to keep it running and also the guy who ran it for 10 years without doing maintenance and it worked like a charm. The difference between the Epson based machines and the HP is the HP is designed to last 3 or 4 years before going obsolete and you have to buy a new one. You can find posts here on signs101 about people running older HPs and they just up and stopped making ink for them. I still help people fix their Roland SP-300s and Mimaki JV3s and they are pushing 20 years. My opinion is that if you are wanting to get a good long term ROI, go with a solvent or UV.

Edit: Also i just want to point out that the solvent machines can print on the same materials as latex. It's just a marketing myth HP put out there. You don't even need an optimizer head to do it!

 

[TomK]

HP latex, the heater that also prints.

 

[greysquirrel]

Jordon, Im late to this post...Maintenance cartridge and your line sensor error are probably related. You can clean the line sensor...it looks for the maintenance cartridge if its not working properly there is that issue. Broken piece under the carriage was cased by broken edge guards in the printer. If they were ever bent from say loading 54" after 36" media and the guard was not moved out of the way its like a magnet for media...once it bends out of shape it has t be replaced...you cannot bend it back. It will damage heads and your carriage. The loading table...that can support 150lbs...operator error would have broken that. The curing module could be related to pm3 needing to be done. Has it ever been performed? It should have if you've owned it 5 years. Did the tech remove your curing unit and clean out all of the holes? Then they did not perform the maintenance properly.

How many employees are running the equipment? I only ask because the most problematic printers/print shops have always been with 3-4 people operating the equipment. Its never anyones fault...it just broke.

I would hook up with a local 3-1 dealer and purchase n HP care pack for the printer...about 2k. they will fix every problem you have...if they cannot fix the problem HP sends an engineer. If he cannot fix your problem...they will send you a replacement 365(because they no longer sell the 360)

 

[dypinc]

I wouldn't say that the Latex can print on more media given the problem with plasticizer migration and how that limits what you can use and get decent prints. I am not sure what is going on as of late but this problem seems to be getting worse. Every time I see it I do the alcohol wipe test and then it prints great. So I question how can it be the printer but I am sure puzzled why this is happening so frequently lately. Had to quit using most of General Formulation vinyl because of this. So far I have not seen this on Briteline vinyls but just toward the end of a roll of HP Grip it is showing and that roll hasn't even been here 6 months. I am going to start a new thread on this issue.

 

[Dukenukem117]

What is the outdoor non-laminated ink life for the other printers before fading occurs? We use HP because its suppose to be good for 3-5 years. We haven't had anything up for that long yet but so far so good.

 

[Wide Image Solutions]

We've had our latex 360 for almost 5 years now, and it's been a love hate relationship. At least twice a year it will go down for one thing or another, and that doesn't include the SMKs that have to be installed by a tech. Several plastic pieces are broken on various places on the printer, and it'll through error codes at least once a quarter. Most have work-arounds that can keep us running, but they temporary fixes are annoying, and paying $1,500 a pop for a service tech gets old.

Some examples of issues just in the past 6 months:
Line sensor failed prematurely before SMK3 - work-around was to disable OMAS on all medias
Plastic piece on bottom of carriage chipped on the edge holder (which wasn't in use) and shredded 3 maintenance cartridges before we figured out what was wrong - needed a tech visit
Loading table mount point on the user side broke, meaning the loading table won't support any weight - work-around stop using loading table
Curing module 4 will throw an error code if the temperature drops below 200* - work-around bump all paper products up above 200* and babysit the printer
Drop sensor error code that intermittently pops up.
Finally, it's begun spitting out the maintenance cartridge whenever it wakes up from idle - work-around either don't let it idle, or hard restart the printer without the MC in, then "replace" the MC before printing again.

We need to replace this machine since it's turning into sunk cost, but my question is with what? Another HP (560/570)? How do I know it won't be just like the 360? We have an Epson s80600, and I know the s60600 is a rock solid machine, but if we go bulk ink it'll be $6-7K more than a 570. Plus the latex can print on more/different media and dries immediately.

I feel stuck. On the one hand I like the positives of the latex, but dislike the quality of HPs. On the other hand I like the quality of the Epsons but dislike some of it's limitations.

Hi, I would definitely go with another Hp latex for all the good reasons. #1- You can trade in that 360 for another 360 with us. We have many. Its one of our best sellers!
#2-You can also trade it in on a 560 demo thats basically new. And you get the 1 year Hp warranty.
We have a great trade in policy and an awesome financing program.
Once you consider all the pros and cons, its always best to go with Hp Latex. thx www.Wideimagesolutions.com

 

[iPrintStuff]

Hi, I would definitely go with another Hp latex for all the good reasons. #1- You can trade in that 360 for another 360 with us. We have many. Its one of our best sellers!
#2-You can also trade it in on a 560 demo thats basically new. And you get the 1 year Hp warranty.
We have a great trade in policy and an awesome financing program.
Once you consider all the pros and cons, its always best to go with Hp Latex. thx www.Wideimagesolutions.com

To reiterate, you should go with a new HP simply because they sell them.

 

[jawdavis]

Probably not saying much that hasn't already been said, but I'm another one in the love/hate category. We bought 2 360's in 2014 and they have each run almost a million sqft to this point, and they've made us good money in the process. I also have miles of unsold material from reprints due to head strikes, inconsistent color, inconsistent length, warped prints, canceled prints, uncured prints, etc. I'd say about 20-30% of the issues we've seen are related to user error or being careless with maintenance and calibration and the rest are because of the machines just felt like being a prick. If you spend much time researching these printers, you'll see the most common complaints are length/color consistency, or lack thereof. In some businesses, this is a non-issue, but for us as doing strictly wallpaper, this is a killer. We can print a 8 or 10 panel mural and lay all the panels out on the floor and all panels line up except panel 6 to 7, or something. Happens ALL THE TIME and has for 6 years, even on our 570 we've had for a few years. The consensus I believe is that this is a limitation of the latex, especially when using heat sensitive materials. On the other hand, the machine is cheap, decently reliable, quick to print, instantly dry and reasonably accurate. We do the majority of service ourselves because it's just not that complicated and the service manual will literally show a monkey how to do everything. If it breaks, order another part from HP parts and it will ship overnight. Few hours and you're back up and running. Very little on this printer is built to last, but everything is replaceable. And greysquirrel, you can absolutely re-bend the edge guards if necessary, as long as we're talking about the 360's with removable platens. I can't tell you how many times I've removed the platens, slid the edge guards off and gotten them right back the way we want them. 800,000sqft per machine and still using the original edge guards here.

So it's time to replace the 360's and our next decision is to either go with more 570's (or hopefully newer latex generation if it comes out this year) or something like the Colorado 1650. The speed and durability seem incredible, but the price tag gives me heartburn compared to the latex machines. Roll to roll LED UV seems to be the way to go for wallcovering now but are there affordable (sub 50k) machines in the 64"wide range that can break the 300-400sqft/hr mark in indoor quality mode?

 

[jimmmi]

Probably not saying much that hasn't already been said, but I'm another one in the love/hate category. We bought 2 360's in 2014 and they have each run almost a million sqft to this point, and they've made us good money in the process. I also have miles of unsold material from reprints due to head strikes, inconsistent color, inconsistent length, warped prints, canceled prints, uncured prints, etc. I'd say about 20-30% of the issues we've seen are related to user error or being careless with maintenance and calibration and the rest are because of the machines just felt like being a *****. If you spend much time researching these printers, you'll see the most common complaints are length/color consistency, or lack thereof. In some businesses, this is a non-issue, but for us as doing strictly wallpaper, this is a killer. We can print a 8 or 10 panel mural and lay all the panels out on the floor and all panels line up except panel 6 to 7, or something. Happens ALL THE TIME and has for 6 years, even on our 570 we've had for a few years. The consensus I believe is that this is a limitation of the latex, especially when using heat sensitive materials. On the other hand, the machine is cheap, decently reliable, quick to print, instantly dry and reasonably accurate. We do the majority of service ourselves because it's just not that complicated and the service manual will literally show a monkey how to do everything. If it breaks, order another part from HP parts and it will ship overnight. Few hours and you're back up and running. Very little on this printer is built to last, but everything is replaceable. And greysquirrel, you can absolutely re-bend the edge guards if necessary, as long as we're talking about the 360's with removable platens. I can't tell you how many times I've removed the platens, slid the edge guards off and gotten them right back the way we want them. 800,000sqft per machine and still using the original edge guards here.

So it's time to replace the 360's and our next decision is to either go with more 570's (or hopefully newer latex generation if it comes out this year) or something like the Colorado 1650. The speed and durability seem incredible, but the price tag gives me heartburn compared to the latex machines. Roll to roll LED UV seems to be the way to go for wallcovering now but are there affordable (sub 50k) machines in the 64"wide range that can break the 300-400sqft/hr mark in indoor quality mode?

Did you use the counterweights kit hp sells for this kind of inconsistent length issue?

 

[Dukenukem117]

Did you use the counterweights kit hp sells for this kind of inconsistent length issue?

Im not familiar with this. How does it work?

 

[CanuckSigns]

Probably not saying much that hasn't already been said, but I'm another one in the love/hate category. We bought 2 360's in 2014 and they have each run almost a million sqft to this point, and they've made us good money in the process. I also have miles of unsold material from reprints due to head strikes, inconsistent color, inconsistent length, warped prints, canceled prints, uncured prints, etc. I'd say about 20-30% of the issues we've seen are related to user error or being careless with maintenance and calibration and the rest are because of the machines just felt like being a *****. If you spend much time researching these printers, you'll see the most common complaints are length/color consistency, or lack thereof. In some businesses, this is a non-issue, but for us as doing strictly wallpaper, this is a killer. We can print a 8 or 10 panel mural and lay all the panels out on the floor and all panels line up except panel 6 to 7, or something. Happens ALL THE TIME and has for 6 years, even on our 570 we've had for a few years. The consensus I believe is that this is a limitation of the latex, especially when using heat sensitive materials. On the other hand, the machine is cheap, decently reliable, quick to print, instantly dry and reasonably accurate. We do the majority of service ourselves because it's just not that complicated and the service manual will literally show a monkey how to do everything. If it breaks, order another part from HP parts and it will ship overnight. Few hours and you're back up and running. Very little on this printer is built to last, but everything is replaceable. And greysquirrel, you can absolutely re-bend the edge guards if necessary, as long as we're talking about the 360's with removable platens. I can't tell you how many times I've removed the platens, slid the edge guards off and gotten them right back the way we want them. 800,000sqft per machine and still using the original edge guards here.

So it's time to replace the 360's and our next decision is to either go with more 570's (or hopefully newer latex generation if it comes out this year) or something like the Colorado 1650. The speed and durability seem incredible, but the price tag gives me heartburn compared to the latex machines. Roll to roll LED UV seems to be the way to go for wallcovering now but are there affordable (sub 50k) machines in the 64"wide range that can break the 300-400sqft/hr mark in indoor quality mode?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but every UV print I've gotten from a supplier had a very distinct smell to it that never really goes away, I can't see how you could use that for wall graphics. Do the newer UV printers not have the same issue? I ordered a 20'x10' banner from 4over that was UV printed and as soon as I opened the box the smell hits you, and it lingers around for a very long time.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but every UV print I've gotten from a supplier had a very distinct smell to it that never really goes away, I can't see how you could use that for wall graphics. Do the newer UV printers not have the same issue? I ordered a 20'x10' banner from 4over that was UV printed and as soon as I opened the box the smell hits you, and it lingers around for a very long time.

smell goes away, I smelled a canvas I made a month ago for a sample print for this reason and it didn’t have that smell at all. Assuming all the different inks smell for varying lengths of time though

 

[Notarealsignguy]

The rest of the manufacturers will continue to improve UV for entry level printers and latex will become the beta format in the sign business.
There was so much latex hype and now that it has been widely adopted, you can see people jumping ship. Nobody wants a machine that requires constant repair and tweaking no matter how easy it is or how cheap the parts are.

 

[jimmmi]

Im not familiar with this. How does it work?

They reduce the weight of the dancing bar so the tension is less. And the material doesn't stretch so much.

 

[jawdavis]

Did you use the counterweights kit hp sells for this kind of inconsistent length issue?

We were one of the first shops to get the counterweights installed years ago. They took the issue from bad to not-as-bad, but we have never seen the issue completely go away. That being said, we often run Roll-to-Freefall so the take up doesn't even come in to play.

 

[jimmmi]

We were one of the first shops to get the counterweights installed years ago. They took the issue from bad to not-as-bad, but we have never seen the issue completely go away. That being said, we often run Roll-to-Freefall so the take up doesn't even come in to play.

With Roll-to-Freefall do you have better results lining up tiles than using take up?

 

[jawdavis]

I would say no. The errors are never consistent and are difficult to recreate at any given time. However this happens intermittently across all 3 machines (2 360's and 1 570). I might print 25 panels in a row that line up perfectly and the 26th is pretty far off. Again this will not be an issue for a lot of users. Even vehicle wrap panels that don't line up perfectly can be stretched/shrunk during installation to correct any discrepancies, but with wallpaper materials of different varieties, being installed by independent hangers, this is not ideal. Another thing to note is the length of the panel is an important factor. If I print 25 panels that are 6' high, chances are good they will all line up close enough, but if I print 12'-14' high panels that have to line up perfectly over the entire span, the likelihood of them being a little off is much higher.

 

[karst41]

I had a L26500 and upgraded to the 560 The 560 is a baddasz printer with great color management Beautiful Prints (I use flexi sub.) The spindle less loading is a definite relief.

But let me warn you that the printer has some horrible failings.
1. Material management on the 560 BLOWS You have to feed material 2" past the front air dam flip up door. There is a 6mm step down in the lower out feed ramp that will create a snag from the materials natural roll curve. Head Crash! every time. Material like 3mIJ 35C the corners will bow up and head crash befor it feeds through. Some shops use leaders.
feed past the air dam door or its a crash every time. You will lose minimum 20" material on the small jobs

The dancer bar,,,,,,, If you bump the blue latch while loading, the bar will drop and swing down and crash into the condensation collector bucket and break the plastic arms on both sides of the dancer bar/ tension bar.
The fix for this is to move the condensation collector jug back to the lower horizontal frame. you will need a longer piece of tubing. Surgical or tygon tubing will do.

If you can, wait for the next version 6xxx and confirm these issues have been fixed.

I went from HP 9000 to the L26500 to the 560. I had no issues with the 26500

However, if you are ripping a lot of material, you cant beat the 560 570.

 

[MonkeyB0y]

It is interesting reading all those posts.

In general people purchase a printer on the basis of quality, speed and reliability.

Then you have specifics, color, job requirements like car wraps, etc.

The current quality, speed and gamut of most printers are exceptionally good.

When your printer is broken, your business will come to a grinding stop, this is fact, with this in mind, the question should be, who is going to repair it quickest, cheapest and be reliable every time.

Service is key to your purchase, not the badge, not the type of ink, or if its green, just the simple fact of cost to repair and length of downtime.

Don't believe the marketing, ask to speak to the service manager after you have spoke to the sales agent.

Choose a company with good product knowledge, localised spares and fair costs to fix your devices.

m