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Life of Inkjet Media (namely Papilio products or similar)? Long term experiences?

tpinc

New Member
We've found we can cut our costs drastically on a certain sign we make by switching to inkjet printing.

Our specific final print size is 11x17, the same size the papilio comes in. In addition, its white borders, so we don't have trim issues. Lastly, we do several thousand a month and each one requires customization. (each morning we know how many of each one we need to have done and delivered).

The papilio printing cuts our finished product cost down to 25% its initial cost, doubling our margins, possibly more. Dry time of inkjet pigment inks is significantly less than the solvent printers we've used freeing up space and labor hours, as well as tying up our cutters and slowing packaging.

I was skeptical at first, but I bought some to try out, and was actually thoroughly impressed with the quality. We've had several signs outside testing UV durability and after several months the pigment ink looks good and the pigment ink with the papilio UV protectant aerosol may be a hair better but its hard to notice. The dye ink faded noticably, and the UV protected dye ink lasted better but not as good as the pigment.

We will probably switch to a cold laminate for the commercial version, although that does present an added cutting step, but thought I'd see if anyone on here has experience with the product or a similar one? I did some searching and it didn't seem like any mainstream printers are using it, just some "novices" looking for something inkjet printable.
 
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