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Looking at purchasing a Roland printer.

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JeremySI

New Member
Hey, how is everyone doing? name is Jeremy, from GA, currently stationed here in the Navy.

I have a hobby/side business, I have a website and sell decals right now, mainly car related at the moment.

I have a graphtec ce5000-120 and am looking at getting a printer to start doing printed decals and i am thinking i should go with a larger printer to keep future endeavors open.

i found a guy selling 2 roland FJ-540's and he said he will let one go for $5500 because he recommends getting new dampers for it. They are both currently operating and he said he will gladly show me how to operate it if i come get it.

Question for you gurus out there is if you think this is a good deal or not, also what are your opinions on that model. i was researching info and saw it is a dye/pigment printer but he said they are both running ecosolvent and it was just because they didnt come out with ecosolvent max until after the printer was put into production?

Anything you can tell me would be great.
 
CropMarks

CropMarks

New Member
If it was properly converted and the heads are in good shape...either drained and stored properly or they haven't let it set very long without printing (I've heard 5-8 days at most) then it could be a good buy. Ask for a print head test print... that's the big thing. Each of the print heads run $800+ (DX4) and it has 6 of them.

We have a FJ-540 and it's a good printer. We just ordered the conversion kit for it the other day.
 
J

JeremySI

New Member
thanks, i know they purchased both of them for their business from a sign shop that closed( that is what they said). i will see if they know anything on who did the conversion. are there many places that offer a conversion for this printer?

ill definately tell them to send me a print head test print before thinking of driving there. i will post it up and see what you guys say. im guessing they should all be fine, they say they are still currently using them both so they havent been sitting or anything
 
CropMarks

CropMarks

New Member
If they print one out (push and hold the button on the front of the machine that says..."TEST PRINT") it should look like the one I've attached. There are a couple of nozzles on my black that are a little goofy, but it prints just fine.

As far as who does the conversions....there might be more places, but Dave from www.solventprinterconversion.com is selling me mine. I know that other people have rigged up different heater boxes themselves and replaced the inner parts to the solvent resistant parts they need.
 

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JeremySI

New Member
Ragnabrok said:
Aren't FJ's print only? that makes print/cut kinda difficult
Click to expand...

yes but i dont foresee needing to cut anything over the 48" that the graphtec can take care of.

after i get a printer though my next purchase down the road sometime will probably be a larger FC series graphtec.
 
J

JeremySI

New Member
got ahold of the guy and it turns out he was going to try to pass off one of them he has that isnt converted even though he knew i wanted an ecosolvent printer. he said he would sell me the other which is converted for $6000.

im kinda weary though since he seems to have tried to get me over with that, plus he said that the conversion was done by the dealers which just involved replacing the dampers and print head adapter plates. i am no expert on printers but have been doing a lot of research but doesnt converting to solvent involve more like replacing every component the ink comes into contact with in place of stuff that is solvent resistant. and dont you have to add heaters to the unit as i believe you need them to open up the pores for the ink to "adhere".

you think i should pass this up? i have seem some mutoh falcon outdoor II's for the 4-6000 range. i found a 64" one that has just been serviced and had a lot of the components replaced with new. how would you compare the mutoh to the roland? i think i read that mutoh components for that machine are much cheaper to replace? i see it is 4 color instead of 6, would i notice much of a difference with that?
 
CropMarks

CropMarks

New Member
The most of the falcon's do have the cheaper print heads... as far as how good they are, I did a ton of searches on this site and it was about 50/50 hate vs like. I had a mutoh rep in here from advantage sign supply and he said he felt bad he ever sold one to anybody. the new valuejets seem to be really nice and he said those were great! If you don't mind full solvent... the ad in the classifieds section for a mimaki jv3sp are pretty good machines. built like tanks i guess. the machine that is listed for sale was recommended to me by the advantage sign supply guy. he sold them their new machine and I guess this machine still has a warranty on it and Bryan said it's in great condition.
 
CropMarks

CropMarks

New Member
this might actually help you... I am going to buy a CE5000-60 this week and I've been having a really hard time trying to figure out what is going to work for me as far as printing the registration marks for contour cutting. Well, it seems that the plug-in graphtec makes for illustrator works pretty well. I was able to apply the crop marks to the document.... expand the document size to include the registration marks and .... blam! the registration marks stayed where they were. Then, in theory I can do a save as pdf.... take the pdf into my printers rip software.... make a print with the marks on it... cut it down to the right size... feed it into the graphtec plotter... and it SHOULD all work... I hope. Only one way to figure it out... buy the plotter and give it a go. time for a hot dog party!
 
premiercolour

premiercolour

Merchant Member
We have a like-new Mutoh valuejet 1204 48" lightly used for $7,000 fob Los Angeles. It's been using Eco Ultra. Excellent nozzle test. We took them in from a closed out business. It is less than 1 year old.
 
CropMarks

CropMarks

New Member
fieldcenter said:
We have a like-new Mutoh valuejet 1204 48" lightly used for $7,000 fob Los Angeles. It's been using Eco Ultra. Excellent nozzle test. We took them in from a closed out business. It is less than 1 year old.
Click to expand...

JeremySI - If I was looking for a printer, I would definitely check this one out. (actually, if I saw this 2 weeks ago I might have bought it myself) - If you could work out shipping it might be a great deal. they can fit up to 50"(ish?) media and print to a full 48"(ish?) - When you really think about it, how many times a year do you actually print a 54"-60" print? Not too many at our shop, I'm sure others do, but not us.
 
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