Market Competition for Latex equipment

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

I say run one to see the difference. After having 3 latex printers running in our shop, there are other inherent issues with a multi-latex setup like color matching and consistency. So far the Colorado runs circle's around our latex... What was taking us nearly 3 hours on 6 pass, for better quality it is done in 55 mins on the 1650.

We have 2 latex 570s that we have been running since 2017 to back the Colorado up should something happen, eventually we will have a second Colorado.

 

[cstone94]

Oh wow, really? I was talking to a local fellow that has a giant sign shop and he was saying how much he loves his UV printers. But to be honest, if the latex keeps performing well for me maybe I won't make the change. I've had good luck so far. Appreciate the experienced information.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my UV. It's a workhorse and print quality is amazing. Latex is just better at some things.

 

[jpescobar]

HP Latex reminds me electric cars first time they were annouced and launched but the difference with the electric car is that despite the environmental and ecological advantage it coudn't competed with gasoline/diesel cars.
HP Latex printers are just about consumables, too much cartridges and printheads that you have to replace constantly unlike eco-solvent and UV printers.
If I have to pick between productivity, reliability and image quality from one side and versatility from the other side I will choose the first one.

 

[TrustMoore_TN]

Every other printer in their market


Couldn't disagree more. I rather have 3 570's for the price of 1 Colorado. The redundancy is priceless. Putting your eggs in 1 basket, for a machine like that is a bad business decision in my opinion. They wanted me to have one so bad, they literally wanted to set one up, and charge me later for it if i liked it. Very odd group of sales guys.

That is the model with the commercial printing equipment market (digital small format printing for traditional printing). They will do the puppy dog sale and give you a piece of equipment to try with huge incentives and then start billing you after you've been hooked. It's a totally different way than we've typically been used to in the sign business. The only time I've had a similar experience was 15+ years ago when our plotter went out and Advantage Sign Supply "Loaned" us an Odyssey plotter that we ended up purchasing.

 

[ApexVinyl]

Well and again the colorado is pretty much a full on production machine in its speed and quality combination style of printing which I don't need yet. My biggest concern right now is that I need to possibly upgrade within the next six months to a bigger/faster machine but I have also heard that the next generation of HP printers are on the horizon within a year. This makes me want to ride it out instead of getting into a new "old model".

 

[jpescobar]

I have also heard that the next generation of HP printers are on the horizon within a year. This makes me want to ride it out instead of getting into a new "old model".

Where did you heard that ?

 

[Bobby H]

Our two HP latex printers are working fine. They're not perfect, but we don't have many issues with them. Switching to latex was a big step up from thermal inkjet. A few years from now I'm sure we'll replace those two latex printers. But the thing I want most in the near term is a larger flatbed printer.

 

[aparat]

Where did you heard that ?

Drupa is this year. HP allways brings something new at drupa every 4 years - so this year should not be different.
Allso epson lately is mayor "pita" for hp, so they have to bring something new if they want to keep the market share..
just my opinnion.

 

[Dukenukem117]

As an example, my sister bought an expensive home printer from them about three years ago and HP just informed her that they will no longer support the printer with updates. Guess what, the printer doesn't work anymore a month after that message. :/

I've got a worse story. My cofounder use to be a freelance graphic designer and purchased a several thousand dollar HP equipment at a trade show (where it was announced) and then got d/c 6 month later, rendering it useless. She was very reluctant to get another HP when we got our Latex.

We haven't been around long enough to require servicing on the Latex (which was purchased used with about 50k feet ran through), but I do worry about it. Our ink supplier can no longer service the printer because of some weird certification thing with HP. Its really weird cause they were able to get certified to service and sell the 300s but not the 500s. They use to do the 500s but now they don't. Wtf right?

 

[TomK]

I hear ya. I bought my hp latex through grimco and they don't even service and support it which baffles me.

 

[ApexVinyl]

Where did you heard that ?

Several salesmen and it falls in line with their product cycle. I believe something will be released in the coming year.

 

[ApexVinyl]

I've got a worse story. My cofounder use to be a freelance graphic designer and purchased a several thousand dollar HP equipment at a trade show (where it was announced) and then got d/c 6 month later, rendering it useless. She was very reluctant to get another HP when we got our Latex.

We haven't been around long enough to require servicing on the Latex (which was purchased used with about 50k feet ran through), but I do worry about it. Our ink supplier can no longer service the printer because of some weird certification thing with HP. Its really weird cause they were able to get certified to service and sell the 300s but not the 500s. They use to do the 500s but now they don't. Wtf right?

Yeah....I just don't like all their little rules and policies. I have half a mind to go with an epson or mimaki next. I don't feel like HP supports their product properly in general. The epson's are pretty impressive.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

Our shop tried an HP latex. It sat unused, it couldn't come anywhere close to our Seikos as far as color and speed. Our FB700 is one of our most under-utilized assets, though, in my opinion. The thing that's kept us from looking at latex again is reading through this forum and seeing the horror stories about ink coming off in chunks, not being able to get the same color on reprints, the list goes on.
The Canon rep in our area really wants to sell to us (we'd probably get three of them), but two things have made us tell him we're not even interested in demo'ing one yet: they're not 3M MCS certified (our Seikos are), and they can't manage to match the very specific colors required by one of our largest customers (and we gave them samples to see what they needed to hit). Those two issues, no matter how cool, fast, etc. the printer is makes it a no-go.