Mimaki JV400LX Series

[b2413]

So had to come on and give feedback on our recent acquisition (2 months) of a JV400-160LX. I did a lot of searching on here and elsewhere for more information before we made the purchase to get a better idea of what I was getting into. It was very hard to find any information on the Mimaki latex as far as end user experience and some of the stuff I did find was primarily negative.

The verdict? We absolutely love this printer, it has done everything we have wanted it to do so far without any hiccups. I don't know if Mimaki improved some bugs since the earlier models or what the case is but I have no complaints.

So if you are in the market for a latex printer at a decent price, at least take a look at the Mimaki series. Granted it has only been 2 months but we have put various types of media through it daily and have experienced nothing derailing yet. I will update this as I have it longer.

Anyone have more in depth knowledge of what I should be looking out for let me know.

 

[getcustomized]

I have one too I use as a back up to my JV33. Bought it used at a great price. However it is missing a few nozzles on the Cyan but I run in 32 pass and clears up banding about 90%. Runs dual CMYK. Had it almost 10 months. it's a smooth running printer. I'd say it's right on par with my JV33.

 

[jfiscus]

This is interesting to read, I thought Mimaki stopped all sales of these and assumed they recalled the rest. Hopefully I'm wrong and they are able to make a comeback with these.

 

[tylercrum]

I'm glad you're having some luck with yours. We had one and it was essentially a very expensive paper weight. We replaced it with an HP360 and never looked back. We could get decent prints out of it but running it at 32 pass or 48 pass was just ridiculous. I could print 4 or 5 times as much stuff on the HP as we could get off the mimaki. Actually had a wall graphic job for a tradeshow, timed it on the mimaki and we wouldn't have been able to even get the whole thing printed before the tradeshow started. Jammed it out on the HP with 2 days to spare.
I was more than willing to accept fault, but I've been running wide format printers for a long time starting with the old HP5500's, then mimaki solvents, then the HP latex's....
We finally just traded it in towards a flatbed printer so it's finally gone. We had a small party to celebrate when they picked it up!

 

[EmTOne]

Good to hear some people are having a positive experience with these printers. We have one, but it has turned into a paperweight also. While it worked, it was great though. Heck, it may actually still be a good printer, but we can not get anyone to come and service it.
I think our only option now is to try and sell it for parts to someone else who has one.

 

[TKD]

What flatbed did you get and was it worth it?

 

[Solventinkjet]

The original problem with the JV400 was that it was $25,000 more than an HP latex. Mimaki really messed up with the pricing and timing on that machine. I'm sure you got it for a great deal. They gave them out for free with flatbed purchases and those users just ended up selling them for whatever they could get. Thanks for the feedback. I don't hear a lot about the JV400 either and it's good to know it works!

 

[tylercrum]

What flatbed did you get and was it worth it?

We got a CET 126" Hybrid. It's pretty awesome.