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Mimaki Latex

dmfahie

New Member
Hello. A friend of mine went to the ISA and saw the new latex (jv-44 maybe?). I called on it, naturally Mimaki says its the cats meow. Distributors say otherwise. One thing is certain, both vendors say its better then the HP 4400. This being said its 32k. I can buy 2 JV-33's or one Latex. Plus, its new on the market.... I dont want to be the guine pig! It obviously has its advantages, maybe 3 1)Greener/No Smell 2)Print and Laminate, maybe 3)Mimaki claims its very fast @ 175spft hr... my distributor argues that. I am headed to Boston in the next week or to so I can give it a test drive myself. Have any of you heard much about this machine good or bad?
 

artbot

New Member
there's a couple posts here. one mentioned that the white latex was quite opaque. i'd like some more info on the opacity if you can give that a look. one thing to discuss is the price of the heads. they are supposedly very expensive. also, always bring your own media to any testing!
 

fmg

New Member
Advantage rep said they won't be
entertaining it for 6-9 months not comfortable with it
.
 

Sign Eagle

New Member
The ads from Mimaki indicate the ink is cured at 60 deg. C and it operates on 115 V rather than 200-250 deg F and 220V that HP requires. The 175 sq ft per hr is likely mfg wishful thinking, the rep at ISA did indicate it runs a lot slower when printing white, didn't indicate how much slower. I lost interest when I heard the $32k price. Don't recall what HP claims, we get about 90 sq ft / hr on our HP and 60 on our Falcon 2, both a lot slower than mfg claims. In running at 60 deg C it might not have any smell, some of the materials we use with the HP are really bad, it's not the ink just the material and specifically the adheasive.
 

HulkSmash

New Member
Printing white just sounds stupid. They needed something to try to get the edge over HP. And their answer was white. Sure - let me know when they come out with some black roll to roll substrate and i'll be interested, wait - maybe i'll just buy the white media? 32k? With permanent heads that's an expensive fix.. if they ever fail.
 

artbot

New Member
it does sound like they over engineered on this one. there's no way that they couldn't have used a proton, or polaris, etc. these printer companies have this lamborghini mentality. if they had told their engineers $18,500 that's it. design it. they could have built a great printer. they would have taken the jv33 chassis and plopped some new heads and capping station in it. tadaa! jv400!
 

rjssigns

Active Member
$32K for 175 square ft per hr.? What a Mutt. My Roland ain't fast but I only paid 18K for it and it cuts too!
 

Rooster

New Member
it does sound like they over engineered on this one. there's no way that they couldn't have used a proton, or polaris, etc. these printer companies have this lamborghini mentality. if they had told their engineers $18,500 that's it. design it. they could have built a great printer. they would have taken the jv33 chassis and plopped some new heads and capping station in it. tadaa! jv400!

What did they really have to change other than the heads on the machine? It's the same bloody chassis as the JV34, which was a two head model of the JV33 with some new heads. So they added an agitator to the ink delivery and are running the sepiax inks in it, BFD!

Mark my words, they will either be chopping the price considerably after the launch or the receivers will have crates and crates of them to sell off when it drives Mimaki out of business. $32K is just stupid for the category this printer falls into.
 

10sacer

New Member
My Mutoh Blizzard prints just over 400 sfh at production quality and it cost me $8K used. I get a 3x5 banner off a 38" roll in just over 2 minutes.

I print high quality 4 pass single strike unidirectional for adhesive vinyl and get about 275 sfh.

Plugs in to 110 and dries pretty quick with no smell whatsoever.
 

artbot

New Member
since mimaki marketing is probably peeping in on the message boards, the board should offer up a "what my business would pay for what you are offering"

i think mimaki build, latex, low heat, $24k.
 

ThinkRight

New Member
since mimaki marketing is probably peeping in on the message boards, the board should offer up a "what my business would pay for what you are offering"

i think mimaki build, latex, low heat, $24k.

And free Ink through the warranty. !
/sarc
But affordable heads would be a plus,100- 300 dollars.
 
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