Need Help Mutoh Xpert Jet 1641 SR pro

[St Augustine Signs]

Has anyone had issues with the new Mutoh Xpert Jet 1641 SR proH

 

[rjssigns]

Print shop on campus has one and they're almost through their first set of 1L inks. Dealer even made the comment they're running the heck out of it.
I talk with the folks in the print shop when I'm on campus and they are quite pleased with the performance.
Also took some time to show them how to access some menu items and work more efficiently with Flexi.
Only issue was profiling, but as far as I know the dealer is handling it. If not we have four complete X-Rite setups in our student lab.

 

[The Grindilkin]

That printer is straight garbage. We are sponsored by Mutoh and they supplied a brand new xpertjet 1641 srpro. I was super stoked...new ink formula, better printhead...etc. Bosses got rid of our valuejet 1624 before we even had the new one setup...we did a couple test prints, color matching previous jobs...no big prints just small 12x12" swatches ...everything seemed okay...print speed wasnt great but i figured with time to play with the settings id get it dialed in. Next day i go to print a giant vehicle wrap, 3 60x120" panels, dark blue pattern. Right from the get go i start getting weird repeating drop off, banding every 18" but the weird thing was it wasnt uniform across the roll, it'd be narrower on the edges, and way fatter in the middle. Upon closer inspection it looked as if the cyan ink was not adhering to the vinyl (Avery1305). I thought, huh, that's weird, maybe the roll is contaminated. Maybe there's dust, maybe static charge....who knows. Switch out roll. Clean head, clean wiper, set up for another print..looks good...until about 60" in.. then wham...same thing. I begin to get a little worried. I've got a 2 week back log of vehicle wraps to print, I'd just gotten back from being sick for a week and this shit is not cool. Besides the fact that the dithering pattern used by the printer was...i dunno, more diffuse than the 1624, despite the fact that they were both using Mutoh iweave pattern "fine & fog 3". The highest quality (and therefore slowest) setting on the 1641 srpro, visually seemed to be equivalent to the medium quality setting of the 1624. So I text Fellers (our supplier in sunny California) and they give me the usual rigamarole about it probably being just a bad roll, or it had dust on it, sorta subtlely implying that I had somehow screwed up the settings or I was imagining the banding (which we began to call the Anomaly, as it was neither drop off, nor banding. Similar to both, but truly neither) So after about a week of this and having to throw out like a bunch of vinyl, I get the bosses involved. There's various theories proposed running from the ordinary, bad print head, bad ink formula, a giant batch of bad vinyl, to the utterly bizzare; fluctuations in the power line going into the printer, random non linear static build up, maybe a microscopic hole in the cyan ink line, etc. At this point MUTOH USA has gotten involved and is at first having me send pictures showing the banding and then files and finally shipping them printed pieces to they can look at it up close. MUTOH Japan then gets roped in and they create a brand new profile for Flexi which they assure me will fix the problem. This is now about a month after we first set up the printer. 1st replacement profile...no good. Second replacement profile...also no good. So then MUTOH starts changing their tune a little bit... Stop using flexi they say...start using the brand new Vertelith Rip Software they've created just for the 1641 sr pro. So I do...only 1 problem. Vertelith at the time lacked the ability to handle cut-paths embedded in the printfile, unlike flexi which has no problem doing that. Well that's not gonna work, I've got to be able to contour cut. But I give Vertelith a try, it gets rid of the anomaly...almost, but it does it by dropping and absolute metric-fuckton of ink down on the vinyl...I mean like fucking bathes it. Well that's no good. The fucking ink doesn't have time to dry before it gets to the take up reel....it's practically dripping off the vinyl. So bosses are mad, I'm mad, Mutoh is flummoxed and Fellers is just confused. So Mutoh flies out one of their techs to take a look and make sure the printer isn't defective or that I'm not some mouth-breathing-back-birth. He gets there has more fire off another print...and is like...what the hell? I'm like, I told you I wasn't imagining it...So after about 2 months of this bullshit and tell the bosses...I just want to be able to do my work quickly and accurately. I want to be able to match previous jobs, I don't want to sit there and have to meticulously clean the printhead twice a day, just for a print to take longer than it did on the supposedly cheaper, ten year old 1624. And don't even get me started on the black...no matter what settings I used or how I ripped the file, I couldn't not get a rich full black. It just looked sorta listless and dull. And that was how we ended up getting the new Valuejet and sending back the XpertJet. New Valuejet prints way fucking faster... no weird banding issues and I get a nice rich deep black and can color match to previous jobs. So yeah. Avoid the Xpertjet like the plague.

 

[Jeff Van Horn]

I have had two of thes printers setting in my shop for 6 mos. I purchased from Einstein Graphics. I was promised from Scott Konkle before purchase he had matched my existing colors that I was printing on my VJ54's. I had already previously went through this with Signwarehouse for 6 mos. and they could never figure it out and had to refund my money. Long story short after fighting with Einstein for 6 mos. and having the worst customer service experience ever, lucky if the will even contact you back or reply to messages, they are refunding my money. Apparently they are saying Flexi and Mutoh now are admitting their is an issue and are working on the problem. The colors have gotten closer as they are no longer pastel but they still haven't been able to match the vibrant colors from a 1324. Has anyone else experienced this problem and if so how are we ever supposed to upgrade equipment if it will not perform even close to the older printers?

 

[einsteingraphic]

Jeff,
As you stated in your post, we picked the units up and gave you your money back. This is not us admitting fault but us trying to rectify a situation that could not be resolved between two companies. Since we picked then up Oct 10th, both units have been sold without any changes and the customers are 100 percent happy with the printers. We wish you the best of luck finding replacement printers for your Mutoh 1324X units.

 

[Jeff Van Horn]

Jeff,
As you stated in your post, we picked the units up and gave you your money back. This is not us admitting fault but us trying to rectify a situation that could not be resolved between two companies. Since we picked then up Oct 10th, both units have been sold without any changes and the customers are 100 percent happy with the printers. We wish you the best of luck finding replacement printers for your Mutoh 1324X units.

That is great to hear. I found another vendor that stopped by and immediately recognized the issue and should be good to go moving forward.

 

[Ssignature]

The XPJ1641SRP, like any product newly introduced, had some growing pains, but they are now in the 900s on serial numbers and seem very stable. After firmware v1.04 was introduced, we got new dot sets, waveforms, and color profiles. VerteLith is up to v7.10 and with some adjustments, Flexi 22 can produce colors comparable to the Mutoh-produced ones in VerteLith. Contact your vendor’s tech support if your printer is not up to firmware v1.07, to get an update. In addition, the bidi calibration for dot sets G&H must be done to properly print with the new settings. Tech Support can walk you through the Auto bidi and PF calibrations.

 

[Rat_Fink]

Revisiting this because I just had my XPJ1641SR-PRO installed today.
while I have note yet had time to do many test, prints - it does seem to be printing well.
However - the software that is included (Flexi Designer and Vertelith) both seem to be useless . The output with Vertelith seems to be ok, but there seems to be little to no rhyme or reason on how to send a job. With my old version of Flexi (12 Mutoh edition), it was just a couple clicks.

Also - my sales rep told me that the Felxi designer included would do everything my old version 12 would do except it would just send the print file to Vertelith instead of Production Manager.

This isn’t true as I can no longer just cut graphics from flexi like before and I can no longer export files to work between Corel/Illustrater and flexi which I do numerous times with each of my jobs.

Do I have any options besides subscribing to the latest version of Flexi - which I really do not want to do?
Is it possible to get my older version of Flexi to work with this new printer?
Is there a stand alone (non subscription) version of Flexi that I may be able to purchase used that would still work with this printer?

Any advice would be appreciated as I do not see how I will get this software to work for what I do.

Thank you very much!