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Need Help Choosing A New Printer.

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Sign Shop Guy

Sign Shop Guy
Our business is growing rapidly and now are in the need of a second printer. Currently having a hard time deciding which printer to go with, we have a Mimaki CJV30-130. We are really happy with it but our only issue we're having is that we're limited to what colors we can reproduce of off the CMYK inks.

We would really like to be able to print those vibrant aqua blues and oranges, even the ability to print white and metallics would be awesome. Started looking into the Roland printers but everywhere I go I'm told I will loose the print speed that the Mimaki printers have if I do the switch. Not sure if I should stick with Mimaki and go after a CJV300 or even a JV34-260, or search elsewhere?

Quite frankly, I don't know a whole lot about printers other than the CJV30-130 I'm operating on right now. Hoping I could get some advice.
 
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petepaz

petepaz

New Member
if you are happy with mimaki then just get the cjv300, it's faster (2 print heads) and has better ink configuations available for your color issue
 
DerbyCitySignGuy

DerbyCitySignGuy

New Member
Sign Shop Guy said:
Our business is growing rapidly and now are in the need of a second printer. Currently having a hard time deciding which printer to go with, we have a Mimaki CJV30-130. We are really happy with it but our only issue we're having is that we're limited to what colors we can reproduce of off the CMYK inks.

We would really like to be able to print those vibrant aqua blues and oranges, even the ability to print white and metallics would be awesome. Started looking into the Roland printers but everywhere I go I'm told I will loose the print speed that the Mimaki printers have if I do the switch. Not sure if I should stick with Mimaki and go after a CJV300 or even a JV34-260, or search elsewhere?

Quite frankly, I don't know a whole lot about printers other than the CJV30-130 I'm operating on right now. Hoping I could get some advice.
Click to expand...

Depending on what you're doing, you might also consider getting a hybrid printer. Direct print capabilities would allow you to still do a lot of the stuff you can do on the Mutoh, but also allow you to expand into different markets you might not be involved in now or aren't worth the time thanks to laminating and mounting.
 
A

AKwrapguy

New Member
Sign Shop Guy said:
Our business is growing rapidly and now are in the need of a second printer. Currently having a hard time deciding which printer to go with, we have a Mimaki CJV30-130. We are really happy with it but our only issue we're having is that we're limited to what colors we can reproduce of off the CMYK inks.

We would really like to be able to print those vibrant aqua blues and oranges, even the ability to print white and metallics would be awesome. Started looking into the Roland printers but everywhere I go I'm told I will loose the print speed that the Mimaki printers have if I do the switch. Not sure if I should stick with Mimaki and go after a CJV300 or even a JV34-260, or search elsewhere?

Quite frankly, I don't know a whole lot about printers other than the CJV30-130 I'm operating on right now. Hoping I could get some advice.
Click to expand...

Look at latex printers as well. If time is an issue Latex allows you to print/laminate in the same day. As far as the white and metallic inks go, I had a Roland with metallic inks and we never used it.... we wasted a metallic ink every few months just because it had to cycle through the machine. We thought that people would want it and that it would be cool to use as highlights in the wraps and decals... very few people cared. The clients that did couldn't pay for it.

Before you buy a printer maybe decide on what type of business you are trying to pursue first and buy the printer that best suites your needs.
 
Malardalensbildekor

Malardalensbildekor

The Boss
Molenbeek said:
If you are looking to expand your color gamut as well as white and metallic, i would recommend the Epson SureColor S80600. Great printer.
Epson SureColor S80600 Printer | Large Format | Printers | For Work | Epson US
We have some great promotions on them right now too!

Matt Molenbeek
Advantage Sign & Graphic Solutions
Click to expand...
Is it this printer with Orange color? How is it with lifetime of the color cassettes? On latex printers they have a best before date, 6 months after that the cassettes dont work in the printer, is it the same on this printer?
Or should you buy a bulk system directly to this printer to avoid this problem?
 
ChrisN

ChrisN

New Member
Malardalensbildekor said:
Is it this printer with Orange color? How is it with lifetime of the color cassettes? On latex printers they have a best before date, 6 months after that the cassettes dont work in the printer, is it the same on this printer?
Or should you buy a bulk system directly to this printer to avoid this problem?
Click to expand...

Yes, it has CMYK, light CMK, orange, and red, plus white or silver. We have two of them and we love the color gamut!

All inks have expiration dates, even if the printer doesn't know or care about them. I think the Epson inks expire 2 years after manufacture (at least, there are 2 dates on the package, 2 years apart), and our last order had inks made in 2016. We'll have no problem using them up before 2018!
 
dale911

dale911

President
I agree that you should check out the Epson s80600 but also look at the cjv300. I have one and am running it CMYKLcLm and white but I don't use the white all that often right now so I am going to change the system to CMYKLkOrW and maybe silver or keep the dual white carts. I don't know if I want to spend the money on the silver to try it out. I do know that the epson offers a little better color gamut and you can swap the white and metallic carts for cleaners to keep from using inks that you don't need. The trade off is that the printer is a little under $10k more. I also have a HP latex and have found that both ink technologies have their place. The HP runs a ton of banner stuff for me everyday while the Mimaki runs color critical items and print/cut jobs so that I don't have to pull the vinyl and put it on the graphtec (although I am annoyed with the time it takes to at the printer panel when I have to laminate a sheet and the put it back on the printer for cutting. It takes a lot of time out of my day going back and forth to the printer to setup the marks for detection because the printer takes so long to drop the print head, move across the unit to get the cutter head and do its software thing before I can move the laser. It also cuts slow. I don't know why it can move the printer head so fast while printing but does everything else at a snail's pace)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
SightLine

SightLine

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AKwrapguy said:
Look at latex printers as well. If time is an issue Latex allows you to print/laminate in the same day. As far as the white and metallic inks go, I had a Roland with metallic inks and we never used it.... we wasted a metallic ink every few months just because it had to cycle through the machine. We thought that people would want it and that it would be cool to use as highlights in the wraps and decals... very few people cared. The clients that did couldn't pay for it.

Before you buy a printer maybe decide on what type of business you are trying to pursue first and buy the printer that best suites your needs.
Click to expand...

I agree on the white and metallic inks. Unless you have a very high demand for them they are likely going to cost you more than they earn for you.

On the time issue - on that new Epson, they have been touting that same day laminating is now okay with their newest solvent ink formulations. Have received a couple of things in the mail from Epson on that.

Also should point out, you may or may not be aware (many are not) that LcLm add precisely zero additional gamut or color. Those just make for slightly smoother transitions between certain tones. On most machines where you can run dual CMYK or CMYKLcLm they mostly just cut your print speed in half.

A couple of thing that will dramatically help your color is to create your own profiles and work in RGB (and Pantones where called for). You might be surprised at the range of color your machine has that you are simply not able to produce using canned profiles optimized for some other machine in some other environment. It takes a good colorimeter (i1 Pro) and a good bit of learning to create good profiles but very much worth it. Working in RGB you will also have a much wider gamut to at least try and print with. CMYK cripples your gamut. I have our workflow (all design software and our NEC PA monitors) are set and optimized for Adobe RGB 1998 color. I will point out that Adobe RGB is an ever greater gamut than our printer has but our goal is to have an excellent range for our files and then let the RIP (Flexi which just happens to use the Adobe PDF Print Engine - go figure, Adobes RIP engine seems to really like Adobe profiles) work out the differences using perceptual for the most part.

That new Epson is slick though. I saw some of the demo prints off of one at the SGIA show and the output is stunning. With the ink set they have its hard to beat. I think there was another brand with a very wide gamut using some alternate colors. Maybe it was Seiko? I do know Mimaki also now has Orange and Lk in their SS21 inks out now too.
 
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