My take on the printer equipment out there today...
Gerber: a 15" wide printer that prints thermally. The only ones really still uses these are people in the Emergency Vehicle business that can't get out of their own way. Most do not laminate their prints and the ability to produce large graphics is by talking the customer out of doing so. I used one decades ago and it's the equivalent of using a Cricut™ in the sign industry today.
HP: great for regular graphics as they print well and can be laminated right away, but the electricity cost for 230w and their inability to layer ink with depth leaves colors lacking, reds in particular. On reflective vinyl, it's a waste. It covers more than allows the reflective to show, especially on darker colors.
The ability to get parts without having to buy an entire kit or assembly is also limiting. The 560 Latex I've used kept breaking the pinch roller clamping arm. After 3 breaking in 2 months and on the phone with an HP tech, it got bumped to "Engineering" where this tier knew of the problem in which they sent me a metal arm to replace the plastic one that came with the machine and was replaced with 3 times. 21 days downtime for something that should have been released in a service bulletin.
Epson: The S80600 prints like it was Michelangelo...flawless. The maintenance is a bit different from other machines, but it runs beautifully. Not a fan of their take-up reel and how it feeds into the machine though, but I'll take what I can get for the prints it puts out. Although I'm fairly comfortable with ONYX, I wish it also used Flexi as a RIP. Currently use both on a few different machines and sometimes I rather just create a contour cut and send it immediately to Production Manager and not have to look it over in A.I. before printing.
The ability of printing in white or metallic is cool as well. The white was the best and solved a lot of my printing in reverse, laminating in white, the contour cutting after peeling white up where registration marks are. Saved me a ton of time.
Dual heads meant prints in a third less time. The color is always vibrant and accurate since it's also Pantone certified.
Mutoh: Until recently, these were the easiest machines to use. Using Flexi as a RIP, they still are but Mutoh's RIP is not that great, lacking in decent profiles, and with Mutoh still learning the color curve on using the newer Epson print heads, not all that great. Limiting. The update to firmware / proprietary RIP killed business for so many shops last year when it too Mutoh over 4 months to come up with an update.
I still use 3 machines at my house without a problem and still can get inks and print heads for the time being. I'll wait out the problems with the newer machines until the DX7 is put to rest.
As for as color goes, the eco-solv is easy to mimic 3M reflective colors on double-strike. I've done loads of cop cars, ambulances, and fire trucks using these without a glitch. Mind you, these are with single print head equipment. The VJ-1638X leaves a flat, powdered look like the newer Mutoh printers. The best way to get pure bright yellow outta this printer...? Use ONYX.
Roland: Had used the PC-600 way back in the late 90's until the SP-300V came out. I was the 2nd shop in NJ to get the eco-solv back in 2003 for $17k. Used Flexi, CorelDraw, and A.I. to set things up. Printed great, but I never cared, and still don't, for Roland's RIP. Techs and engineers for Roland are usually though that became burnt out at Mutoh or Epson. Rolands, in general, are slow. A SP-540V would take 55 minutes to print a 48"x96" banner in mid-resolution. In banner-mode, it'd do it in 30 minutes and have massive banding. Color is great, although it seems their banding problem is still there after 20 years.
I've had business friends who have gotten a TrueVis printer say this. Again, for the money and after all these years, it's still slower than a Mutoh. The RIP hasn't gotten much better either.
As for the machine, it's a workhorse and built more solid than the others. But if I am getting banding and slower print times when I need to push out product, is that worth it?
