need real world feedback of the HP W800

[bigben]

Does anyone run the new HP W800 for a while now in a production environnement? I'm looking for feedbacks. We are mainly making murals and window decals. But we start to have a higher demand in small cut stickers. Our main concerns are print color consistancy, size accuracy and grains in the prints. Those three are major problem with our current latex. If it still a problem, we are looking at mimaki or epson for second option. I really like the HP because we can put it against the wall, printheads are user changable (less down time) and was very impress with the white ink (that we will almost daily).

 

[Mike Perth]

Does anyone run the new HP W800 for a while now in a production environnement? I'm looking for feedbacks. We are mainly making murals and window decals. But we start to have a higher demand in small cut stickers. Our main concerns are print color consistancy, size accuracy and grains in the prints. Those three are major problem with our current latex. If it still a problem, we are looking at mimaki or epson for second option. I really like the HP because we can put it against the wall, printheads are user changable (less down time) and was very impress with the white ink (that we will almost daily).

Hey BB we’ve been running one for 3 months here in Oz and printing only wallpapers. We moved from an old but good 260 which although ancient we were able to produce slow but good prints. At first we had length issues between the drops on our wallpapers with the 800w. Our local Tech and HP have worked hard on this and we’re now printing lots of big/huge wallpapers without issue. We didn’t have time to wait 6 months for the early purchasers to iron out the teething problems that come with new models and so we feel we’ve been part of their field testing. That said, we’re really happy with the speed and print quality at 8 pass on the wallpapers. We’ve been too busy to load the white printheads and so I can’t comment on the white. To date there’s been absolutely no issue with colour consistency and the print quality is fantastic. We love the 3 litre inks and general ease of use along with no smell. Flick me any other questions you may have.

 

[balstestrat]

I don't run production on it so can't really comment on that and there's still only few printers out there that I would have heard the experience of, but some I can comment.

Color consistancy should be better. Size accuracy in my opinion is a lot better as the heat is lower, other impros etc. There was some changes to that like Mike said.
Grain you can expect to be similar as before. On some colors it's better and on some it's worse. It's somewhat of a tradeof between shades of colors and the new ink vs old. Don't expect some massive improvement. But doing wallpaper grain shouldn't be an issue.

If you want good white you can forget Epson, eco-solvent white just can't compete. Only competitor is the Mimaki UCJV.
In my opinion the white works great and looks really nice. You throw in the printheads in 5mins and off you go. Take them out at the end of the job/day. I guess only thing you can't do is 5-layer printing that Mimaki can do(?).

Expect a little higher ink usage than previous gen. But if you laminate you can disable overcoat and get that back. That higher ink usage also brings you higher gamut and for example more vivid Red.

 

[bigben]

Hey BB we’ve been running one for 3 months here in Oz and printing only wallpapers. We moved from an old but good 260 which although ancient we were able to produce slow but good prints. At first we had length issues between the drops on our wallpapers with the 800w. Our local Tech and HP have worked hard on this and we’re now printing lots of big/huge wallpapers without issue. We didn’t have time to wait 6 months for the early purchasers to iron out the teething problems that come with new models and so we feel we’ve been part of their field testing. That said, we’re really happy with the speed and print quality at 8 pass on the wallpapers. We’ve been too busy to load the white printheads and so I can’t comment on the white. To date there’s been absolutely no issue with colour consistency and the print quality is fantastic. We love the 3 litre inks and general ease of use along with no smell. Flick me any other questions you may have.

I think I'm in the same boat as you. I currently run an HP260. our main problems is with the three things mentioned in my first post. We often print murals without using the take-up. We cut and trim the panels on the fly. On a 10ft print, I can loose up to 2inches and color consistency is a problem especially in darker colors. And now, since we got more demand for stickers, the droplet quality is becoming a problem with a grainy results. We use a vinyl with a 90# liner, but we still got a small bowing problem that results in a small shift in the contour cut with the summa (even with the barcode reading and bowing reading).

I don't run production on it so can't really comment on that and there's still only few printers out there that I would have heard the experience of, but some I can comment.

Color consistancy should be better. Size accuracy in my opinion is a lot better as the heat is lower, other impros etc. There was some changes to that like Mike said.
Grain you can expect to be similar as before. On some colors it's better and on some it's worse. It's somewhat of a tradeof between shades of colors and the new ink vs old. Don't expect some massive improvement. But doing wallpaper grain shouldn't be an issue.

If you want good white you can forget Epson, eco-solvent white just can't compete. Only competitor is the Mimaki UCJV.
In my opinion the white works great and looks really nice. You throw in the printheads in 5mins and off you go. Take them out at the end of the job/day. I guess only thing you can't do is 5-layer printing that Mimaki can do(?).

Expect a little higher ink usage than previous gen. But if you laminate you can disable overcoat and get that back. That higher ink usage also brings you higher gamut and for example more vivid Red.

I've heard HP is working to make the 5 layers prints. This will be 50% of my prints using white. Compared to my 260, I like the overcoat idea and I don't mind paying the extra for this. For the Mimaki UCJV, I like the idea of the clear ink for the stickers. But I don't know if the customers would pay for this.

 

[Mike Perth]

No issues with cutting on the fly, we ran a heap of wp to the floor without the take up and the panels lined up perfectly in pattern match, colour and length. You may find with this machine you’ll end up using the take up as it’s so fast compared to your 260. We initially were running at 6 pass but we’ve slowed it down to 8 as the colours are richer and speed for us isn’t an issue. I can’t comment on SAV as we hardly ever use it, don’t trim stickers and haven’t noticed any graininess.

 

[ikarasu]

Is it really the heat that causes length issues though?

I feel like the media sensor in the latex printers is garbage. We can print on diamond grade, and there's no way in hell that media is shrinking or stretching... And an 8 ft print can be 95.5", and then in the next load it can be 96.5".

Turning off omas... The length tools, even turning heat to the lowest just to test doesn't fix it. Doing length compensation in onyx helps a bit.. but still. Every load / reload is different....doing a manual media calibration after its on the take up reel will fix it until you swap the roll again. But then you waste a good 5-6 ft of media to attach it to the reel.

Our panels are always the same and align perfectly. So our problem isn't consistent lengths .. it's correct lengths.

It's a pain when we print stuff with borders, but that's about it. One of you guys should load a 1" 10 ft tape measure graphic on one of your prints and see how much / if it goes off... I think you'd be surprised as I really don't think it's a heat issue, more than it is a hps media tracking sucks compared to other brands.

Hope I'm wrong... But when we had a latex 10 we were told the same thing... The 560 uses less heat so it prints faster and all those length issues were gone because of it... Now I feel like we're hearing the same thing about the 800

 

[balstestrat]

Is it really the heat that causes length issues though?

I feel like the media sensor in the latex printers is garbage. We can print on diamond grade, and there's no way in hell that media is shrinking or stretching... And an 8 ft print can be 95.5", and then in the next load it can be 96.5".

Turning off omas... The length tools, even turning heat to the lowest just to test doesn't fix it. Doing length compensation in onyx helps a bit.. but still. Every load / reload is different....doing a manual media calibration after its on the take up reel will fix it until you swap the roll again. But then you waste a good 5-6 ft of media to attach it to the reel.

Our panels are always the same and align perfectly. So our problem isn't consistent lengths .. it's correct lengths.

It's a pain when we print stuff with borders, but that's about it. One of you guys should load a 1" 10 ft tape measure graphic on one of your prints and see how much / if it goes off... I think you'd be surprised as I really don't think it's a heat issue, more than it is a hps media tracking sucks compared to other brands.

Hope I'm wrong... But when we had a latex 10 we were told the same thing... The 560 uses less heat so it prints faster and all those length issues were gone because of it... Now I feel like we're hearing the same thing about the 800

You should look inside the heater while printing and you see the material going all wavy and stuff. It will never relax back to 1:1 original shape. Do the same on L700/800 and it will be a lot flatter. Of course this depends on material and other conditions as well.
OMAS is also different on these new ones compared to the L300/500. New ones can adjust the feed rate that old ones couldn't.

On 560 heat isn't really much lower if at all than on 300's if that's what you meant by "latex 10"? But now the heat really is that 20°C lower than before.

But yeah... do your tests, ask one for a demo unit on your site if it's critical and so forth. You know the drill.

 

[ikarasu]

Latex 110. I've used a 110, 360, 2 different 560s and a 570. I love latex, it has its issues... But so does every ms gone / technology.

Heat may play a bit of a roll... But I don't think that's the main issue. Whether it's the omas or feeding system or something else I can't say... But I've printed with heat on the lowest setting , ink still wet... and it still ended up an incorrect size.

On-top of that.. I can load the printer, print a 8 ft file and it'll be 96.5"... Reprint the file .. 96.5"... But the second I unload and reload and it'll be different. Not by much... But still different. It's like it's advancement sensor is off. Even with omas off it does the same.

It's never been much if an issue... Just a pain when printing a 8 ft traffic sign with a border, having it be half inch white space on too... Then a quarter inch in the sides. The customer never cares... But it irks me! That and the beginning waste factor are the only two things I don't like about hps.


It'd be interesting to see how accurate Epson's latex is since it uses heat as well. That should help rule out or prove whether heat is the main issue or not.


I don't know if we'll buy the 800 or not. We have 2 560s and a 360... If the 800 gets traffic certified it'd be a no brainer. But until / unless it does.. unless one of our machines die there's no need to upgrade.

I do hope the 800 is more consistent in length than the older gen, and maybe it is.. I have no real world experience with it. That's why it'd be nice if someone printed a 8 ft ruler on one of their nests to see how it comes out!

 

[ConnorB]

Hey BB we’ve been running one for 3 months here in Oz and printing only wallpapers. We moved from an old but good 260 which although ancient we were able to produce slow but good prints. At first we had length issues between the drops on our wallpapers with the 800w. Our local Tech and HP have worked hard on this and we’re now printing lots of big/huge wallpapers without issue. We didn’t have time to wait 6 months for the early purchasers to iron out the teething problems that come with new models and so we feel we’ve been part of their field testing. That said, we’re really happy with the speed and print quality at 8 pass on the wallpapers. We’ve been too busy to load the white printheads and so I can’t comment on the white. To date there’s been absolutely no issue with colour consistency and the print quality is fantastic. We love the 3 litre inks and general ease of use along with no smell. Flick me any other questions you may have.

Did HP give you an answer on how to fix the length issues. We are having stretching by over half an inch on our wallpaper. Even on Dreamscape HP suede

 

[balstestrat]

Did HP give you an answer on how to fix the length issues. We are having stretching by over half an inch on our wallpaper. Even on Dreamscape HP suede

With L800?
How long have you had the issue? There is new profile settings to help with that.

 

[ConnorB]

We have not been able to print for over 2 months. Both of our 800W's have been down. We got a tech out last week and he got one machine running. But the other one is still down. But both machines have an issue with scratching media. The pinch rollers are so tight that they scratch and and put divots in media. Especially specialty media.

 

[balstestrat]

We have not been able to print for over 2 months. Both of our 800W's have been down. We got a tech out last week and he got one machine running. But the other one is still down. But both machines have an issue with scratching media. The pinch rollers are so tight that they scratch and and put divots in media. Especially specialty media.

I see, what other troubles have you had?

Recommendation now for wallpaper is to have Input tension set to 6Nm and Output tension 8Nm.
But now that I checked, it's more for tiling issues rather than size.

 

[ConnorB]

Take up issues is the media walking. One machine they fixed. Found roller in the initial assembly that was popped out of place. The second machine they can not figure out yet. It is walking so bad that it moves in the print zone over an inch. But the main issue is the pinch rollers destroying media. We even tried Hp prime Grip and put holes in it, we also tried a standard wall paper that we print on frequently. we didnt put holes in it, but we scratched the crap put of it

 

[Mike Perth]

Take up issues is the media walking. One machine they fixed. Found roller in the initial assembly that was popped out of place. The second machine they can not figure out yet. It is walking so bad that it moves in the print zone over an inch. But the main issue is the pinch rollers destroying media. We even tried Hp prime Grip and put holes in it, we also tried a standard wall paper that we print on frequently. we didnt put holes in it, but we scratched the crap put of it

We had issues with a heavy pre pasted wallpaper walking during print which we put down to the backing being slippery. We’ve not had any issues with the pinch rollers eating the media. Our wallpapers are printing short by about 1.5cm on a 260cm length, which is manageable for us atm and HP are still working on this.

 

[Simon Peach]

Based on the current experience, I wouldn't touch it. - I appreciate it's still relatively new and everyone needs to find their feet with it, our current situation is ridiculous.

We have had the machine running for 7 weeks and these are just a few of the issues...

• It doesn't print onto Metamark's MD5. - We've downloaded the profiles for it, appreciate it's just a starting point to edit due to the environment but the colours are bleeding into each other throughout - have tried tweaking the advanced settings when editing the profile but every one of the 6 fields "assists with colour bleed" - So where are we supposed to start?

• Magenta is patchy and washed out.

• The optimiser went down after 5 weeks and required a head replacement.

• Autoload sensor wasn't registering the material being loaded, awaiting replacement.

• Maintenance cartridge door just falls open mid-print and cancels the print halfway through

• The machine continued to ask to "reseat heads" after 6 attempts to reload and reboot, we're now replacing both heads. - There are no markings, damage to the 7-week old heads whatsoever. - Apparently, that's standard that the machine can just decide a printhead is dead now.

I keep reading articles on how all the print shops "are so pleased with the cutting edge technology" our guys are preferring to run prints on the RMO of our 10-year-old Acuity over this machine.

Our resellers & their internal engineers have been helpful throughout the whole process but there's only so much they can do with a machine that spends more time down than it does up at the moment.

After some digging, it appears the only people waxing lyrical about this machine are those that sell it. - Worth 30K?? - at the moment I wouldn't part with a tenth of that for it.

 

[balstestrat]

• It doesn't print onto Metamark's MD5. - We've downloaded the profiles for it, appreciate it's just a starting point to edit due to the environment but the colours are bleeding into each other throughout - have tried tweaking the advanced settings when editing the profile but every one of the 6 fields "assists with colour bleed" - So where are we supposed to start?

• Magenta is patchy and washed out.

Try these settings for the Metamark.
How many passes are you using?



On some of the other things... I feel like you may have got a lemon.
I've yet to see or hear about printhead issues my self. Doesn't seem like any worse performance than previous gen.

 

[Simon Peach]

Try these settings for the Metamark.
How many passes are you using?

View attachment 155644

On some of the other things... I feel like you may have got a lemon.
I've yet to see or hear about printhead issues my self. Doesn't seem like any worse performance than previous gen.

Thanks, for the reply. I Tried 6, 8 & 12 passes so far. - No joy. - Will create a new profile for these and give them a go.

This is my first experience with a HP, one of our operators has been using them for some time and confirms he's never seen a machine just decide to reject print heads on its own accord.

I suppose the next step is deciding where to draw the line and look to return the machine.

 

[parrott]

Sounds very similar to our experience with our 360. It works but only because we have found work arounds for all of our issues. I am sure ours is just a lemon, but HP has only made our situation(s) worse with how they handle them. You want to love them and the printer, but they are absolutely the most frustrating company to work with.

 

[Simon Peach]

I've read another review of the machine on Grimco.com's website, It seems like we are not alone.

I'll keep pushing HP. I'm currently halfway through 75m of wallcovering now waiting for new printheads to arrive Monday. - I thought I could be better prepared and get a printhead in as a backup, however, it's different heads per channel.

 

[Simon Peach]

We have not been able to print for over 2 months. Both of our 800W's have been down.

Did you get any further with getting yours resolved?