New flatbed help

[Janpisz]

Hello, I’m new here. I have hybrid (Lintor GUV16) and I’M looking forward to upgrading my hybrid to new flatbed.
I’m most interested in Vutec efi and Agfa annapurna flatbeds. I want to ask if someone here owns this printers and if it safe to use ink alternatives. I want to also ask if will lose guarantee if I will use ink alternatives.
Thanks for you help!

 

[AlsEU]

Hello, I’m new here. I have hybrid (Lintor GUV16) and I’M looking forward to upgrading my hybrid to new flatbed.
I’m most interested in Vutec efi and Agfa annapurna flatbeds. I want to ask if someone here owns this printers and if it safe to use ink alternatives. I want to also ask if will lose guarantee if I will use ink alternatives.
Thanks for you help!

Alternative inks are always risky. Sometimes it's possible to receive some warranty from the ink supplier, but there's no rule. And usually, swapping from the original inks to alternatives during the warranty period is a reason to stop the warranty (at least for the ink system).

 

[Janpisz]

Thanks for the answer! How will they find out that I swapped to alternative?

 

[Gino]

Background : Inks are developed first, then the flatbed or whatever kinda printer is built around the ink. If a problem occurs, they will check your ink first and determine from there how to warrantee you. Secondary inks or third party inks will instantly void your original warranty. By law and patents and all kindsa mumbo jumbo, any alternative ink cannot duplicate the OEM inks, whether it be by temps needed or pressures, but they must be totally different, which is why they won't warranty something you purposely broke to save pennies.

Think about it, when printing on a flatbed, you're spending about 14¢ or 15¢ a square foot with most flatbeds and if you're charging correctly, why ruin a machine to save 8¢ ??

 

[Janpisz]

Background : Inks are developed first, then the flatbed or whatever kinda printer is built around the ink. If a problem occurs, they will check your ink first and determine from there how to warrantee you. Secondary inks or third party inks will instantly void your original warranty. By law and patents and all kindsa mumbo jumbo, any alternative ink cannot duplicate the OEM inks, whether it be by temps needed or pressures, but they must be totally different, which is why they won't warranty something you purposely broke to save pennies.

Think about it, when printing on a flatbed, you're spending about 14¢ or 15¢ a square foot with most flatbeds and if you're charging correctly, why ruin a machine to save 8¢ ??

With my current printer it costs around 1,5$ per square metter only in ink. I do POS so for me the price of ink is the most important aspect

 

[Janpisz]

My clients dont care about quality, they only care about price

 

[Gino]

Has nothing to do with quality, but the wear & tear on YOUR machine. If you save a few malickost, but hafta pay out to have your machine fixed, your customers aren't gonna help ya pay to fix it.

 

[Janpisz]

Thanks for your answer! I didn’t know it will damage printer so much. So would you recommend for me to buy new printer based on the price of official ink rather than buy alternatives?

Has nothing to do with quality, but the wear & tear on YOUR machine. If you save a few malickost, but hafta pay out to have your machine fixed, your customers aren't gonna help ya pay to fix it.

 

[petepaz]

we have used 2nd party inks in our roland printers after our warranty was up but they we from a trusted source who we bought the machine from and they gave us a limited warranty using their inks.
my main question when this comes up is why does it matter as long as you are charging the customer appropriately?
so if your inks cost X and you figure X in your pricing calculation then your cost is covered. if you are losing jobs because of the cost of your inks then there is something else wrong with your business plan.
i know you want to try and increase your profits where you can but this doesn't seem like the area to skimp. risk reward is not there in my opinion

 

[Janpisz]

we have used 2nd party inks in our roland printers after our warranty was up but they we from a trusted source who we bought the machine from and they gave us a limited warranty using their inks.
my main question when this comes up is why does it matter as long as you are charging the customer appropriately?
so if your inks cost X and you figure X in your pricing calculation then your cost is covered. if you are losing jobs because of the cost of your inks then there is something else wrong with your business plan.
i know you want to try and increase your profits where you can but this doesn't seem like the area to skimp. risk reward is not there in my opinion

I do POS for companies like Heineken, Unilever etc. Price is only that matters to them and I know my competition is using alternative ink for their Dursts and Vuteks printers. So it’s big difference if they print costs are 50% lower than main so that’s why I’M asking

 

[Gino]

There are many many companies who will use alternative inks, but they all run the chance of something going wrong. Sometimes like with pete, you can work out a deal, because they know you and have done lotsa business together, bt it's still a limited warranty. Again, he did it once the initial warranty was gone. Sometimes the recipe ine the ink will wear the ink lines before the OEM inks would ever do it. Sometimes other inks will clog more easily in the heads if different temps are used, Then, you run the risk of durability.
Odd thing, over here, most of those companies have their own sign/graphics departments to do their own work and keep it all in-house.

If you wanna compete, instead of using non-recommended inks, invest in a fast machine and knock your jobs out faster. There are machines out there with double and triple sets of heads and can knock out like 90pcs 4x8's an hour.

 

[Janpisz]

Th

There are many many companies who will use alternative inks, but they all run the chance of something going wrong. Sometimes like with pete, you can work out a deal, because they know you and have done lotsa business together, bt it's still a limited warranty. Again, he did it once the initial warranty was gone. Sometimes the recipe ine the ink will wear the ink lines before the OEM inks would ever do it. Sometimes other inks will clog more easily in the heads if different temps are used, Then, you run the risk of durability.
Odd thing, over here, most of those companies have their own sign/graphics departments to do their own work and keep it all in-house.

If you wanna compete, instead of using non-recommended inks, invest in a fast machine and knock your jobs out faster. There are machines out there with double and triple sets of heads and can knock out like 90pcs 4x8's an

There are many many companies who will use alternative inks, but they all run the chance of something going wrong. Sometimes like with pete, you can work out a deal, because they know you and have done lotsa business together, bt it's still a limited warranty. Again, he did it once the initial warranty was gone. Sometimes the recipe ine the ink will wear the ink lines before the OEM inks would ever do it. Sometimes other inks will clog more easily in the heads if different temps are used, Then, you run the risk of durability.
Odd thing, over here, most of those companies have their own sign/graphics departments to do their own work and keep it all in-house.

If you wanna compete, instead of using non-recommended inks, invest in a fast machine and knock your jobs out faster. There are machines out there with double and triple sets of heads and can knock out like 90pcs 4x8's an hour.

Thanks for your advice! That’s what I’M trying to do. But I also wanted ask about alternative inks because I don’t have any experience with it and it looked good at first glance.

 

[petepaz]

I do POS for companies like Heineken, Unilever etc. Price is only that matters to them and I know my competition is using alternative ink for their Dursts and Vuteks printers. So it’s big difference if they print costs are 50% lower than main so that’s why I’M asking

wow, that's big difference. listen i guess you do what you have to do to survive. we do POS work for a few big companies as well, Revlon, Maybelline and we do stuff for home depot and amazon. the ink cost was never a problem for us. they are really picky on their quality and color matching as well as price. but again if this is an issue in your business then you do what needs to be done. the company we used for our 2nd party inks was nazdar, they actually make ink. that's what they do. we have been buying silk screen ink from them for over 40 years and then they got in to the digital market like 15-20 years ago so we felt safe using their inks in our solvent printers. we tried their uv inks in our roland LEJ and we had a problem. they came in replace 2 heads and we went back to buying the roland uv inks. their solvent and eco solvent inks were fine in the machines. we recently purchased an efi hybrid uv printer from them and they are pretty admit about not using 2nd party inks in the machine.

 

[Greg Kelm]

I’ll tell you that our Vutek heads are $3500 each. There are 12 unless you are running white (16w/ white). Would you jeopardize almost 100k in heads for a few bucks that you could pass on to the customer?

 

[chinaski]

Myopic thinking. It's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. Maybe you'll pick up a few but eventually, you'll get run over.

The ink costs on UV even at $1.50/sqm must have a negligible effect on your profitability otherwise your margins are nonexistent and you really have nowhere to go. To even convert inks you will waste your existing ink, your profiles will be worthless so you will need to spend time updating those

With my current printer it costs around 1,5$ per square metter only in ink. I do POS so for me the price of ink is the most important aspect

This is like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. If your business's cost structure is such that "ink price" is the most important aspect then you're not thinking clearly. Labor, equipment, rents, energy, maintenance, etc make your ink price negligible. Switching ink in itself will cost money and time and present many unknowns in terms of printhead wear, durability, color fastness, adhesion, etc.

Better off focusing on more efficient workflows, smart sourcing of materials, and keeping spare parts and consumables on hand to reduce downtime and cost of technicians. Lowering your ink limits on your ICC profiles and using a more aggressive GCR can help lower ink costs in a small and easy way.

 

[chinaski]

Myopic thinking. It's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. Maybe you'll pick up a few but eventually, you'll get run over.

The ink costs on UV even at $1.50/sqm must have a negligible effect on your profitability otherwise your margins are nonexistent and you really have nowhere to go. To even convert inks you will waste your existing ink, your profiles will be worthless so you will need to spend time updating those

This is like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. If your business's cost structure is such that "ink price" is the most important aspect then you're not thinking clearly. Labor, equipment, rents, energy, maintenance, etc make your ink price negligible. Switching ink in itself will cost money and time and present many unknowns in terms of printhead wear, durability, color fastness, adhesion, etc.

Better off focusing on more efficient workflows, smart sourcing of materials, and keeping spare parts and consumables on hand to reduce downtime and cost of technicians. Lowering your ink limits on your ICC profiles and using a more aggressive GCR can help lower ink costs in a small and easy way.

Also, speaking from my own experience, I'd used non-oem inks in my Oce Arizona, for reasons due to better adhesion and not costs, and it ended up costing 10k+ more over the course of 2 years, from having to replace a couple of printheads, to added time getting my nozzles all firing each day, to a higher rejection rate of prints, etc. It all adds up.

 

[Janpisz]

Myopic thinking. It's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. Maybe you'll pick up a few but eventually, you'll get run over.

The ink costs on UV even at $1.50/sqm must have a negligible effect on your profitability otherwise your margins are nonexistent and you really have nowhere to go. To even convert inks you will waste your existing ink, your profiles will be worthless so you will need to spend time updating those

This is like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. If your business's cost structure is such that "ink price" is the most important aspect then you're not thinking clearly. Labor, equipment, rents, energy, maintenance, etc make your ink price negligible. Switching ink in itself will cost money and time and present many unknowns in terms of printhead wear, durability, color fastness, adhesion, etc.

Better off focusing on more efficient workflows, smart sourcing of materials, and keeping spare parts and consumables on hand to reduce downtime and cost of technicians. Lowering your ink limits on your ICC profiles and using a more aggressive GCR can help lower ink costs in a small and easy way.

Thanks for you teply. I will print around +- 3000 sqm every month so it will be 4,5k $ in ink every month so I though if I can save 50% on ink costs I will save 2.250$ and that is like 2,5x average wage in my country. But if it is not safe I will not do it.

 

[signheremd]

This line of thinking makes the most sense when you don't see the whole picture or when you understand the engineering behind the machine and the inks. Worth asking to learn more, and in some cases a company that services the brands in question may be able to tell you what inks would work and cost less and when the manufacturer inks are the best choice. We do not have either of the brands you mention, but let me give you a couple examples of experience relevant to seeing the whole picture. We had a CET Flatbed and moved to a FluidColor. Really like the new machine, and one of the points is that the inks are made here in America and engineered to help keep the nozzles of the heads clean and unclogged. Now the printer uses Ricoh Gen 6 heads, which you can find in other printers, so I am sure there are other ink brands used by other printers using the same heads. But FluidColor started out refurbishing old flatbed printers and worked with the ink manufacturer to formulate an ink specific to avoid clogs long term. So, saving money on ink may lead to another set of consequences down the road (as others have well illustrated).
We have a Roland XR-640 roll to roll printer and have used Roland inks since day one. The unit is 7 years old, and prints as well as it did new. We run a pretty high volume through weekly. So inks and printer are engineered to work with each other for the long term. Last example is relevant comparing to cars. In America, we have Mustangs and a large portion of Mustang owners like to modify their cars to make them faster - easy enough to do and big returns in power increases. But the manufacturer engineered the cars to last a couple hundred thousand miles. If you add a supercharger to your car, you get more power but your catalytic converters will clog up - both stock and aftermarket cats are not engineered to handle the increased pressure and exhaust volume. So you have an upfront increase in fun that down the road will cost you money.

So you can change inks, but that only provides an upfront savings that will likely cost you money down the road - Penny wise, Pound foolish. So you did well asking the question before leaping to a different ink.

I would suggest looking at ways to save on substrate as a larger cost per job benefit as these machines are really very economic in ink usage. You might also look at scheduling to help stack jobs and keep the machine running all day when it is printing (though it should be run every couple of days).