Mark Your Space
New Member
I've kept this posted to my review of the MT540 for a while. But I'm posting here for those that don't read the reviews.
I received this printer on 12/23/09. It printed flawlessly out of the crate. We had a professional installation done and some training. My designer learned some new tricks even though he already knew Versaworks, etc.
After a week of light printing we had a print have some banding issues. Ran a mechanical cleaning and it was fixed.
About another week later we had the same thing, but the banding was a little more pronounced.
3rd week....metallic cartridge was empty. Strange, we have only printed about 2 square feet of metallic. Called Roland, they came back and stated they have only heard of one other case of this. The next cartridge should solve the problem. I'm a bit miffed, hinted that I'd like another cartridge at no cost since I really didn't get to print anything. No luck there.
Coincidentally I get a call from Roland. They are surveying MT purchasers to see how they are using the metallic. So we chit chat and I get some very good technical info.
1) Every twelve hours the machine self cleans and will spit 1.5ml of metallic.
2) Every time the metallic is used it will waste 6.5ml of metallic ink. (yes, I almost had cardiac arrest)
I also raised an issue with the color pallet. There are still only the original 12 metallic colors. At launch or within days there were to be over 30. The developer says they are releasing a new pallet with 500 color in the next week or so. I state this is great since there was no documentation on how to create my own metallic colors. I'm really looking forward to these colors!
And I also suggested they provide some sample artwork using the metallic inks. They agreed and may be doing this in the future.
1 day after talking to Roland my printer starts banding on everything. We did the usual and it didn't help. I've had the local techs here and they are working on it. Doesn't matter what material or what rip we use. The banding is bad.
Bottom line is that so far this printer is not meeting my expectations. And I feel like some key information was left out by Roland prior to my purchase.
I'll continue to update this review as time goes on. I'm confident the local techs can solve my problem, even though they haven't seen anything like this before (they tried a lot of fixes today).
Update: 1/22/10
Well, my confidence was shattered yesterday when the "official Roland" service team failed miserably. The tech that spent a couple of hours at my place and printed about 9 yards of material to take back to their shop called in sick. He did speak with the owner on his way home. The service company didn't even bother to call. At about 10am I called to get a status update and they replied that he was sick and they would need more samples. Lucky for them I still had some laying around, as I was out of vinyl (yes, we have now wasted about 90% of a 50 yard roll). Few hours later they had a route driver pick them up and return them to the shop.
I won't get into all of the details but they really haven't tried to solve the issue. I had to call Roland to get some help. Looks like they will try to intervene and get me some help today. We will see.
Update 1/28/10
Since my last writing I've had a new Roland certified team in my shop, multiple times. They still don't know why I'm getting the banding. We've tried different materials, different rips, different profiles and even different computers. No luck. Yesterday they overnighted samples to a Roland employee in WI. As of 3:15PM I haven't heard a word.
Update 1/31/10
Heard from Roland on 1/29/10 mid morning, they did call on 1/28/10 after hours. I'm a bit miffed at this whole part of the experience. The tech (Roland employee) agrees there is banding but says its within spec. I state that it is not acceptable banding. He backs up a bit and says that on some of the prints the banding is within spec. Now I blow a gasket. I just bought a $40,000 printer that bands on 75% of the prints and 50% of those are WITHIN SPEC. I'm a little freaked out here, and pissed to no end. Roland wants to circle their wagons and speak with the local guy doing the work and call me back.
Little while later they call me and say the Roland tech (employee) will be coming to Chicago on Tuesday afternoon. They agreed that I should be happy with my purchase. I'm happy that he is coming out to find the problem. But at the very least I've been without a printer for 2 weeks. This is getting VERY expensive and aggravating.
I received this printer on 12/23/09. It printed flawlessly out of the crate. We had a professional installation done and some training. My designer learned some new tricks even though he already knew Versaworks, etc.
After a week of light printing we had a print have some banding issues. Ran a mechanical cleaning and it was fixed.
About another week later we had the same thing, but the banding was a little more pronounced.
3rd week....metallic cartridge was empty. Strange, we have only printed about 2 square feet of metallic. Called Roland, they came back and stated they have only heard of one other case of this. The next cartridge should solve the problem. I'm a bit miffed, hinted that I'd like another cartridge at no cost since I really didn't get to print anything. No luck there.
Coincidentally I get a call from Roland. They are surveying MT purchasers to see how they are using the metallic. So we chit chat and I get some very good technical info.
1) Every twelve hours the machine self cleans and will spit 1.5ml of metallic.
2) Every time the metallic is used it will waste 6.5ml of metallic ink. (yes, I almost had cardiac arrest)
I also raised an issue with the color pallet. There are still only the original 12 metallic colors. At launch or within days there were to be over 30. The developer says they are releasing a new pallet with 500 color in the next week or so. I state this is great since there was no documentation on how to create my own metallic colors. I'm really looking forward to these colors!
And I also suggested they provide some sample artwork using the metallic inks. They agreed and may be doing this in the future.
1 day after talking to Roland my printer starts banding on everything. We did the usual and it didn't help. I've had the local techs here and they are working on it. Doesn't matter what material or what rip we use. The banding is bad.
Bottom line is that so far this printer is not meeting my expectations. And I feel like some key information was left out by Roland prior to my purchase.
I'll continue to update this review as time goes on. I'm confident the local techs can solve my problem, even though they haven't seen anything like this before (they tried a lot of fixes today).
Update: 1/22/10
Well, my confidence was shattered yesterday when the "official Roland" service team failed miserably. The tech that spent a couple of hours at my place and printed about 9 yards of material to take back to their shop called in sick. He did speak with the owner on his way home. The service company didn't even bother to call. At about 10am I called to get a status update and they replied that he was sick and they would need more samples. Lucky for them I still had some laying around, as I was out of vinyl (yes, we have now wasted about 90% of a 50 yard roll). Few hours later they had a route driver pick them up and return them to the shop.
I won't get into all of the details but they really haven't tried to solve the issue. I had to call Roland to get some help. Looks like they will try to intervene and get me some help today. We will see.
Update 1/28/10
Since my last writing I've had a new Roland certified team in my shop, multiple times. They still don't know why I'm getting the banding. We've tried different materials, different rips, different profiles and even different computers. No luck. Yesterday they overnighted samples to a Roland employee in WI. As of 3:15PM I haven't heard a word.
Update 1/31/10
Heard from Roland on 1/29/10 mid morning, they did call on 1/28/10 after hours. I'm a bit miffed at this whole part of the experience. The tech (Roland employee) agrees there is banding but says its within spec. I state that it is not acceptable banding. He backs up a bit and says that on some of the prints the banding is within spec. Now I blow a gasket. I just bought a $40,000 printer that bands on 75% of the prints and 50% of those are WITHIN SPEC. I'm a little freaked out here, and pissed to no end. Roland wants to circle their wagons and speak with the local guy doing the work and call me back.
Little while later they call me and say the Roland tech (employee) will be coming to Chicago on Tuesday afternoon. They agreed that I should be happy with my purchase. I'm happy that he is coming out to find the problem. But at the very least I've been without a printer for 2 weeks. This is getting VERY expensive and aggravating.
That means that every 33 prints drains a metallic cartridge.
