New UV Flatbed Printer (Canon OCE Arizona GT460GT V/S Jetrix KX6D Flatbed)

[Lee Abraham]

Hey guys,

I'm in the Market for a new UV Flatbed, and I'm looking to take a pick between the two printers, which I'm effectively getting at the same price:
1. The Canon AZ460GT with 12 heads (CMYK x2, W x2, Varnish x2)
2. The Jetrix KX6D with 16 heads (CMYK x2, Wx4, Varnish/Primer x2)

Taking a close look at the pros and cons of each printer on paper, I'm having a tough time deciding. I was hoping that you guys would be able to help me decide, through your experience of using one of these, on how they perform on the long run, in terms of maintenance etc. Alternatively, would you be able to suggest a printer offering similar print outputs in terms of speed and quality, within the same price spectrum?

Thanks

 

[truecolors]

Throwing a new option out here... have you looked at the CET Q5-500? We use CET printers and are impressed with their quality. You really do get a lot for the price. If you need roll-to-roll printing, check out their hybrids. Our favorite thing is that it is easy to perform routine maintenance, so we can do a lot of things in-house.

I haven't used the Arizona or the Jetrix, so I can't speak into those models, unfortunately. But CET has been working great for us.

 

[davecich]

Throwing a new option out here... have you looked at the CET Q5-500? We use CET printers and are impressed with their quality. You really do get a lot for the price. If you need roll-to-roll printing, check out their hybrids. Our favorite thing is that it is easy to perform routine maintenance, so we can do a lot of things in-house.

I haven't used the Arizona or the Jetrix, so I can't speak into those models, unfortunately. But CET has been working great for us.

Truecolors, are you an agent of CETCOLOR? A publicist for them? If not, can I ask your company name? If you are a PR person, you should say that, and pay the MM fee.

 

[VISCOM]

Hey Dave, how is you company doing I have not heard from you or Jim in many moons

 

[BigfishDM]

Hey guys,

I'm in the Market for a new UV Flatbed, and I'm looking to take a pick between the two printers, which I'm effectively getting at the same price:
1. The Canon AZ460GT with 12 heads (CMYK x2, W x2, Varnish x2)
2. The Jetrix KX6D with 16 heads (CMYK x2, Wx4, Varnish/Primer x2)

Taking a close look at the pros and cons of each printer on paper, I'm having a tough time deciding. I was hoping that you guys would be able to help me decide, through your experience of using one of these, on how they perform on the long run, in terms of maintenance etc. Alternatively, would you be able to suggest a printer offering similar print outputs in terms of speed and quality, within the same price spectrum?

Thanks

I worked for InkTec as the National Sales Director and they are the MFG of the Jetrix equipment. I am biased to the Jetrix but I can honestly tell you the print quality is second to none in my opinion. It is a very high end flatbed and is similar in quality to the Swiss Q. Swiss Q is the best in the industry in my opinion but for the price of each I would go with the Jetrix unit. I am sure the Canon is nice also. Were are you located and how is the tech support to your location? That's a HUGE concern you should have with any machine you get. The KX6D is the new LED curing system and I think they will do very well with it especially in the European market.

 

[davecich]

206XL

206XL,

We are doing well, thanks for asking. The 4x8 has been well accepted, and with the leds, metal raster strip, new negative pressure system, as well as ionization bars, makes it a better printer than my old CET. Plus ink is half the price.

Come see us at ISA. We will have a new 5x10 fast beast!

Dave

 

[Correct Color]

Lee,

I'm in the Market for a new UV Flatbed, and I'm looking to take a pick between the two printers, which I'm effectively getting at the same price:
1. The Canon AZ460GT with 12 heads (CMYK x2, W x2, Varnish x2)
2. The Jetrix KX6D with 16 heads (CMYK x2, Wx4, Varnish/Primer x2)

Between these two, I'd go with the Canon.

The reason is that unless Jetrix has just recently changed things, what you have is a couple printers that print with 6 picoliter dots, however, the Canon has 7 additional multi-dot sizes built off of that base and the Jetrix has zero.

Might not sound like a huge deal, but it is, believe me. What multi-dots do in essence is to make it possible for a printer to achieve full gamut at lower resolutions, by printing effectively bigger dots. With the Jetrix, and only 6 picoliter dots, the only way to get more ink -- and therefore gamut -- is to print higher resolution.

And the last one I saw, even at its highest resolution, still could have used more ink, and had an accordingly weak total gamut -- about half the total volume of an Oce/Canon. That alone would be a deal-breaker for me.

It is interesting, though, all the resolutions listed in the Onyx driver for the Jetrix specifically say "1d" at the end of them -- which I'd assume means 'single dot' -- indicating that there might be some possibility of there someday being multi-dot options. But when I profiled one, it was so weak and limited on color that I actually called to see if there were multi-dot options available that I was missing, or that were to come, and I was told no.

As far as CET goes, they made great advances over the years until their latest ink for the Ricoh gen 6 heads, which was a huge leap backwards.

Also of note is that the founder of CET and some of the major players there recently left and founded a new company called Vanguard Digital, which has come out with a competitive machine. I haven't seen one yet so I can't speak to it, but I have heard good things.