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Oce Colorado just installed

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iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
My work just signed a PO for a Colorado (against my wishes I might add, I’ll be the one that uses it 99% of the time). We mostly do vinyl labels/decals. This thread does not fill me with hope.
 
particleman

particleman

New Member
This machine makes no sense at the price point. Especially if you are just doing decals. Just about any of the major brand solvent or latex machines would do that at 1/3 the cost.

My (short) conversation with the oce people last year at a trade show they mentioned the ink being brittle and gave us a rough price. This is an agressively marketed machine(its gel ink!) but isn't going to work well for most shops. I'm not really sure why anyone would buy this machine.
 
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iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
particleman said:
This machine makes no sense at the price point. Especially if you are just doing decals. Just about any of the major brand solvent or latex machines would do that at 1/3 the cost.

My (short) conversation with the oce people last year at a trade show they mentioned the ink being brittle and gave us a rough price. This is an agressively marketed machine(its gel ink!) but isn't going to work well for most shops. I'm not really sure why anyone would buy this machine.
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Canon went waaaay above my head to a guy that’s never run a wide format in his life. Made up some potential savings that we could make per annum (that I tore apart - went from 17k “savings” to a more realistic 2.5k). Pretty much solely all ink savings.

Then I pointed out that we’d need to have it for approx 16 years to make back the savings of spending 40k more on a machine that does the same as all the others priced more sensibly and were actually proven in the areas we need it (vinyl).

Aaaand they still bought a Colorado. I can see a big, expensive “I told you so” coming..
 
FireSprint.com

FireSprint.com

Trade Only Screen & Digital Sign Printing
Too bad. This platform has alot of potential. Hopefully they will get a better inkset or something and get it rolling.
 
jasonx

jasonx

New Member
The machine itself in terms of usability etc blows most machines out of the water. The ink costs are another huge plus. Sure if you're a small shop it doesn't make sense. But start doing 5,000sqm a month and the machine pays for itself in ink savings alone. Just has a few quirks they need to iron out to make the platform a bit better. I was bummed that on paper it was perfect but in our tests it just didn't get there.
 
Brandon708

Brandon708

New Member
A salesman came to my shop yesterday and was pitching me the Oce Colorado. I was telling him I wasn't interested because its a niche printer just for wall graphics basically. He had a 18oz double sided banner print that looked very high quality but when I bent the banner the inks cracked but didn't flake off. Although I was trying to be careful with his sample and didn't want to destroy it.
He said Oce has a new program that they will give you the printer for free and you just pay by the square foot like 30 cents. That includes the machine, inks and service. He did mention there are tiers for the pricing and square footage though. At 6000sf a month that is still $1800 a month. I told him that is OCE's way of getting these machines into shops because they are not doing well on the side of sales because of all the backlash for the "sign guys".

What I gather is that this printer is not for sign companies because its not a all around printer like a solvent or latex. A sign shop can do very well with a 20k latex compared to a 70k Colorado.
 
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iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
if this printer was say 30-35k it would be more realistic given its problems.

At three times the price you need an all rounder that can actually print good quality at the super speeds they advertise. From what I gather you need to drop the speed to slower than solvent/latex in order to stop banding/curing issues and even then there’s problems on most media.

The only reason there’s some in the field is because they market it super aggressively and apparently will try anything to get one into a shop
Brandon708 said:
He said Oce has a new program that they will give you the printer for free and you just pay by the square foot like 30 cents. That includes the machine, inks and service.
Click to expand...
 
flyplainsdrifta

flyplainsdrifta

New Member
Quite a bummer, considering the hype behind this thing. I remember seeing it encased behind plexiglass at ISA last year if i remember correctly. That was disconcerting. I would've liked to have seen this be successful considering all the things i had read before it actually made it into shops.
 
Christian @ 2CT Media

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
flyplainsdrifta said:
Quite a bummer, considering the hype behind this thing. I remember seeing it encased behind plexiglass at ISA last year if i remember correctly. That was disconcerting. I would've liked to have seen this be successful considering all the things i had read before it actually made it into shops.
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We were excited till we got samples... Then that went away.
 
I

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
They’re fully aware of the issues and probably have been since development. Probably just put in too much money to not send it to market and I guess they figured they’d have any potential fixes done by now. After speaking to an engineer, at first they didn’t even have kits to fix any broken head parts, just had to replace the whole unit for any fault. I feel like they threw it out before it was ready
 
Brandon708

Brandon708

New Member
The sales guy that came by was dumbfounded when I told him the printer wasn't any good. He was convinced it was the best technology out and there wasn't any issues with it.
 
MelloImagingTechnologies

MelloImagingTechnologies

Many years in the Production Business
If you’re printing on vinyls, your best equipment is eco solvent printers which use 3m certified inks, such as OkiData and Epson.
Uv manufacturing is trying to develop flexible inks for vinyls but it still will not laminate well because of its thickness.
 
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nate

New Member
Bruce Mello said:
If you’re printing on vinyls, your best equipment is eco solvent printers which use 3m certified inks, such as OkiData and Epson.
Uv manufacturing is trying to develop flexible inks for vinyls but it still will not laminate well because of its thickness.
Click to expand...


Latex? You've missed a whole technology there.....
 
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