Printer Recommendation Needed - Kid's Room Wall Art

[LeLuni]

Hi All,

I would like a recommendation for a printer to accomplish some basic needs.

I make children’s wall décor items, and I am moving into frame-able art prints that have the ability to be personalized on a per-order basis (mostly personalized with the child’s name).

The printer must be able to handle the printing of large-ish blocks of solid, high chroma color with consistency and no banding. Rather than your typical ‘photographic’ prints, my designs will usually mimic 4 or 5 color screenprints. I’ve attached a photo that will better explain what I mean.

The substrate I will print on will be a fairly heavy-weight matte paper that will not be laminated. The specific brand of paper is yet to be determined.

For the foreseeable future, I don’t anticipate the need to print more than 48” in any direction. I would be willing to consider an even smaller printer if necessary.

I will be operating the equipment in a 500 square foot workshop, so smell and outgassing of solvents will need to be taken into consideration. I do plan on installing an air filtration system in the space.

Realistically, I know I will not be setting up this workshop for mass production. To start, production will more than likely consist of around (10) approximately 18” x 24” prints a day. Obviously, I would try to move that number up very, very quickly.

At this time, I’m unsure of my specific budget. A lot of that depends upon upcoming Christmas sales, but I would probably need to remain under 10k. I’m fine with a used machine.

Let me know your thoughts - I greatly appreciate the amount of experience in these forums.

Thanks,
John

 

[P Wagner]

Hi All,

I would like a recommendation for a printer to accomplish some basic needs.

I make children’s wall décor items, and I am moving into frame-able art prints that have the ability to be personalized on a per-order basis (mostly personalized with the child’s name).

The printer must be able to handle the printing of large-ish blocks of solid, high chroma color with consistency and no banding. Rather than your typical ‘photographic’ prints, my designs will usually mimic 4 or 5 color screenprints. I’ve attached a photo that will better explain what I mean.

The substrate I will print on will be a fairly heavy-weight matte paper that will not be laminated. The specific brand of paper is yet to be determined.

For the foreseeable future, I don’t anticipate the need to print more than 48” in any direction. I would be willing to consider an even smaller printer if necessary.

I will be operating the equipment in a 500 square foot workshop, so smell and outgassing of solvents will need to be taken into consideration. I do plan on installing an air filtration system in the space.

Realistically, I know I will not be setting up this workshop for mass production. To start, production will more than likely consist of around (10) approximately 18” x 24” prints a day. Obviously, I would try to move that number up very, very quickly.

At this time, I’m unsure of my specific budget. A lot of that depends upon upcoming Christmas sales, but I would probably need to remain under 10k. I’m fine with a used machine.

Let me know your thoughts - I greatly appreciate the amount of experience in these forums.

Thanks,
John

Sounds like a good application for one of the HP Latex printers. Used L25500 machines are available under 10k.

 

[ddarlak]

Sounds like a good application for one of the HP Latex printers. Used L25500 machines are available under 10k.

I've been watching ebay for over a year, they have been popping up more lately. $10K seems to be the going rate

i have printed a ton of canvas on my latex, it works flawlessly

 

[rubo]

If you're not married to 48" you can go with Epson 9xxx series (44") - for 10K you can get two brand new machines and still have some $$ left - and there are no issues with heat or whatnot that you have to deal with if you go with latex.

 

[Matt-Tastic]

If these are going to be framed prints (with a front glass especially), I'd go with an aqueous printer as well. they are significantly cheaper, have a great gamut, have no outgassing, and can almost be as easy as printing to a desktop printer. The Epson 9800s or HP Z-series are both excellent choices.

The only drawback for Aqueous printing is it's durability, but if it's indoors and protected, they last a LONG time (Epson's archival quality is over 100 years).

If you're looking to branch into outdoor durable graphics, the best compromise would be a HP Latex, followed by one of the eco-solvent printers. The Latex will heat up the space, but has no fumes. The eco-solvent will produce some odor (especially in that small a space), and possibly a better image, depending on which one you go with.

 

[JoeBoomer]

Get an HP Latex printer

I printed wall murals for children's hospitals all across the country using my HP L25500 Latex printer. Great printing of solid colors (no banding), easy to maintain and can print on a wide variety of media (paper, canvas, different fabrics, etc.)

I would recommend either L26500 or L25500. If you can find a HP L25500 get that and save the extra coin.

 

[LeLuni]

Thank you for the suggestions.

Because they will be displayed only indoors, the aqueous printers are starting to sound like a good option.

Does anyone know the basic differences between the Epson 9000x and the HP z-series as far as reputation for durability, build quality, ink costs etc.?

Thank you very much for your help.

John

 

[rubo]

I would go with Epson 9700 - it's a CMYK printer - so ink cost is less , don't need a RIP, you can just run it from the driver, the driver has as much control as you ever need to do what you do. You can use refillable carts with 3rd party inks - I have never use OEM inks - fill it up with what I need from the very get go - with no problems at all. And the brand new one is only about 4K.

 

[artbot]

don't go with an epson waterbased. canon beat them out years ago with the IPF series. and now HP has beat canon out with it's new Z series. brand loyalty is the only reason someone still buys an epson waterbased printer.

i've owned just about everything over the last 15 years and when i buy my new high fidelity printer it will be a refurb 42" z6100 off of ebay.

 

[rubo]

don't go with an epson waterbased. canon beat them out years ago with the IPF series. and now HP has beat canon out with it's new Z series. brand loyalty is the only reason someone still buys an epson waterbased printer.

i've owned just about everything over the last 15 years and when i buy my new high fidelity printer it will be a refurb 42" z6100 off of ebay.

Hey Art whatsup. I couldn't care less about the name brand - the only reason for Epson was/is the straight paper path (and the $$ of course) - allows to stick rigid media in there. And 42" is even smaller than 44" - the guy was talking 48"

 

[artbot]

for a beginner getting into the print world, epson just doesn't compete as a plug-n-play printer. it's got the straight path, true. but then the path is downward. very hard to exploit. i've taken advantage of straight path printers to a great extent to the point of having a 20'x5' air table for metal printing.

i was in a shop for 12 months with an ipf9000. not one single time. not once did i ever hear about cleaning, or purging the heads. zero. unheard of in an epson ownership experience. and they were printing 10-15 rolls a month. absolutely trouble free and fast, and the HP z series is even far faster. i've read extensively luminous landscape threads when considering an indoor printer and it just seems that epson just can't win in a open match against the new thermal printers unless there's some loyalty to epson. or of course a straight path is a requirement.

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@leluni if you are planning on placing a great deal of these images in children's hospital locations and the such (which is what we did with the IPF), if the volume would allow the added cost, an HP latex would be great for adding canvases to your line as well. we did a lot of water based canvases but they still required varnish which was another step in labor and cost.

 

[LeLuni]

Thanks for all the advice.
I knew there was likely a little rivalry and brand loyalty among printers, so thank you for bringing up the specific Epson and HP models.
I've got a few months until the purchase (before the end of the year) and I will put a great deal of additional research into it.
Anything else comes to mind, please feel free to drop me a line.

Thanks,
John

 

[artbot]

this message board is 99% for the signage industry. if you want to read extensively about waterbased printers i'd go to:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?board=6.0

there will be very many hp vs epson vs canon discussions.