Questions about HP Design Jet 2500CP Printer

[Turn2Designs]

I have the opportunity to buy one of these REALLY cheap and i was wondering if anyone here knows anything about these printers. As in ink cost? where is the best place to buy ink? Durability of printer. Also the guy says he had to replace the belt. does this sound fishy? it also out of ink per him. is there any way i can test this printer to see if its ok even without ink? (i know that question sounds dumb) just wondering if there is a way.. Thanks in advance!!

 

[eye4color]

I purchased one of these new in 1998 and built an entire business around it. Mine was retired about 5 years ago. HP stopped servicing them long ago and I'd advise looking for a deal and a 42" HP DesignJet 5000 or 5500PS. They are out there for a song. They'll print circles around the 2000/3000 series and you can still get them worked on.

One good thing is that the print head is a consumable so if you have a bad printhead it is easily swapped out for a new one. For ink, look at Lexjet's house brand. NEVER had any issues with my 5500. One more thing, I'd use these machines for indoor work only. The prints do not hold up well outdoors even on a water resist material with lamination.

 

[guitarca18]

I know a lot about these machines. I have four designjet CP's and I use them on a daily basis. Do you still need any help with it?

 

[Bly]

I started up digital printing with a 3000CP.

While they were a leap forward in their day in some ways, they had a couple of flaws.

Mainly the heads need to refill by stopping the print and going over to the carts, leaving a nasty dry line across your job.

The pigment inks were pretty durable on the right media but that media will be expensive.

As eye4 says, forget it and get a 5000 or 5500.

 

[heyskull]

We have a graphtec designjet pro which has a hp designjet 2000/3000 based printer built in.
I sadly would not like to run a business with this thing.
The only redeeming feature is it has a quite good plotter/cutter attached to it.
It was useless as a printer and expensive to run.
I personally wouldn't have one of these printers given.
It is a water based printer which is only any good for printing paper.
Using this to print onto coated vinyl is an expensive way to go around this especially as the prints fade so fast even using pigmented inks.
The dye based inks are a complete waste of time as I encountered prints that had faded in a week in internal conditions.

SC