Recommendations for printer/cutter configuration

[JPR-5690]

Im working with a small commercial print company to figure out the best options for expanding their large format operation. For the past decade they have had a large format aqueous printer (currently the canon ipf9400) and have been printing/mounting/cutting by hand in house, and outsourcing any jobs with custom cuts or specialty materials. As far as their large format market, they're mainly doing small run jobs on flexible materials as well as foam/pvc/gator.

The objective is to increase their product offerings and lower production time/cost. The issue is that as a smaller company, theyre limited with how much they can invest upfront since.

Ive only been in the printing industry a few years (recent art school grad) and have limited hands-on experience but Ive been doing enough research that my head is spinning with all the options now.

Here are some options Ive been considering:

1. lose the aqueous printer, get a hybrid flatbed. (main issue with this option being the upfront cost and the fact that I havent really been seeing stellar reviews for hybrids)

2. keep the aqueous for high quality prints (currently a considerable portion of their clients) but downgrade to a smaller version. buy a latex roll fed machine (most likely hp), continue mounting and cutting by hand.

3. lose the aqueous, buy a true flatbed (thinking a vanguard), buy a latex roll fed.

Should we also be considering getting a flatbed cutter/router?
Ive been following the HP R series printer, but I have a *bit* of a hunch that will fall pretty far outside the budget.
What are your opinions on the best printer/cutter configurations?

 

[signman315]

So I've been hands on for 10 years and also on the graphic design/customer service end of it for even longer. Basically done it all except for neon and large LED stuff. I avoid the electrical. And have used the equipment you are considering in a real world production environment.

So I would recommend going with an smaller HP latex for your roll to roll stuff, primarily self adhesive vinyl. The latex machines are great speed/price/quality and are really great for vehicle wraps. They will print on anything that can handle the heat used during curing. If you don't like latex then I would recommend an Epson eco-sol....their latest 54" model comes in at like $12,000 and although it's only CMYK (as opposed to CMYKLcLm) it's outputting great color/quality for the price. So there's two solutions for your roll-to-roll stuff.

Then I would recommend a UV hybrid such as the HP FB750 for all of your rigid substrates, vinyl banner, and any other materials that don't like the heat generated by the HP latex printer as well as your rigid substrates (PVC, coroplast, etc).

Lastly get yourself a CNC router/cutter...if you're not doing a lot of ACM then Summa has some sweet flatbed cutters, if you are doing a lot of ACM then go with a ShopSabre router....Gerber Sabres are also excellent routers.

Add any old laminator (GFP is a good brand for the price) and a roll to roll plotter for self adhesive vinyl (Summa is the best for this also).

So with a 54"-63" roll to roll (HP Latex is my recommendation), an 98" wide UV hybrid (HP FB750 is my recommendation), and a Summa flatbed or Shopsabre there's pretty much nothing you can't do. Get the roll option for the UV hybrid and you'll be able to print fabrics/banner/etc with an 8' width as well as direct print your rigid substrates instead of manually applying. Use the HP latex for all your simple decals, self adhesive vinyl, specialty materials, small banners, etc. I've used hybrid UV printers for 10 years with great satisfaction. They start to nickel and dime you after about 5-6 years of daily use, but by then you've gotten more than your money's worth. If a machine can't pay for itself within 18 months then don't buy it. I actually prefer the speed and versatility of a hybrid over a true flatbed. The true flatbed does output exceptional quality but is slow and has a large footprint and comparable can be achieved with a hybrid. Very few customers have the eye for detail that a sign maker does and the quality of a hybrid is utterly acceptable, and if necessary you can slow it way down and get near offset quality. I've ran about 400 linear feet of 63" material in less than 8 hours today, and the quality is great.

If you get camera registration on the ShopSabre or Summa flatbed you can contour cut your rigid substrates that come off the UV hybrid, but with practice and a little forethought you don't need the camera registration. The only catch is that when direct printing ACM/dibond the adhesion isn't great...this is true of any UV printer flatbed or hybrid (at least in my experience). So I'm still printing self adhesive vinyl, laminating, and manually applying for ACM signs that need to be long term outdoor durable. Short term outdoor signs can be direct printed to ACM/dibond as long as you can get them installed or in the customer's hands without scratching them.

Last to mention is the RIP software...I prefer ONYX they work great with HP/Summa workflows.

That whole workflow is basically my dream shop...you can tailor it to your needs.

 

[axelmk]

I agree with Signman315, the HP FB750 or FB550 are great options. We installed our FB550 2 years ago and have had No Issues with it.
Has made us Really Efficient and no issues with Quality. With either FB's you have the choice to choose cmyk plus white or cmyk plus Light Cyan and Light magenta. We chose the Lc & Lm option and the photo quality is amazing.

I do not know if HP still has that offer or if you can squeeze it from them, but when we bought ours, they threw in a Latex 365 for free.
This has been a great combination for us.
As for the Cutter/Router Table, we installed a Colex Sharpcut 5x10 table a month ago and I do NOT know how we survived without one before. Amazing what we have accomplished with it. From Plexi, DiBond, Aluminum, PVC to Foamboard.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

 

[Superior_Adam]

I am going to go against the HP Hybrid UV Printers. They are good for most stuff but the EFI 16H has far better quality prints. I am saying that as I print stuff on our 16H for another sign company that has the HP 550 Hybrid machine. As far as a true flatbed not having enough speed that is not true. We also have the EFI 24F and I can print a 4'x8' full bleed in just over 8 minutes at very good print quality. I would suggest getting printed samples using your own files so you know what the output is supposed to be. I would also suggest finding people that are using machines on a daily basis and see them run if possible.

 

[Solventinkjet]

When it comes to hybrid machines Ron Swanson says it best. "Don't half a$$ 2 things. Whole a$$ 1 thing" There are great flatbeds out there and there are great roll to roll machines but not a lot of great hybrids.

 

[signman315]

I am going to go against the HP Hybrid UV Printers. They are good for most stuff but the EFI 16H has far better quality prints. I am saying that as I print stuff on our 16H for another sign company that has the HP 550 Hybrid machine. As far as a true flatbed not having enough speed that is not true. We also have the EFI 24F and I can print a 4'x8' full bleed in just over 8 minutes at very good print quality. I would suggest getting printed samples using your own files so you know what the output is supposed to be. I would also suggest finding people that are using machines on a daily basis and see them run if possible.

I can agree that EFI is a superior machine, though I believe they have a price tag to match....what does a 98" print width EFI cost these days? There are plenty of superior machines over HP's hybrid UV printers, but none in my opinion offer the quality/speed at a comparable price. I've ran HP hybrids for about 8 years with daily runs about 6-8 hours and they are outstanding machines.

As far as the true flatbed...8 minutes per 4' x 8' is double the time I can run one on the hybrid, admittedly mine would be at a lower quality I'm sure. But I would be out of business at that rate haha! And depending on your customer base it doesn't matter how good the quality is as long as it's up to the customer's expectations. In my shop it's a genuine mistake to print a job at an excessively high quality, results in a lot of extra wear and tear on the equipment and loss of time. It's a common mistake for less experienced operators to default to a higher quality out of a fear/misunderstanding the needs of the print job. Do in-house print tests of the same job at the various speeds/qualities and you'll find that the difference is pretty minimal and acceptable for most applications. Knowing your customer's expectations is important. Unless your doing museum quality work every day then it's a waste of time and excessive to go for the best quality machine. I work with multiple large national accounts and they'll choose speed over quality any day, again assuming that the quality is within an acceptable/usable range (which every speed on the HP hybrid is). And there's simply less museum quality work in the market and thus less need for it in a printer. I do work for regional museums and art galleries as well and they are usually "smaller" jobs where I can afford to slow down the HP hybrid and get nearly offset quality, although there's nothing like offset. Not to mention the load time in between prints is much longer on a true flatbed vs a hybrid. There are certainly advantages to a true flatbed, primarily registration accuracy and substrate versatility, but not quality or speed as far as my experience goes. And you have to have an operator on hand constantly reloading the true flatbed, a hybrid can be set up to run 150' rolls unattended while your operator is laminating/finishing the last roll that came off the printer. I did look at the CET line of true flatbeds and hybrids and I like them a lot. But they aren't designed/finished the way an HP is, for example the alignment bar is a solid bar on an HP and it's a series of pins on the CET. So printing odd shapes/sizes loading the CET could be difficult if not impossible without spending a lot of time or making jigs. The CET also doesn't have an automated system that measures the media width/thickness....at least when I looked at them a couple years ago. Just a lot of seemingly "small" features that result in a much slower/poorer operation. But the CET is also priced to sell. It's all about finding the equipment that suits your specific needs, and not just looking for the "best" equipment and assuming it's the "best" for what you will be doing just because it's the "best" lol. Cheers

 

[signman315]

When it comes to hybrid machines Ron Swanson says it best. "Don't half a$$ 2 things. Whole a$$ 1 thing" There are great flatbeds out there and there are great roll to roll machines but not a lot of great hybrids.

Ron Swanson is my damn hero hahahhahahaha! Followed close behind by Ron Burgundy

 

[JPR-5690]

I am going to go against the HP Hybrid UV Printers. They are good for most stuff but the EFI 16H has far better quality prints. I am saying that as I print stuff on our 16H for another sign company that has the HP 550 Hybrid machine. As far as a true flatbed not having enough speed that is not true. We also have the EFI 24F and I can print a 4'x8' full bleed in just over 8 minutes at very good print quality. I would suggest getting printed samples using your own files so you know what the output is supposed to be. I would also suggest finding people that are using machines on a daily basis and see them run if possible.

Right now Im actually operating an EFI H1625 LED, an HP 260, a Roland XJ740, a graphtec plotter, and a Kongsberg cnc table (for another company which Ill be leaving shortly).

One of the things that Im taking into consideration while shopping is registration. The registration system on the H1625 is a joke - or rather, there is none. There is a bar that you jog the media against when youre loading it, but thats it. Not only has the bar been bent over time, sheets of substrate are rarely cut square so double sided printing is a pain in the arse. Even with boards that have been cut out on the cnc table, the H1625 will scan the media at different size. (i.e. it will measure a 48" sheet and say its 48.12", and it will give you a slightly different number every time it measures it).

The H1625 also handles roll-to-roll printing horribly. Im also constantly mind blown by the fact that a printer that was made by the same company that makes Fiery has to have a tertiary software to print from. We have to rip and print-to-file with a Fiery and then use "EfI Print Utility" (which looks like it was designed in 2000) to actually release the jobs and control the printer.

The new machines wont be run 24/7, so im not so worried about speed, but it would be nice to have machinery that can handle increasing growth and usage over the years.

Side note - are the HP FB's cured with an arc lamp or led's? LED curing seems so practical (and since thats what im used to) I cant really see why I'd want anything else.

 

[signman315]

Right now Im actually operating an EFI H1625 LED, an HP 260, a Roland XJ740, a graphtec plotter, and a Kongsberg cnc table (for another company which Ill be leaving shortly).

One of the things that Im taking into consideration while shopping is registration. The registration system on the H1625 is a joke - or rather, there is none. There is a bar that you jog the media against when youre loading it, but thats it. Not only has the bar been bent over time, sheets of substrate are rarely cut square so double sided printing is a pain in the arse. Even with boards that have been cut out on the cnc table, the H1625 will scan the media at different size. (i.e. it will measure a 48" sheet and say its 48.12", and it will give you a slightly different number every time it measures it).

The H1625 also handles roll-to-roll printing horribly. Im also constantly mind blown by the fact that a printer that was made by the same company that makes Fiery has to have a tertiary software to print from. We have to rip and print-to-file with a Fiery and then use "EfI Print Utility" (which looks like it was designed in 2000) to actually release the jobs and control the printer.

The new machines wont be run 24/7, so im not so worried about speed, but it would be nice to have machinery that can handle increasing growth and usage over the years.

Side note - are the HP FB's cured with an arc lamp or led's? LED curing seems so practical (and since thats what im used to) I cant really see why I'd want anything else.

They are arc lamps rated for 500 hours each. But I'm getting around 1000 each and only replace them at that point to be proactive, not because they've failed. I've not used LED curing systems but rumor is that they don't cure as well but that's all i know about that subject, that is only what I've heard. The registration system on the HP works great and is a big part of the efficiency and ease of use of the machine. I run double sided prints often and they register perfect on the width, within 1/16" consistently. My biggest complaint is that when aligning it along the leading edge to print the back side...the shortest increment the belt will move by pressing the movement controls is like 3/8"ish. So it can be tough to get that to line up, but all one needs to do is run through the media configuration process (necessary anyway because you are reloading the material for the back side anyway) and instead of using the buttons on the display to feed the banner just pull it manually to line up the leading edge to the necessary point. Once you do that it scales very well and you won't need to do it for subsequent prints on the roll.

Onyx RIP and HP play very nicely together and there are plenty of profiles available for this workflow. If driving a latex and a UV through the same ONYX RIP it's very easy to have proper color management and achieve consist results across various media and equipment.

It's beer o clock here in upstate NY, have a good weekend folks!