researching Flatbed printers,

[electricfly]

Have been looking at flatbed printers and could use some input,

• Who has the best white ink technology
• True flatbed with roll option or Hybrid ie ...Oce vs EFI Vutek
• New Entry vs Used Mid production model.
• also looking at flatbed cutters possible bundle

We have HP latex printer and do onesy-twosies small jobs and some larger upto 20-30 event signage boards with quick turnarounds. Most banners are outsourced because of finishing.
We're in a major city so the work is out there.

 

[Gino]

Will you be using white continuously ?? If once or twice a week, you might wanna re-think that angle.

Your other questions all revolve around what your budget is. Instead of what you can afford.... what will serve you the best and make that fit. Making your equipment fit your budget could bite ya in the butt almost immediately. If ya can't afford what ya need, then keep farming it out, til you can.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Have been looking at flatbed printers and could use some input,

• Who has the best white ink technology
• True flatbed with roll option or Hybrid ie ...Oce vs EFI Vutek
• New Entry vs Used Mid production model.
• also looking at flatbed cutters possible bundle

We have HP latex printer and do onesy-twosies small jobs and some larger upto 20-30 event signage boards with quick turnarounds. Most banners are outsourced because of finishing.
We're in a major city so the work is out there.

Don't buy on prospect! you will be hurting if you do until you can feed it work.

 

[Bly]

Also this question gets asked every week.
Have you tried a search?

 

[Pauly]

Also this question gets asked every week.
Have you tried a search?

Yeah i dont think my answer will change from thread to thread either.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

How many boards an hour do you get in quality mode?

 

[BALLPARK]

I would look into purchasing a used Vutek. You can purchase them for about a 10% of the original price ($450k+). They are built to last for years and they can produce the monthly payment within an hour of printing on coroplast.

Global Garage has the best options that I have seen for a used Vutek. Check out the QS series if you're looking for a package under 50k. It will cost about 10k to 15k to have it shutdown, crated, shipped, and installed at your shop with training. Ask for Jake Harmon as he knows his printers and will make sure you have the info you need to make the proper purchase for your company.

You can print in production mode with light smoothing and do about 12 boards per hour. I would suggest to always print in heavy smoothing mode as you will not have any banding and still produce about 8-10 4x8's per hour. I've never used 3rd party inks in my small roll to roll printers. But I did switch to Global's 3rd party ink and it was a great choice! Less purges, less odor, better color range, and half the price of the 3M / EFI inks. I researched Vutek printers for about 3-4 years before I felt safe to purchase it. I was worried about not having enough work for it as they are truly built for 24/7 production. As it turns out the maintenance is not as hard as I thought it would be for only printing a couple hours a day.

We have only had one major issue and that was from power surge/outage that hit our shop. Other than that downtime our machine has been a workhorse that produces high-quality prints at a very fast pace.

I'm just saying... EFI makes what I consider to be the best roll-to-roll / rigid printer on the market. Their old tech is still better than most new models from other brand's entry to mid level printers. [HASHTAG]#VutekLover[/HASHTAG]

We are already watching the prices of the first gen GS series. It will be our next big purchase for a printer based on how well the QS series has done for our company.

Good luck...

 

[chafro]

Take a look at swissqprint. When using white a fix bed its normally the best choice. You can do 20 boards an hour (without white) with zero banding. It will run about 400k-450k with roll to roll. I think they are the most reliable
Printers in the market and if you slow it down has gallery like quality.

The swissqprint impala 2X CMYK and a ESKO XN I believe its the best combo out there for the money for mid production.

The cutter is a must or you will limit a lot your printer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Pauly]

Take a look at swissqprint. When using white a fix bed its normally the best choice. You can do 20 boards an hour (without white) with zero banding. It will run about 400k-450k with roll to roll. I think they are the most reliable
Printers in the market and if you slow it down has gallery like quality.

The swissqprint impala 2X CMYK and a ESKO XN I believe its the best combo out there for the money for mid production.

The cutter is a must or you will limit a lot your printer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

SwissQ are good quality printers. But the fact that the roll media goes right over the flatbed is a big no-no for me. time consuming to switch over from board to roll. Also the sizes are not practice. 2 x 2.5m or the larger 2 x 3.2m. The gantry on the larger one prints on the long 3.2m axis which doesn't allow a production run of multiple 1220 x 2440 boards.

This is where i always go back to the Oce Arizona. 1250 x 2500mm or the larger 2500 x 3000. And the gantry is on the 2500mm axis which means on the 3m one you can print 2 full 1220 x 2440 boards at a time and swap boards while the other is printing.

To match the SwissQ impala you'll want the Oce 2200 series. and you can match it up with a Zund/oce pro cut and they also work hand in hand with each other.

The Oce flatbeds are a lot more versatile than the SwissQ machines.

 

[chafro]

Have you own any of them?

Send some prints to both of them on their quality mode. Then on their fast modes, with low number of passes.. You will see the difference.

You get twice the speed spending the same money on the swissqprint.

On the roll to roll, works awesome, and sending the material over the bed takes less than a minute and helps for perfect alignment every time. Also because of this system you can print boards longer than the bed advancing a mesh material.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Pauly]

Have you own any of them?

Send some prints to both of them on their quality mode. Then on their fast modes, with low number of passes.. You will see the difference.

You get twice the speed spending the same money on the swissqprint.

On the roll to roll, works awesome, and sending the material over the bed takes less than a minute and helps for perfect alignment every time. Also because of this system you can print boards longer than the bed advancing a mesh material.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have an Oce 480XT. 3m x 2.5m bed. You'd compare this to the Oryx2 as it has 1 row of heads, not 2 like the rest. The 680xt or the 2200 series(replacement for the 600) is what you'd compare to the impala.
I have reasons why i wanted the 400 series over the 600. More of a quality thing, not speed.

Actually, no you don't get twice the speed with the same money. The corresponding Arizona is cheaper than the SwissQ. And they print the same speed.

Quality.. Well The SwissQ smallest dot it can drop is 9 Picolitre VS the Arizonas 6 picolitre both can do upto 42. So the quality at the speed is the same. If i print at the highest resolution, it will actually be better than what the swissQ can produce.

The media advance is an ok feature. But not something i'd ever need as i've never seen a board/sheet bigger than 3m x 2.5m and i've only printed on those a hand full of times. The advantage with having the roll a separate system, i can do a quick nozzle check while changing sheets.

The advantage the swissQ has with a 3m roll on the larger printers is it can do 3m lengths vs the 2.5 the Arizona can do.

Just a note, i was at PacPrint on Friday in Melbourne. That's our large print show. SwissQ had their nyala2 on display so i did actually see it work ect. And i have a sample printed on show on that printer.

 

[chafro]

Sorry but you are wrong on the speed side. Where you are wrong is that you see them as comparable when one has three times more speed on the bed and more than 7 times more speed on roll to roll. You can go see the specs yourself, they are both online.

On flatbed, OCE 2280 XL can print up to 62 m2/hr (691 sqf/hr). Impala 2xcmyk can do 180 m2/hour. Oce slows down to 25m2/hour (276 sqf/hr) on roll to roll and swissqprint can keep the same speed 180m2/hr. On the best quality mode difference goes down, but still almost twice the speed: swissqprint is printing 23 m2/hr and the OCE under 12 m2/hr.

By the way those 180m2/hr is good enought quality to sell stuff like coroplast and banner. I use it. And they are better quality than the 62m2/hr (691 sqf/hr) of OCE,, I sent the same files to both company's when we where doing the comparative.

Yes swissqprint is more expensive of these two models but dollar per square meter there is a clear winner. You spend 50k-100k more and get 3 times the output on bed and 7 times on roll to roll.

On the quality both where very very close,, but swissqprint gave us better quality to our eyes. again we sent same files to both printers. 6 picoliters is better but it is as important how you drop that ink.

Both are great printers, there where our two finalists, but speed and reliability made us go swissqprint. Didn't compare de oryx, we needed more volume.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[nate]

I spent a great deal of time with SwissQprint bag when Weifag was handling the distribution duties here in the US. The SwissQprint, in my opinion, is a great line of machines that are priced considerably more than they should be. When you're up in that territory there are many other machines that are bigger, fast, better, make coffee, do your dry cleaning, etc. that are worth looking in to.

 

[Pauly]

Sorry but you are wrong on the speed side. Where you are wrong is that you see them as comparable when one has three times more speed on the bed and more than 7 times more speed on roll to roll. You can go see the specs yourself, they are both online.

On flatbed, OCE 2280 XL can print up to 62 m2/hr (691 sqf/hr). Impala 2xcmyk can do 180 m2/hour. Oce slows down to 25m2/hour (276 sqf/hr) on roll to roll and swissqprint can keep the same speed 180m2/hr. On the best quality mode difference goes down, but still almost twice the speed: swissqprint is printing 23 m2/hr and the OCE under 12 m2/hr.

By the way those 180m2/hr is good enought quality to sell stuff like coroplast and banner. I use it. And they are better quality than the 62m2/hr (691 sqf/hr) of OCE,, I sent the same files to both company's when we where doing the comparative.

Yes swissqprint is more expensive of these two models but dollar per square meter there is a clear winner. You spend 50k-100k more and get 3 times the output on bed and 7 times on roll to roll.

On the quality both where very very close,, but swissqprint gave us better quality to our eyes. again we sent same files to both printers. 6 picoliters is better but it is as important how you drop that ink.

Both are great printers, there where our two finalists, but speed and reliability made us go swissqprint. Didn't compare de oryx, we needed more volume.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry i've muddled something up. I've mixed the names up.

The 2280 series is comparable to Oryx, they're in the same price range and same speeds.
Oce does not have a comparable printer for the impala.
the 6100 series is comparable to the nyala.

But having said that. The oce does not slow down on roll to roll. Once you set your print speed inside onyx, you choose where to print it on the printer interface. Bed or RMO. the RMO is slightly delay as it has to allow for media advance correction.

Yes both great printers. I went with oce because i can do 2 boards at a time with dual zones. the separate RMO was a factor. When you've loaded the machine with a 100kg sheet of glass, It takes 10-15 mins to load it. right before i print i like to make sure the heads are all firing, so having the RMO separate allows me to do this.

 

[mark7979]

Have been looking at flatbed printers and could use some input,

• Who has the best white ink technology
• True flatbed with roll option or Hybrid ie ...Oce vs EFI Vutek
• New Entry vs Used Mid production model.
• also looking at flatbed cutters possible bundle

We have HP latex printer and do onesy-twosies small jobs and some larger upto 20-30 event signage boards with quick turnarounds. Most banners are outsourced because of finishing.
We're in a major city so the work is out there.

As a uv printer manufactuer,I have to say everyone who sold it will claim their uv flatbed printer is the best!
The main consideration for the buyer should be the machine configuration and machine quality,for example,the white ink will always block the printhead during the usage,how to solve the problem?Using the best suitable ink,configure the white ink circulation system with automatic stirring device,etc
Regarding the uv flatbed printer you want to seek,what kind machine configuraiton do you prefer?
The industiral level printer always use the Ricoh Gen5,Konica 1024I and the most advanced Kyocea KJ4A-3.5pl printhead,etc,you can choose the suitable printhead according to your printing requirement!

 

[davyde]

Have been looking at flatbed printers and could use some input,

• Who has the best white ink technology
• True flatbed with roll option or Hybrid ie ...Oce vs EFI Vutek
• New Entry vs Used Mid production model.
• also looking at flatbed cutters possible bundle

We have HP latex printer and do onesy-twosies small jobs and some larger upto 20-30 event signage boards with quick turnarounds. Most banners are outsourced because of finishing.
We're in a major city so the work is out there.

Cant rate the swissQ machine high enough for a flat bed but cost scares people away. Superfast print speeds, flat bed with roll to roll featured, opt up to 18 print heads, robot loading automation option... list goes on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bly]

I spent a great deal of time with SwissQprint bag when Weifag was handling the distribution duties here in the US. The SwissQprint, in my opinion, is a great line of machines that are priced considerably more than they should be. When you're up in that territory there are many other machines that are bigger, fast, better, make coffee, do your dry cleaning, etc. that are worth looking in to.

Which machines would you suggest that would perform as well for better money?

 

[chafro]

What kind of work do you do?

 

[Bly]

What kind of work do you do?

The usual day to day coro, forex, foamboards, ACP and occasional glass, acrylic & timber jobs.
Our old Oce 360 is having quality issues and is getting just too slow to turn larger orders over fast enough.

 

[AlsEU]

As a uv printer manufactuer,I have to say everyone who sold it will claim their uv flatbed printer is the best!

The industiral level printer always use the Ricoh Gen5,Konica 1024I and the most advanced Kyocea KJ4A-3.5pl printhead,etc,you can choose the suitable printhead according to your printing requirement!

I guess you will say the same about your printer...
And industrial level printers uses other printheads too - Inca Onset series uses Spectra heads (dropsize depends on required quality). It is an industrial level printer, nobody can deny. And it's a well known supplier (located not in China, this is also an advantage). Ink for these printers are also supplied from Europe, not China.

 

[Pauly]

The usual day to day coro, forex, foamboards, ACP and occasional glass, acrylic & timber jobs.
Our old Oce 360 is having quality issues and is getting just too slow to turn larger orders over fast enough.

Quality issues? What it is? What mode are you using mostly? PM me if you need to