Roland Unreliable and Expensive

[Mike F]

He posted the same thing over in the Roland forums....

He also posted this to another semi-official Versacamm forum. Ironically, the official Roland forum is the only one he hasn't gotten a response from Roland on.

 

[Dakotagrafx]

saw a hit n run post at usc also - but found this on his website

"For the past 7 years and over two million square feet of wall graphics material printed"

 

[mark galoob]

He also posted this to another semi-official Versacamm forum. Ironically, the official Roland forum is the only one he hasn't gotten a response from Roland on.

it seems to me that if your volume was strong enough to just buy another printer 4 years ago after your 3 yr manufac warantee went out. sometimes you gotta bite the bullet and just buy a new machine. your volume was plenty enough to justify...

mark galoob

 

[Mosh]

"For the past 7 years and over two million square feet of wall graphics material printed"

that is 2,900 54" rolls of material...pretty much he would have had to run more than one whole roll every day in this one machine!

 

[Patentagosse]

'bought a brand new SP-540i and after few jobs, it printed random banding on solid colors (the most annoying fact was it happened like at the 9ft mark on a 10ft long print, ruining the whole job and creating major waste of consumable, cast material and time). Techs never been able to address the problem even after extensive testings so they took it back and offered me an upgrade to the VS-540 for $500 (while actual upgrade was about +$2000). Since they didn't have a crated VS in stock, they moved their demo unit here for the 2 weeks wait and never said a word about the ink I used from the demo. They installed my VS with all sealed ink cartridges and brought back their VS (printer is upstairs in my office... they had to send 2 big guys for the 6 times they walked the stairs loaded...)

That was really kind from Roland to back me up like that. My dealer also stepped at the plate soon in the story. My VS runs fine since 2011. Nothing's perfect and there's "lemons" in each brand. It's how they handle the issue that makes 'em a great company or not. Same for us vs. our customers.

 

[DRamm76]

I have to agree with a lot of the responses here. Why wasn't this unit swapped out by the dealer? That sounds like a lot of extreme issues, lost time and money wasted for you to keep the machine in place. Did the tech ever consider bringing the unit back to his facility to recreate the issue in a location separate from yours? This would answer the electricity concern.

These machines aren't that complicated and the XC of all machines was an absolute beast. We did VERY little service work on those models. All machines do break down, thats why service techs have jobs. But to go through what you have gone through in the past years as you have described seems to me like the dealer should have swapped this unit out.

I have been selling and servicing Rolands for 13 years and I have NEVER seen an issue like that.

 

[Kentucky Wraps]

An overwhelming majority of Roland customers seem to demonstrate your machine is the exception to the rule. Your problem should have been deemed systemic after the 2nd board change with no Roland techs knowing the "cause".
I'm almost certain Roland has less "problem machines" than the other cheaper makes.
Sorry for your bad luck with that lemon.