Roland VG2 and VG3 owners

[Joesignshop]

Hi- Can anyone who owns these tell me if there is a ton of ink waste with the VG2 or VG3? Approx how many ml's of ink each month in your waste containers? Do these newer models clean each print or only when you tell it to clean?
My VG is a nightmare with ink waste and was thinking of getting a newer model but if it's the same then there is no point. Prints well but the constant cleaning just kills me!!
I have the latest firmware and Roland TR2 inks and periodic cleaning to 'None'

Thanks for your time

 

[swarnes]

Hey, how did you put the periodic cleaning to none? do you think its worth it? how much ink are you losing do you think per cycle?

 

[Joesignshop]

After about a week of normal to low hours of printing

 

[somcalmetim]

I've never measured it...I would estimate the VG2 wastes less than that a week tho...VG3 is to new to tell, still have startup waste in it...
Periodic cleaning set to none only stops if from running a cleaning cycle periodically during long prints, the normal maintenance cycles are required or your printer will dry out....I don't think you can cancel them without yanking the power and leaving it unplugged while your heads and ink lines dry solid.
Either way the waste ink should be figured into your normal Cost of Doing business...its either waste $50/week in maintenance cycle ink or replace heads and capping stations when they dry out.
Got about 1.4" in the waste bottle on my VG2 and can't remember emptying it last...not a huge shop but mostly large vehicle graphics.
We missed the VG and went right from Pro2 or 3 to VG2 so not sure but seems like less ink waste (also has larger waste bottle sooo...) ...only time I have noticed a huge amount of waste is if you do dry out and have to do a bunch of heavy cleanings to try and dislodge clogged dried out heads...only prob I have had with VG2 is a clogged cap station caused some color shifting but if you keep the head clean and the capping stations moist and unclogged its been great...only prob so far with VG3 is colors are brighter but having trouble getting the same deep dark RGB black as I can get with the VG2.

 

[weyandsign]

That should be about 3 months worth of waste ink, not 1 week. Try leaving it unplugged overnight and see if that helps.

 

[Joesignshop]

The waste occurs when loading material: it will clean. Doing a test print: another clean. Loading a cartridge: another clean. Time for maintenance: another clean before and after the maintenance! Power off and on: another clean. They are all 2:30 minute cleans and I watch the ink deplete. I cannot get a straight answer from Roland. It is beyond frustrating. I really wish there was a way to not clean in the firmware and allow me to clean it. I am beyond attentive to my printer and can handle that. I miss my XC-540 now that would do a small cleaning once every 8 hrs. Any Roland techs?

 

[somcalmetim]

The waste occurs when loading material: it will clean. Doing a test print: another clean. Loading a cartridge: another clean. Time for maintenance: another clean before and after the maintenance! Power off and on: another clean. They are all 2:30 minute cleans and I watch the ink deplete. I cannot get a straight answer from Roland. It is beyond frustrating. I really wish there was a way to not clean in the firmware and allow me to clean it. I am beyond attentive to my printer and can handle that. I miss my XC-540 now that would do a small cleaning once every 8 hrs. Any Roland techs?

The VG2 generally does cleaning when woken from sleep after a while or when powered on but other than that its maybe a few times a day...it does a cleaning cycle after you do a Manual Cleaning routine but I don't think you can stop it from prepping the head for storage after.

 

[Costa Mesa Sign]

Hi- Can anyone who owns these tell me if there is a ton of ink waste with the VG2 or VG3? Approx how many ml's of ink each month in your waste containers? Do these newer models clean each print or only when you tell it to clean?
My VG is a nightmare with ink waste and was thinking of getting a newer model but if it's the same then there is no point. Prints well but the constant cleaning just kills me!!
I have the latest firmware and Roland TR2 inks and periodic cleaning to 'None'

Thanks for your time

If it's printing well, then leave it alone. Cost of doing business, you know?

Same deal with the wasted margins on the media, but those seem much more expensive of a waste in my opinion.

 

[Broome Signs]

HI
We installed a VG64 in 2016
so far we have 25 letters of wast ink, but also remember it has its own flush cartridge too
most ink waste coms from the white cartridges, which are 1/2 size of the rest

 

[Broome Signs]

25 Litres

 

[Broome Signs]

The VG2 generally does cleaning when woken from sleep after a while or when powered on but other than that its maybe a few times a day...it does a cleaning cycle after you do a Manual Cleaning routine but I don't think you can stop it from prepping the head for storage after.

hi

you can change the cleaning settings in the sub menu

turn auto off and set it for ether time spent printing, meterage, or after x amount of prints,

most people

 

[Broome Signs]

in addition the VG will circulate the ink to stop it clogging this then perform a small clean

 

[WolvenPrintWrap]

Ive got brand new VG3. From what I understand you waste less ink the more the machine is running, so increase of business is the best option for you to stop wasting ink. These machines are really made to be going nonstop.

With that being said, it's been a slow month and I've only run through about half my ink cartridges in work and I've got about half the amount of waste as you do. I definitely know that the VG3 has much better dry and off gassing times, as well as cleaning cycles have been brought to a minimum.
On cold startup it would do a flush, and on wakeup from sleep it will do a flush, but only after long periods of time. I leave my machine on all the time, wake it up for cleaning once a day if it's not printing, and that's about it. I've worked with all of the VG models and this one is definitely a larger improvement on every aspect of its predecessors.

I also saw someone above say they are having issues with getting rich black prints, yes he's right, the colors are much brighter out of the box, but once you calibrate it and get your color profiles and material profiles and create your own print profile, I've gotten richer and darker blacks out of this machine than any other I've printed on in the past 20 years. Some of the best black and white images I've ever printed on a large format printer.

 

[petepaz]

we had one of the original truvis VG eco-sol printers and it was a piece of sh$# (long story but went like 2 years we couldn't use it) we traded it in for a mimaki.
then in january we bought the UV version and it does waste a lot of ink. i probably dump the waste once a week where my roland XR and the mimaki we dump like once a month if that.
we have had roland printers for 20+ years and i think they really went down hill with their quality. when the machine is working at 100% its great but just too many issues.
we have been down for like 3 weeks with the new UV printer due to ink shortages. the problem started that they had to re-formulate the red and orange inks because there was some bad overspray and then once they fixed that they didn't have enough ink to go around. still waiting. roland needs to be better