Roland vs Mimaki

[mortil]

in looking for buying a printer or a print & cut as i cut lots and lots and was thinking about using it as a plotter when not printing if thats needed.

so i stand between
Roland VersaCamm VS-640i and mimaki cjv30-160

what one should i buy ? for now i have to outsource lots and lots of printwork and as we are thinking of going into carwrapping as my partner has lots of knowhow on that subject and has worked with it there might just be better buying a 160 instead of a 130cm wide printer ?


greatfull for all tips and would love to hear why i should choose just THAT printer ? whatever i buy i will get an education on it.

 

[petesign]

Don't buy a printer/cutter. You don't save that much money, and every time you are cutting, you are not printing. In the long run you are going to regret it.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Don't buy a printer/cutter. You don't save that much money, and every time you are cutting, you are not printing. In the long run you are going to regret it.

+1

Also, I'm a big Mimaki fan. They're tanks, they just print and print, we have two and they never skip a beat. Recently we strayed from Mimaki and added an Epson GS6000 and honestly I'm regretting the purchase every day, I should have stuck with Mimaki.

 

[MachServTech]

I do a fair amount of print cut. I am very happy with the HP L25500 because I can laminate and cut as soon as the print is done printing.

I would also recommend Flexi Sign Pro 10 for print cut ease of use.

 

[Freese]

I agree with the premise of one or the other.

What happens when your CJV goes down due to any sort of problems and you need to cut?

 

[housemusikid]

I say Mimaki all the way! They are designed to get better the longer they run.

 

[MachServTech]

I say Mimaki all the way! They are designed to get better the longer they run.

You haven't met my old busted JV3

 

[petepaz]

we have 2 roland print/cut systems(vp-54 & xc-540) and no complaints here
as far as have a printer and a cutter not a one sytem unit the only time i find that to be a problem is when i do a large run job so it doesn't interfere too much at our shop
the only thing i would say is get a 54" or bigger (we started with the 30" sp300 and good machine but after about 6 months we where getting too many jobs where the 54" was better)

never used mimaki so i can't say which is better or worse

 

[housemusikid]

You haven't met my old busted JV3

I run 2 JV3's and they are awesome!

 

[Salmoneye]

I have an xc-540 and my friend runs a slightly bigger mimaki. I am very impressed with the build quality on his unit although I have no complaints about my own. I like the reduced footprint of the print cut but I have some very fast profiles and printing never seems to get in my way. In a higher volume environment I could see an issue. Definitely buy at least a 54"

 

[mortil]

Thanks everyone.

now if you would answer some other things.

ive never used largeformat printers before or solventprinters.

the Mimaki seller (who i find very nice cuz he helpt me out a couple of times with no winning in it) tells me the mimaki is the right machine to go. but as i read here it puts out lots of ink every month,

then the Roland seller (who was kind enough to get me an FC8000 for a SUPER prize as my CE5000 never came) tells me the Roland is better becaus of their ink pump system and it dont flushes out that much ink as the mimaki (almost none at all?)
he also tells me that the Mimaki inks dont dry fast enough and that the mimaki metallic inks can take days to dry but not the roland?

the thing about the print & cut machines is that the prize is better on them (which i find odd) then i still got my FC8000-130 thought that it also bee good to cut 160cm if needed ?

i ask you guys becaus im new to this "making" process of vinyl and films . mounting ive done in 9 years.

 

[TheSnowman]

I have a JV3 that I bought...just going on about 5 years ago now. The only thing that I have ever done to it is put new pumps in it, which come to find out, is normal wear and tear. I'm not sure how long my heads will last, but my test print still is a perfect print...so I'm hoping a while yet. No major complaints. I get some banding sometimes, but I'm assuming with new technology, it can probably auto-correct itself now days.

 

[Jaime Bergstrom]

+1

Also, I'm a big Mimaki fan. They're tanks, they just print and print, we have two and they never skip a beat. Recently we strayed from Mimaki and added an Epson GS6000 and honestly I'm regretting the purchase every day, I should have stuck with Mimaki.

Same thing here, we bought an Epson GS6000 and should have added another JV33.

 

[MachServTech]

I run 2 JV3's and they are awesome!

IF you like replacing heads/dampers/caps its an absolute hoot! I am retired from the service tech biz...didnt want to babysit my own Jv3 any longer... so send me an offer on my JV3 160 if you love them so much....or you just need spare parts.

 

[artbot]

my jv3 is pretty much zero trouble now that i know how to use it. clean the edges of the caps, clean the wiper rails and wiper every day. once every two weeks clean around the bottom of the heads and pour cleaning solution down the caps to flush the pumps. maybe that's "too" much maintenance? the build quality of the printer is almost military grade. am looking forward to a jv33 in the future.

 

[MachServTech]

my jv3 is pretty much zero trouble now that i know how to use it. clean the edges of the caps, clean the wiper rails and wiper every day. once every two weeks clean around the bottom of the heads and pour cleaning solution down the caps to flush the pumps. maybe that's "too" much maintenance? the build quality of the printer is almost military grade. am looking forward to a jv33 in the future.

The funny thing is Artbot, I don't disagree with you. I can keep my JV3 humming, but when you have to keep up with five printers...cleaning the solvents can be a chore. To be fair my JV3 has the car equivalent of 250,000 miles! (so its a bit more of a bear than most) I wish that Mimaki had produced a product I didn't have to align, purge, flush and clean.

BTW (off topic) Have you looked at the sepiax ink lately? A thread earlier got me interested again.

 

[mortil]

So. there is a lot of cleaning and fixing with the mimaki to keep it running smooth ?

if we go in to simple printers like the jv3 /jv33 or roland models in the same model range ?

 

[MachServTech]

Any of those printers will work great for the first couple of years with little maintenance , just like cars...if you drive'em hard and don't take care of them they will eventually brake down.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

So. there is a lot of cleaning and fixing with the mimaki to keep it running smooth ?

if we go in to simple printers like the jv3 /jv33 or roland models in the same model range ?

The JV3 was definitely a bit more work to keep running just because it had 4 heads instead of 1 like the newer generation of printers. By more work, I mean in our case 15-20 minutes a week worth of cleaning and the occasional head alignment procedure. Otherwise it's not bad at all. Ours was probably similar to MachServTech's, it had a lot of miles on it but we never had any major problems at all, one head was all we ever had to replace amazingly.

Our JV33 is significantly easier to keep on top of and keep clean. They've integrated all 4 ink channels into one larger head so no more alignment issues and much quicker on the cleaning end. The CJV line is essentially the same printer so it'll be the same.

Bear in mind, a solvent printer is a solvent printer no matter whether it's Mimaki, Roland, Mutoh, Epson, etc.. They all take a little time to clean and maintain, they all waste ink to do routine cleanings, and they can all drive you up a wall. But all of these printers are more or less the same machine, regardless of the manufacturer.

 

[artbot]

@MachServTech

good point... i can clean my machine in about one minute... but i would be definitely put off if i had to do that to five machines.

as far as the sepiax ink... kept hearing more and more bad news about heat distribution etc. still would like to try it out but i've got other inventions that are calling out a bit louder. that said... triangle silently has released a bio-solvent for the jv3 that somehow is backwards compatible. haven't called about that but the pdf reads as if you can plug and play right behind your triangle inks. (???)

http://www.triangledigitalinx.biz/sell_sheet/BVJ_23.pdf

if so, i'd love to see how they perform. i still haven't fallen in love with solvent inks completely in that i have to custom coat many of the substrates that i print on. a protein based ink would be a game changer, not to mention the bio solvent is supposed to be more uv fade resistant.