Roll to roll UV printer

[Raghaus]

hi all –
Last year I invested in a small Mimaki UV flatbed printer and the versatility and reliability of this machine is insanely good. Scratch resistance and outdoor durability is extremely good and I have created a lot of small batch contour-cut stickers in tandem with a Summa cutter. So far so good. FYI Stickers have never been the intended purpose of this machine – sometimes it just works out that way

Now, I'm not a sign printer per se – I'm more of a creative full service shop and do get the occasional, larger sign and vinyl gig, and there's definitely a lot of room for growth and improvement.

Here's my question to you guys... Does anyone have experience with a roll-to-roll UV machine, specifically a Mimaki UCJV series? I like the idea of a roll-to-roll machine for additional versatility and size.
I'm not looking to do car wraps on curved surfaces, I think that's more of an eco-solvent or Latex application?

What about signage and say, flat truck panels with said roll-to-roll UV machine? Feasible, or impractical?

 

[JCP]

No first-hand knowledge here, but the guy who works on our Roland and a lot of other brands raves about the UCJV.

 

[iPrintStuff]

I haven’t had any first hand knowledge with the UCJV but they do look like great machines.

Whenever I’ve seen reviews of them they’re always positive and I think there’s a lot more out there than you’d assume, I just think they aren’t very problematic so there’s not as much need to ask questions about them on S101 lol

Based on your usage I think it’d be more than suitable.

 

[Raghaus]

Yeah, I'm pretty convinced that they are rock solid machines & I think I'm going to bite the bullet pretty soon.
I've had plenty of inquiries over the past few months that I could have done on a machine like this.

 

[Zendavor Signs]

Yeah, I'm pretty convinced that they are rock solid machines & I think I'm going to bite the bullet pretty soon.
I've had plenty of inquiries over the past few months that I could have done on a machine like this.

We bought the UCJV300-160 late last year along with the 4x8 flatbed. We owned a few UV flatbeds before, so we were not new to UV technology. They are really easy to maintain, phenomenal print quality, almost never miss any nozzles, very durable, scratch-resistant ink. And the price was very reasonable. I think we paid low $20k range for it (it was part of a bundle). My only beef is Rasterlink, the awful, awful, awful RIP program that comes with it. And support for Onyx (or any third party RIP) is almost non-existent.

 

[Raghaus]

sweet! I actually don't mind Rasterlink so much – I think it's pretty capable.

 

[JFitzgerald]

Yeah, I'm pretty convinced that they are rock solid machines & I think I'm going to bite the bullet pretty soon.
I've had plenty of inquiries over the past few months that I could have done on a machine like this.

Hey there glad you are doing well with your equipment I always tell customers about your creative designs.

 

[Raghaus]

Jeanene? ha! small world. thank you! I'm having a blast with my UV machine.

 

[Andy D]

I never have understood the advantage of a UV RTR, unless things have changed, the ink doesn't do as well outdoors as the other types of printers, not as flexible, hard to laminate with out silvering.... The only advantage I'm aware of with UV is when you print directly to rigid substrates to save material and time.

 

[iPrintStuff]

I never have understood the advantage of a UV RTR, unless things have changed, the ink doesn't do as well outdoors as the other types of printers, not as flexible, hard to laminate with out silvering.... The only advantage I'm aware of with UV is when you print directly to rigid substrates to save material and time.

The tech is definitely getting there with UV and it, like latex and solvent has its advantages and disadvantages. Our Colorado is UV gel and the inks have fared great so far outdoors (even unlaminated posters). The speeds, colour consistency and gamut are great and we can laminate right away (though we do need heat assist to avoid slivering).

We don’t do wraps etc so the flexible ink wasn’t necessary but there are flexible inks available for UV printers.

As far as our particular printer goes, it has a lot of the benefits of latex and solvent but not a lot of the cons. Aside from the obvious lack in speed compared to ours, the UCJV seems like a solid printer.

 

[JFitzgerald]

Jeanene? ha! small world. thank you! I'm having a blast with my UV machine.

Yeah, keep up the good work glad you are doing well....!

 

[White Haus]

I never have understood the advantage of a UV RTR, unless things have changed, the ink doesn't do as well outdoors as the other types of printers, not as flexible, hard to laminate with out silvering.... The only advantage I'm aware of with UV is when you print directly to rigid substrates to save material and time.

I didn't really either, until we got our UCJV.

It's awesome for banners (take it off the take up, go right to finishing without worrying about scratching the inks) and prints that don't need to be laminated. Think labels, temporary decals, etc. We can print on the UCJV and cut on a Summa plotter in less time that it would take to just print a job on our Roland XR-640.

My only complaints about the machine are really around Rasterlink. Thankfully we run it with Onyx Thrive which works pretty good aside from some of the driver bugs. Mechanically it's rock solid (more solid than it looks) and has done well for us after 30k ish square feet run through it.

To the OP - let me know if you have any specific questions I would be happy to help.

 

[Andy D]

It may have all changed, it's been a few years since I have worked on UV printers, but it used to be that UV inks had
the shortest life span outdoors; 2 years vs 4 years for solvent and latex, also they had a smaller color gamut range & the ink wasn't as flexible, has all that gotten better?