Seiko ColorPainter M-64s vs. Roland XR-640

[milchad]

We are in the market for a wide format printer to add to our existing Durst UV hybrid flatbed. We will be printing on Avery MPI2923 vinyl pretty much exclusively. I've read the forums about some issues with the Roland XR feeding material for about 30' and getting head strikes but also realize there is no such thing as a perfect printer. The Seiko on the other hand, you don't find much info on them. I've talked to a few Seiko users and they all seem to love them. I'm leaning in that direction but wanted more opinions if there are any M-64s users out there. They have a $3000 rebate on the printer now and am tempted to pull the trigger. No matter what we choose, we will be using the printer with Caldera.

 

[Jack Knight1979]

I've never ran a Seiko, but I can tall you that my dealer who sells both Roland and Seiko tells me that Seiko is higher up the ladder towards industrial machinery, when compared to Roland. I initially wanted to update my Rolands with an XF, but after a few threads of bad XF reports, I'm going with another brand.

 

[d fleming]

My 645 s colorpainter is 9 years old and still kickin tail.

 

[milchad]

I've never ran a Seiko, but I can tall you that my dealer who sells both Roland and Seiko tells me that Seiko is higher up the ladder towards industrial machinery, when compared to Roland. I initially wanted to update my Rolands with an XF, but after a few threads of bad XF reports, I'm going with another brand.

My local sales rep (Tibelite) sells both Roland and Seiko and said basically the same thing. Another thing I found interesting is that the sales rep said that if we were to go with the Roland, he would not recommend configuring it with silver ink. That's the main reason we are considering the Roland is to be able to print metallic digitally rather than screen. I'm not overly impressed with the XR metallic samples we have seen so far. He did say that Mimaki has a new printer that supposedly prints pretty good metallic, so we are interested in checking that out. Maybe we could have the Mimaki do our metallic jobs and the Seiko as our workhorse. The model Mimaki is the CJV150 series. Feel free to post any opinions on the CJV150 if there are any end users out there. I'm sure it's slow as molasses, but you never know.

 

[danno]

We have two HP9000s (Colorpainter 64) and really like them. I ran a M-64 for a day at a local retailer in Charlotte and enjoyed the machine and the print quality. It's like my 9000 on steroids.

 

[milchad]

We have two HP9000s (Colorpainter 64) and really like them. I ran a M-64 for a day at a local retailer in Charlotte and enjoyed the machine and the print quality. It's like my 9000 on steroids.

Thanks for your input Danno. The old HP 9000 is another reason we are looking at the Seiko. We like the reliability of the Seiko manufactured print heads that are found in the HP 9000.