Regardless - while the new Roland VG-540 and VG-640 TruVis models might produce excellent quality prints that is a brand new print head that Roland will not name the manufacturer of. So you are suggesting one would be smarter to buy a machine with an unproven, unknown print head, that you cannot get a replecent for anywhere except from Roland. You cannot even find out the cost to replace one of those 4 new unknown heads. So if you do have a problem you will definitely not have the amazingly deep wealth of resources and knowledge online since no one knows anything about those new heads since they are brand new and unknown who even makes them. Or of you did go with a machine using Epson head - the resources online for information about them is immense since they are very well proven and have been in use for such a long time.
Again - I'm not specifically saying a machine with Epson heads is the absolute best option. I'm just saying that it seems to be a bit reckless to suggest that something totally new that has never been used for years on end without problems might be a better and more reliable solution.
Sir, I did't say Epson printhead is bad or worst. Print quality is the best maybe, but in terms of price, speed and ink delivery systems highly doubtful. When HP latex introduced in the market, thousands of users switched to. I've read on Frank's comment that 40 -50 % of new printers sold in Europe now in this segment are HP L300 series. But I didn't mention about HP latex, because it is not well suited for his intended job.
Roland is now using this "unknown" printhead. Why all those people escaping from Epsonprinthead?
I think, Roland is never announcing the manufacturer of its printhead. Maybe the company policy. I've had Roland PC600 thermalprinter 16 years ago and replaced the PH after 3 years. I still don't know the OEM-er.
TrueVis VG has 4 pieces of Ricoh GH2220 PH. Ricoh claims it is result of over 10 years of research and development. Since this PH appears on the market about 2 years ago thousands of chinese printer with this PH being sold. I still didn't find any bad thing about this PH yet. (only good things, sometimes I feel too good to be true)
This printhead sold through its distributors freely (if someone wants control board also sold) and it's not programmed differently for each brand printers like Epson did.
Even it's sold only by Roland, it's not a big deal. Once when I needed to replace my Roland's DX7, the chinese distributor's out of stock. Then I contacted to distributors of Japan, Russia and Singapore but none of them sell the PH to me. Simply said to get from where the printer's bought. I found it from Sign-in-China at $1600 (distributor price was $2400). Ricoh GH2220 is available in there at $526.
Ricoh also claims that the lifespan of this PH is 30 bln shots. If it is true then 5 times longer than Epson.
I was often needed to replace Roland's PH, always yellow channel reached just over 6 bln shots then it's gone. But C and M have 4 bln, blacks just over 2bln. If it was Ricoh like 4 separate printheads I just replace only yellow at $500 (instead of $2000) and use rest of them till the end.
Even though I didn't convince him to buy VG, suggest just get a samples including SUMMA DC and compare those 3 prints . He may stick on the bottle, pour some wine on it, scratch and peel off, how it stands against alcohol. If he likes one of them then the relevant rep might provide further details better than you and me.
Roland says VG is the Future of the print&cut, if the future is here why he should fall into "the past".
At last maybe he just needed color laser printer capable of printing on self adhesive papers. Who knows.
