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Small wrap shop ready to upgrade printer, advice

Kernersville Vinyl

Kernersville Vinyl

New Member
So we mainly print 48' trailer wraps on a HP Latex 365, been doing this for six years.
I like the latex line for it's print quality and being able to go directly to the laminator and plotter right when the print is done.
Not a fan of how the 365 treats material that doesn't react well to heat, even the slightest warping will cause a head crash.
I feel like they could have engineered it better so the material lays flatter while printing.
With that said we have had this machine six years and it's getting errors and having to replace ink pumps, etc.. only needed a tech one time in the first five years.
Tell me what you use and why you like it.
Thanks!
 
D

Dale D

New Member
My 1st Roland was ok. Our roof leaked, and the landlord bought me a new one. I added a little $ and got a nicer unit with VG3 ink. I love the Roland orange / green combination. I print wraps and colors are brighter and a larger gamut. However, Im not a fan of how Roland locked everyone out of the service part of the printer, even after warranty is out. PS, even though VG3 is solvent based, I have laminated within an hour with no issues. Ink drys fast.
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
We just upgraded to an Epson S60600 and are really happy with it. Inks dry very quickly despite how fast it is.

If you're doing volume it might be worth checking out the S60600L with bulk ink, you pay a bit more for the printer but ink costs are lower.

We've got 5k sqft printed on ours and no complaints here, colors are very good with custom profiles especially considering it's just a 4 color printer.

Personally I'm done with printers with all the extra inks....not worth it in my opinion. We upgraded from a CMYKLcLmLkW Roland XR-640 and this CMYK Epson has hit every color we used to print on the Roland.
 
Kernersville Vinyl

Kernersville Vinyl

New Member
Good looking printer and price isn't bad, how long do you have to wait to laminate?
White Haus said:
We just upgraded to an Epson S60600 and are really happy with it. Inks dry very quickly despite how fast it is.

If you're doing volume it might be worth checking out the S60600L with bulk ink, you pay a bit more for the printer but ink costs are lower.

We've got 5k sqft printed on ours and no complaints here, colors are very good with custom profiles especially considering it's just a 4 color printer.

Personally I'm done with printers with all the extra inks....not worth it in my opinion. We upgraded from a CMYKLcLmLkW Roland XR-640 and this CMYK Epson has hit every color we used to p
Click to expand...
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Kernersville Vinyl said:
Good looking printer and price isn't bad, how long do you have to wait to laminate?
Click to expand...

Yeah it's really well priced, even more impressive when you see how nice/fast it prints. I think you're supposed to wait at least 6 hours.....? I haven't really tested that but we'll still let prints off-gas overnight before laminating.

From the brochure: Same day lamination - just 6 hours after printing
 
DL Signs

DL Signs

Never go against the family
Solvent is the way to go in my opinion, waiting for it to outgas is just something you calculate into your workflow. I agree with what White Haus said, the extra colors aren't always wort the sacrifice, while it'll give you a wider gamut, some fade extremely quick out in the sun. I ran Rolands for many, many years, good printers, but I think Mimaki beats them for quality, the Epson S60600 is a great choice too.
 
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greysquirrel

New Member
waiting to laminate....ahh the myth. Yes if you are putting 350%+ worth of saturation on your material, you probably have to wait. Epson will tell you wait 4 years...If you are just printing wraps, look to the s40...it's the best 10K printer on the market...panel to panel is dead nuts. If you want more speed get the s60 (two head cmyk) the s80 is nice but overkill for fleet. Over the same period, you should be replacing your HP heads at the same cost as replacing an eco solvent head. Panel to panel and having to run a panel a few weeks later will always be better through eco solvent.
 
JBurton

JBurton

Signtologist
Check out that new hp 630w, supposedly you can print from the pinch rollers with fewer crashes, plus white, plus I need to see how many problems it has before I seriously consider one myself.
 
I

ikarasu

Active Member
greysquirrel said:
waiting to laminate....ahh the myth. Yes if you are putting 350%+ worth of saturation on your material, you probably have to wait. Epson will tell you wait 4 years...If you are just printing wraps, look to the s40...it's the best 10K printer on the market...panel to panel is dead nuts. If you want more speed get the s60 (two head cmyk) the s80 is nice but overkill for fleet. Over the same period, you should be replacing your HP heads at the same cost as replacing an eco solvent head. Panel to panel and having to run a panel a few weeks later will always be better through eco solvent.
Click to expand...
We run an Epson S40 and a Latex. Our latex gets 10x as much use, And we use it for traffic - We go through 1/2 as much ($ wise) Heads on our latex as we do on our solvent... Granted we only had to swap our solvent heads out once, but at the price point of it... Latex heads are less for us.

Everyones use case is probably different... Maybe if the solvent was used just as much as the latex, the solvent would come out ahead - But we ran a solvent for 15+ years and a latex for almost 10 now, And looking at our repair history the latex has come out ahead of solvent in terms of heads - Comparing to a Seiko printer (Heads are super expensive) Epson printer (Heads arent THAT bad), and a mimaki... but the mimaki sucked and only lasted us a few years, so not much data on that.


But the biggest benefit is when a head goes bad / quality degrades...we swap it out right away and we're back to printing 100%. When a few nozzles are out that causes banding in only odd colors....we cheaped out and waited until it got really bad.
 
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ikarasu

Active Member
Notarealsignguy said:
Reason # 253 to still not buy an HP. You can do that on a solvent and have no crashes ever
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Epson R50! You can print right at the edge of the media with no crashes. The Epson Resin printer is like running the Solvent epsons - With the benefits of Latex. And only 1 head at $900 to replace... and the head lasts as long as a solvent head (Apparently, I've had my machine for 2 years now and havent had to swap it yet though).

For those on the fence about HP... look at Epson Resin. It has its qwirks too, but I find most of the issues people have with Latex arent present in the resin - Colors match perfectly every print... can print at the start of the media (Though you do lose 4 FT at the end of the roll), It has a huge gap between the heater and print...so it doesnt suffer the media warp / head strike issue... I've printed 5 10 FT Long panels, and the text aligns up just as good as our Epson solvent....

It came out during the height of covid, so it didnt gain much traction when it first started sadly. But its a great machine.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
ikarasu said:
Epson R50! You can print right at the edge of the media with no crashes. The Epson Resin printer is like running the Solvent epsons - With the benefits of Latex. And only 1 head at $900 to replace... and the head lasts as long as a solvent head (Apparently, I've had my machine for 2 years now and havent had to swap it yet though).

For those on the fence about HP... look at Epson Resin. It has its qwirks too, but I find most of the issues people have with Latex arent present in the resin - Colors match perfectly every print... can print at the start of the media (Though you do lose 4 FT at the end of the roll), It has a huge gap between the heater and print...so it doesnt suffer the media warp / head strike issue... I've printed 5 10 FT Long panels, and the text aligns up just as good as our Epson solvent....

It came out during the height of covid, so it didnt gain much traction when it first started sadly. But its a great machine.
Click to expand...
I think latex is dead. HP will ride it but every other manufacturer is moving a different direction. Remember Mimakis failed attempt at selling a Latex? You have UV and Resin printers that do a better job with the same benefits of latex and are now at the price point of a solvent. Thermal foil died and it was widely used.
Remember the Xerox Phasers with the solid ink? I thought that was going to replace the color laser printer.
 
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somcalmetim

New Member
All vehicle graphics on Roland VG2 and VG3.
Only ever a couple head hits over 5-6+ years on the VG2...Once with thick banner material that puckered when warm (turned heat off for banner and it doesnt pucker and prints great) and once with misaligned feed roll I didnt catch that slowly built a lil channel on one side that eventually rubbed the head...other than that, head hits not an issue if you are running straight on 3M 180...
Only problem I have is the CMMYKkOG inkset I picked for my VG3 is the least supported as far as material profiles...love the colors I can get with that sweet, sweet Orange and green but the Light K is the best extra color if you print a lot of silver and greys, used to have problem with purple tinted grey...
 
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