Square footage vs ink as reference factor

[Dukenukem117]

I notice that marketing material often uses square feet per month as a reference point on which printer to buy such as this chart here:

https://www.uscutter.com/common/images/products/large/HP-Latex-Low-Volume-Printer.jpg

It also seems to be used as a shorthand for how much wear and tear a printer has.

For output (and revenue), I can understand the use of square footage since customers don't care how much ink is on there so long as it looks good. But for measuring wear and tear, should one use square footage or ink used? The argument I can see for square footage is that it uses all the components such as the motor that turns the reels and the gantry that holds the printhead. But that depends a lot on how many passes it makes.

'Hours spent printing' might be the most accurate indicator of wear and tear, but I don't know what is considered a lot here and whether that's logged anywhere. Reason is I'm doing projections and trying to guess when we will need to replace our 560 entirely. We bought it used with 53,000 square feet logged. It's out of warranty, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do when it comes time to do the service kits. I'd imagine one of the local resellers will do it for a fee (though I don't know how much). I also wish it specified how frequently it is calculating those service kits.

On a side note, aren't those numbers provided really small? Assuming that its using the above pass speed for the calculation, a 570 that only prints 8500 square feet a month is only running for a total of 34 hours.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

The numbers listed is not a life span, it is a payback over the life estimate. They are trying to say that if you buy xyz printer the payback ROI is whatever sqft/month. The crazy thing is the 1500 does not make financial sense unless you need greater than 64" print capability. We have a contract that we studied getting a 1500, and the waste and load time did not make up for the reduced ink costs and dual roll capability. A fleet of 4 570s is 3/5 the price and will run circles around it.

We have a 570 we bought in June 2017 that has almost 300,000sqft... Much more than the 8500 average.

 

[Dukenukem117]

I didn't realize the 1500 had more waste and took longer to load. I thought it would be the same at most given the price. I was also studying the math on that and it did seem far preferable to stick with 500's unless one absolutely needs that width. It also allows for more organic growth rather than this massive investment that requires a few extra workers just to keep up.

But could you explain a bit more on the number? How exactly is the math suppose to work?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

I was told by HP that it is based on a 3 year payback (average business lease) taking in to account the throughput and consumable cost differences.

I could never extrapolate what their sale cost assumptions we're, as the math was always less than a year for me.

As for the 1500, the machine wastes nearly 13' of material every webup. Not worth it unless you are running large rolls 300'+ and end to end.

 

[bannertime]

'Hours spent printing' might be the most accurate indicator of wear and tear, but I don't know what is considered a lot here and whether that's logged anywhere. Reason is I'm doing projections and trying to guess when we will need to replace our 560 entirely. We bought it used with 53,000 square feet logged. It's out of warranty, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do when it comes time to do the service kits. I'd imagine one of the local resellers will do it for a fee (though I don't know how much). I also wish it specified how frequently it is calculating those service kits.

I would agree, but HP doesn't appear to track it. So you have to napkin math it. If it's anything like mine, I'm constantly deleting and redoing substrates so it'd be pretty hard to track exactly. But if you assume that 53,000sqft was printing 5ft banner, that's only 10,000 linear feet. A 5x10 might take 15 minutes on 6-8 pass. So that 53,000 could be anywhere from 250 to 450 hours of actual print time. I wouldn't say is a lot for a printer.

That is only like 50 something business days. I'm pretty positive there are some companies that run these machines solid for 2-3 years.

As for the 1500, the machine wastes nearly 13' of material every webup. Not worth it unless you are running large rolls 300'+ and end to end.

Wow. I mean I get it's only like $30 worth of material, but that's a lot of waste. I'm tired of the little 3-4 foot scraps that come off the 64in latex. Can't imagine having rolls of 13 foot scrap. I don't even think the Turbojets had that much waste.

We considered getting a used one so we could offer faster turnaround on grand format banners. May have to look into something different.

 

[P Wagner]

There is a Substrate Saver Kit for the Latex 1500. This kit consists of two 64-inch wide magnetically bound leaders which serve to significantly minimize media waste on loads. See video for details:

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Yes, but if you produce products like we do where we just print and ship, you can't use that device and it also doesn't fix the 6' end of roll tension required.

 

[Dukenukem117]

I was told by HP that it is based on a 3 year payback (average business lease) taking in to account the throughput and consumable cost differences.

I could never extrapolate what their sale cost assumptions we're, as the math was always less than a year for me.

As for the 1500, the machine wastes nearly 13' of material every webup. Not worth it unless you are running large rolls 300'+ and end to end.

How much do you find yourself losing with the 500s? I think I use 10' or so to get it wrapped around the take up and to have enough on the back end to keep it on the roll. But losing 13' on a 10' wide roll is 130 square feet every time. Ouch.

Wow. I mean I get it's only like $30 worth of material, but that's a lot of waste. I'm tired of the little 3-4 foot scraps that come off the 64in latex. Can't imagine having rolls of 13 foot scrap. I don't even think the Turbojets had that much waste.

We considered getting a used one so we could offer faster turnaround on grand format banners. May have to look into something different.

CET has a 126 inch UV printer for around $80k I think.

There is a Substrate Saver Kit for the Latex 1500. This kit consists of two 64-inch wide magnetically bound leaders which serve to significantly minimize media waste on loads. See video for details:

That looks really time consuming, both to load the printer and use that tool. Since most suppliers I've seen make rolls between 130-164', that does seem like a lot of waste. Getting larger rolls make material handling more dangerous, so it seems like its a compromise in something no matter what.

I tried to make a similar tool for the 500, but I realized I rather use the 50 square feet or so of material and have it properly hooked up to reduce the chance of a head crash as much as possible. Considering how long it takes to reboot a printer, 1 head crash is possibly an hour if I want to run realignment. Sucks to lose $10-15 of material each time, but I guess that comes with having roll to roll printers.

Yes, but if you produce products like we do where we just print and ship, you can't use that device and it also doesn't fix the 6' end of roll tension required.

How do you solve that issue with your 500s?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

We lose 18-24" on the front end and 6-12" on the back. We do a job a few times a year that we print hundreds of rolls "end to end" and we have it dialed it at 2 pass while getting 147' linear feet per roll of printed area.
If you are going to look at a 126" UV, check out the Mimaki, I hear they are now allowing the flexible ink.

 

[Dukenukem117]

How do you get by with using so little? Do you not have it spooled to the take up reel before running it?

What's flexible ink?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

We don't web up, it's a waste. For material that needs to be webbed up we made our own media saver kit.

Flexible uv ink allows for similar stretch as solvent and latex before cracking.

 

[Dukenukem117]

When using your own kit, do you pause the print when it gets low enough to attach to the takeup, or do you attach it while printing?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

We feed it out at load, attach, then feed it back till the media is just past the notch in the curing tunnel, about 6" of loss.

 

[ikarasu]

We feed it out at load, attach, then feed it back till the media is just past the notch in the curing tunnel, about 6" of loss.

Have any photos of your home made one? I started to use a 4ft piece of reflective diamond grade...then I just tape it onto the media so there's no waste. It's slow and a Pain, it's.be nice if hp offered a media saver solution for these printers too.

When I'm in a rush I just extend it out 12" and tape it to the reel as it comes out. I can't imagine wasting 8-10 ft of material just to load. Some stuff we print on is $5 a sqft... Wasting even 5 ft is a $100 waste. Which I guess in the grand scheme isn't all that much.... But still.