Question The new Roland Tru vis

[blufftonsignguy]

I am curious from those of you who have run the True VIS 540 VG what do you think of it? I went to the ISA show and am very seriously thinking of purchasing one. I am just curious of your thoughts

 

[millersigns]

I've had mine for about 3 months and it was the best move I've made. The print quality is far greater than I ever expected. The only downside right now is getting the icc profiles you need.

 

[CanuckSigns]

From what I understand they have fixed a lot of the bugs that were present in them when they first brought them out.

 

[blufftonsignguy]

Oh boy. I hope that won't be a problem for me. But they do have pretty good generic profiles in versa works.

I've had mine for about 3 months and it was the best move I've made. The print quality is far greater than I ever expected. The only downside right now is getting the icc profiles you need.

 

[LFC911]

I've had mine for about 3 months and it was the best move I've made. The print quality is far greater than I ever expected. The only downside right now is getting the icc profiles you need.

Have you tried downloading them from the Roland Profile Center? The printer comes with all the generic profiles and then all the Roland custom profiles (i.e. MCVP, GCVP, etc...) and other media manufacturers profiles are online on there.

 

[BigfishDM]

I am curious from those of you who have run the True VIS 540 VG what do you think of it? I went to the ISA show and am very seriously thinking of purchasing one. I am just curious of your thoughts

They are great if you like Banding, long dry times, daily maintenance, expensive print heads, not able to print thin papers or porus fabrics then it's a great machine. Did you go by the Latex booth? In all seriousness though, Roland makes good solid equipment but I was just curious if you had considered latex at all.

 

[Baz]

Says the guy who sells HP and Mimaki. Lol!

 

[AF]

Latex has its place, but it is not the end-all solution. Latex is far from perfect if you look at how much each generation of latex printer and ink is changed. Lack of long-term support is a big negative with HP. If the machines develop issues the odds of field tech solving the problems quickly and affordably are slim to none. The latex ink sits on the surface where solvent inks soak into the surface, so latex is its own animal. Each type of printing technology has its advantages. If someone is looking for the finest detail and the largest gamut, latex would not be recommended.

 

[BigfishDM]

Latex has its place, but it is not the end-all solution. Latex is far from perfect if you look at how much each generation of latex printer and ink is changed. Lack of long-term support is a big negative with HP. If the machines develop issues the odds of field tech solving the problems quickly and affordably are slim to none. The latex ink sits on the surface where solvent inks soak into the surface, so latex is its own animal. Each type of printing technology has its advantages. If someone is looking for the finest detail and the largest gamut, latex would not be recommended.

Your points are very valid and I agree that Latex is not the end all.

 

[petepaz]

we have had ours for about 3-4 months now also and it's been good. a few bugs here and there but our vendor got pretty much everything worked out for us as it happened. i will say this it does a lot of automatic cleanings and you will have to do a manual cleaning once a week. you have to empty the ink drain frequently because they made it up with one of the small bottles but you can rig up a hose and a larger container if you are confident no one will knock it over. basic controls. it's pretty similar to our vp-540 as far as the controls so easy to use. overall it was a good investment. i am not sure if it's actually faster or not. we also have an xr and i think the xr is faster

 

[advision]

We bought ours basically on Jan 1 2017. Since then there have been some growing pains for the VG. I feel like we were part of a live beta test. Most issues have been fixed by our tech installing small modifications Roland has been sending out (crop mark detecting lens, shims for ink carts, etc...). They feel like band-aids too be honest. For the last, I think, 8 months they've been trying to rustle a gremlin out of our machine but have been unsuccessful. Other than the parts they've replaced every suggested fix is like "do this thing that you normally shouldn't have to do, and it's inconvenient, but it might solve the problem", and then it doesn't solve it anyway. Just got the call this morning that we may be getting a replacement machine soon.

My review would have to be that it started out troubled, but new machines might be ok (hopefully I will know soon enough). Unfortunately, depending on your application, there aren't a whole lot of options if you want a Roland printer. I wish they still made the XC. Would go back to that workhorse in a second.

 

[Mainframe]

They are great if you like Banding, long dry times, daily maintenance, expensive print heads, not able to print thin papers or porus fabrics then it's a great machine. Did you go by the Latex booth? In all seriousness though, Roland makes good solid equipment but I was just curious if you had considered latex at all.

I stand my VG 540 on it's ear with files from a local college design team who expect flawless prints, gradients & photos, on signs, walls and banners, never a problem!

I have never seen ANY banding on any print from this machine!
I clean this machine once a week, it is half the time the VP took, there are LED lights built in where you clean the print heads (rarely anything to clean from them anyway) and super easy to do.

In 15 years of doing signs I have never printed on paper or cloth, never will.

My prints are dry by the time they hit the floor, I can literally grab a banner off the machine, flip it over and hem it and grommet it, and give it to the customer, right away, same day! I COULD HAVE NEVER DONE THAT WITH MY OLD VP 540! I would have scratched the heck out of it.

And by the way, not only did I never see banding on my prints, this machine prints SOLID colors, any color! I had many grainy colors on my VP, not now, NICE solid backgrounds on banners printed with the head set to high!

This machine cuts like a dream also, the cutting head is upgraded from the older printers, and I have not had trouble at all with the crop mark detection.

LATEX? Not there yet, plain and simple,

I have found the Versaworks program to be quite stellar with my old printer and the new one, I have 6 months on mine and not a single problem that wasn't caused by me, (I had a long lam/print cut off because I didn't take the roll of media from the machine, the media holders can knock your cut off if you don't get them out of the way, nothing wrong about it, just different set up than my old one.

And LOVE the take up! I never had one, I set the machine up and leave while it prints 12 banners, LOVE IT! take up works like a dream, I came back, left the prints on the take up machine and NO ink bleed or problems, couldn't have done that with my VP, and my colors have never been so bright.

MY VG has made it fun to come to work again, I was fond of my VP but quite frankly I was never impressed by the output, it had better looking prints than the guy I was subbing from but I feel the VG is the printer I have been waiting for, it is WAY better than I thought it would be, and 2 times the speed of the VP.

 

[BigfishDM]

I stand my VG 540 on it's ear with files from a local college design team who expect flawless prints, gradients & photos, on signs, walls and banners, never a problem!

I have never seen ANY banding on any print from this machine!
I clean this machine once a week, it is half the time the VP took, there are LED lights built in where you clean the print heads (rarely anything to clean from them anyway) and super easy to do.

In 15 years of doing signs I have never printed on paper or cloth, never will.

My prints are dry by the time they hit the floor, I can literally grab a banner off the machine, flip it over and hem it and grommet it, and give it to the customer, right away, same day! I COULD HAVE NEVER DONE THAT WITH MY OLD VP 540! I would have scratched the heck out of it.

And by the way, not only did I never see banding on my prints, this machine prints SOLID colors, any color! I had many grainy colors on my VP, not now, NICE solid backgrounds on banners printed with the head set to high!

This machine cuts like a dream also, the cutting head is upgraded from the older printers, and I have not had trouble at all with the crop mark detection.

LATEX? Not there yet, plain and simple,

I have found the Versaworks program to be quite stellar with my old printer and the new one, I have 6 months on mine and not a single problem that wasn't caused by me, (I had a long lam/print cut off because I didn't take the roll of media from the machine, the media holders can knock your cut off if you don't get them out of the way, nothing wrong about it, just different set up than my old one.

And LOVE the take up! I never had one, I set the machine up and leave while it prints 12 banners, LOVE IT! take up works like a dream, I came back, left the prints on the take up machine and NO ink bleed or problems, couldn't have done that with my VP, and my colors have never been so bright.

MY VG has made it fun to come to work again, I was fond of my VP but quite frankly I was never impressed by the output, it had better looking prints than the guy I was subbing from but I feel the VG is the printer I have been waiting for, it is WAY better than I thought it would be, and half the speed of the VP.

Posters are a pretty basic application, you don't ever do poster prints? Fabric is literally the largest growing section in this industry, I understand you might not do any but you will be competing against it soon enough. Your prints dry from the top down, so they may appear to be dry, the MFG still recommends you wait to outgas. (Not that everyone does, I am just saying that Roland states that you need to outgas)

Really comes down to the application the OP is trying to accomplish, Rolands are great machines for certain applications. I just think I can produce more applications more efficiently and for less costs than other ink technologies out there. (That might not be the goal for everyone, I understand that)

 

[Mainframe]

NOPE! Posters are not on my list of things to do, no time for them, I have made many banner posters for small runs, but they were priced accordingly, some people just want my design skills and are willing to pay me. I am from the print world first and hate paper posters and bus cards, NOPE I won't be competing against fabric EVER, not sure what you are talking about!

The OP asked about the TruVis and i replied with FACTS from my own personal experience, I am not a competing dealer with a competing technology replying.

I own a TruVis

 

[BigfishDM]

NOPE! Posters are not on my list of things to do, no time for them, I have made many banner posters for small runs, but they were priced accordingly, some people just want my design skills and are willing to pay me. I am from the print world first and hate paper posters and bus cards, NOPE I won't be competing against fabric EVER, not sure what you are talking about!

The OP asked about the TruVis and i replied with FACTS from my own personal experience, I am not a competing dealer with a competing technology replying.

I own a TruVis

Many applications are moving to fabric, I am not sure what your main applications are. I understand you run Rolands, I run Latex and am giving my personal experience also. I am not challenging you, I am just curious that's all. I chimed in originally to see if he happened to see the Latex at the ISA.

 

[Mainframe]

You chimed in to post misinformation about a competitors product, not cool!
Not sure when the local plumber is going to wrap his truck with fabric???

But anyway, I posted my take on the machine for the OP

All facts, like I said, I own a TruVis

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

Our VG-540 is giving me a serious headache at the moment. Waiting on someone to call me back... Once they figure out what the error code it's throwing means.

So far I've spent more time trying to make it work than actually using it.

Banding is occasionally an issue for us.

 

[BigfishDM]

You chimed in to post misinformation about a competitors product, not cool!
Not sure when the local plumber is going to wrap his truck with fabric???

But anyway, I posted my take on the machine for the OP

All facts, like I said, I own a TruVis

Well it sure seems like others that run your equipment could learn a few things from you.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

Our VG-540 is giving me a serious headache at the moment. Waiting on someone to call me back... Once they figure out what the error code it's throwing means.

So far I've spent more time trying to make it work than actually using it.

Banding is occasionally an issue for us.

What error code is it throwing?

 

[TomK]

I stand my VG 540 on it's ear with files from a local college design team who expect flawless prints, gradients & photos, on signs, walls and banners, never a problem!

Would love to see some pics of your higher quality output. I'm not a fan of latex for our application, curious how your Roland's output is.