They Didn't Tell Us

[Squidrax]

New Roland user here ... VS 540i with white and metallic configuration.
In love with this machine !!

Of course, we began intensive study on potential problems online and we
totally jam our tech with questions when we can.

Still, we have experienced a couple avoidable problems, if only we had known.

1) We agitate our metallic and white ink, however nobody told us to print them
every week or the head would clog. Guess We shoulda guessed. Big issue.
Got the print head replaced and color caps replaced under warranty.

2) During auto clean over a weekend we had a head crash on media we left in.
Mangled a spring on the felt cleaner assembly and, even worse, left the head off
the pad for at least a day. Very bad. Luckily no head clog on this one.
Tech advised to not leave any media loaded overnight.
______

What other things have you learned the hard way ... things that, perhaps nobody
told you about. Understood, problems come up but I don't want anything sneaking up on me
like this again.

Thanks

-Squid-

 

[dlndesign]

Squidrax,
You are constantly learning the hard way. I can't say anything has been as easy as just "following the manual", there are always things that are going to come out of nowhere to catch you off guard. One of mine was after we had adjusted some sensors we ran a job that was going to print overnight. Came in the next morning with a pile of media on the floor and a pool of ink dripping off the machine. Seems our sensor problem wasn't fixed and didn't stop the printer when the media ran out. Tough lessons, but lessons none the less. Learn and move on.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Unless you have a specific application for the white and metallic ink that will be a regular money making job, get rid of them and go back to a 4 color setup. The metallic and white inks always draw newbies in because they a pretty cool but no one ever talks about the uselessness of them in a standard sign shop. They clog the head faster, they slow the machine down by at least 50% and if you don't use them fast enough you will be wasting the entire cartridge to cleaning cycles with no profit. There is definitely a place for white and metallic inks you just don't want your only machine to have them especially if you are just starting out. Print 99% of your 4 color jobs and start making money then sub out the very occasional white and metallic jobs to a bigger shop. Just my $.02.

 

[NormanL]

Agree with Vander

My last place we always got the one off small white ink job and it was horrible, wasted material setting up along with the possible head drop out. Also we hardly printed white ink so we had to constantly clean it and have it ready for printing.

 

[Z SIGNS]

Buying a printer or any other specialized equipment

It's kinda like buying an airplane from an airplane dealer.

The airplane salesman assumes you know how to pilot it.
They don't sell it to you with lessons included and make you a pilot.

If you crash the plane you can't blame the guy who sold it to you.

Hope you get it fixed and running well.

Wishing you many happy s/f of printing

 

[Squidrax]

Thanks for your input. Understood on the white / metallic configuration.
We did due diligence beforehand.

We are a custom awards and environmental graphics house.
We are not a volume producer.

We do custom donor walls and the like.
Our goal is to incorporate Metallic output into our cast fiber-resin process for
awards bases and other cast elements ... among other things.

We looked at straight double CMYK ... but we just couldn't pass this up.

Thanks for input.

-squids-