TR2 Ink Conversion for Roland Printers

I am also very interested on this. I gave them a call because it says on the website under the FAQ about this that they will continue to support the old inks. However, my tech and also the people at the trade show say they will be all transitioned by october 2020. So that means if I don't switch I will have an obsolete 1 year old machine.

What bugs me is having to pay for a full set of inks and dumping new ones installed.

The tech that services my machine says he has not done any of these conversions yet.


R.

 

Holy cripes. We are looking at loosing support for our soon-to-be outmoded HP scitex, now Roland is going to pull their ink out from underneath us? Say it ain't so!

 

That is not even half of the problems people will encounter. For those who like to or have to work on their own machines Roland is completely removing the option to enter into service mode. They will be requiring you to bring in a certified technician with up to date tech credentials to perform work. So not only will you be blowing through new inks to convert but you will essentially be throwing away your keys to do emergency repairs or repairs you feel comfortable with. For those that never want to work on their machine, carry on no worries for those that do you are warned.

You can read here.
https://signs101.com/threads/roland...-service-mode-end-user-access-deleted.155455/

 

Ouch. Guess our Soljet IV will be the last Roland we buy.

 

With news like this SP 540's and 300's will be in demand.

 

Hey All,

The conversion isn't all that traumatic if done by the book. We've had several customers do it with little help from us. You have to update to the latest TR firmware first, then update to the earliest TR2 firmware before updating to later versions of it.
Yes, you will end up loosing some of your TR ink, but you can plan it for when most of your ink bags are near empty to minimize the loss and Roland is currently offering a kit at 25%
I have heard from a reliable source that TR inks will likely be out of production at the end of this year, but bear in mind that the new inks have the 3M and Avery warranty or performance guarantee as well as better performance as far as stretching goes. You also end up with a wider gamut. Yes, you will loose any profiles that you've created and need to redo them - that's a lot of time down the drain if you don't use the canned ones from Roland Profile Center.
If you're dead set against losing access to service mode, then the only option I see for you is to convert to an alternative ink. But then you're profiles probably won't match either.

And finally, I don't think there's really much comparison between a TruVis print or printer and an old SP model so I don't see their value jumping anytime soon.

 

Well, as far as I am concerned, Roland owes me the set of inks for the upgrade, I was told the printer I bought could be used for wraps, well, you can't wrap with it with the original inks because when you stretch it, the print gets light, to the point the print is unusable, (I guess this is why 3m won't certify the inks) this happened to me on a set of semi trucks I partially wrapped that were hitting the road the next day, nobody said anything because the trucks left early the next day, but I wasn't proud of them.

That said, I have otherwise been really happy with the printer, most stuff I do is flat, except now I bought a new bucket truck and want to wrap it, soooo well I really can't wrap it until I change inks.

I now have to buy new inks, learn new software, risk a firmware or hardware fiasco and create new profiles on a machine I paid top dollar for I was told by my dealer and Roland is "top of the line" and "ready to make me money"

I feel they should give me the inks because the upgrade is actually what I was told I was getting in the first place!

If what they sold me originally was fine, why did they have to make new inks? The answer is the original ink was half baked when they released it, so they messed it up and I gotta pay for it? Not really fair.

Just the simple fact the tru vis printer with original ink is not suitable for printing wraps And Roland and my dealer both told me otherwise I think is enough reason for them to supply me with the new inks.

I got an email today telling me the original ink will soon not be available and I will be forced to change, also they will no longer be supporting my printer with the old ink, so I guess if I pay them more money I will finally get what they originally promised I was getting.....not happy and it doesn't seem fair.

 

The whole tru vis "experiment" is a joke, nothing but Roland releasing untested technology on their customers to do the R&D for them, on their own dime. We had nothing but issues with the 3 that we had, Roland had absolutely no solutions, just excuses. Luckily we had a great dealer who finally decided enough was enough and bought the printer back from us, even though Roland was not going to reimburse him for it.

I wasted tons of ink and vinyl on my machines, as did the tech, Roland never once offered to pay for any of this, tons of test printing on my media with my ink to diagnose their issues.

Never again Roland!

 

we went two years with little to now issues and then all hell broke loose. our dealer covered everything and after a long drawn out process and a lot of down time they have everything converted to the T2 ink, software and firmware and it's been about 6 weeks give or take and things are running smooth.
i agree this truevis venture was not handled properly by roland. we have always bought rolands (6 over the last 19yrs with 4 of the originals still running) and never any huge issues but this was a mess

side note - i have some unopened truevis original series inks if anyone wants to make an offer on them

 

I think the decision to lock people out of service mode is going to come back to haunt them. It's an obvious ploy to monopolize the service calls. No independent techs, no DIY fixes, only Roland. Why would anyone buy a machine they can't fix?

 

Seems like some of their techs should be locked out of service mode, not us LOL!

 

I'm looking for a little help on how to actually convert over to the TR2 inks. Our VG540 is now out of warranty and the owner has asked me to make the switch. I have done a lot of research on the machine with other things as it's part of my job to run it. So, without paying a tech to come out and do this for us.. what are the steps?

 

Well you need the new firmware and after that only certified techs can access the service menu.........
And you need to flush the old ink out with cleaning liquid then load the new ink. Change to new profiles. Pretty simple.

 

I'd love to learn how, that's for sure. I have access to our service mode. Roughly how many pouches of cleaning solution will it need to do the change over?

 

After hearing about complications with switching to TR2 inks, has anyone tried aftermarket inks such Aura or Marabu? Supposedly plug and play with no profile changes.

 

I've heard nothing but troubles of Marabu.

 

Concerning Marabu ink, I ran sublimation ink in both 5 Epson and 4 Mutoh printers and SS21 inks in 6 Mimaki printers for several years without a single issue. This was on printers that were running around 18 hours a day.

 

https://truevis.rolanddg.com/tr2/download_en.html