Discussion Trufire vs Vanguard

[Nate1n22]

Does anyone have experience running both machines? Looking to replace an older flatbed printer soon. We have a Trufire that runs all our large runs. We haven't ran a lot of white on the Trufire. The printer we are replacing does all the white jobs. Trying to decide which does white jobs better? Anybody with white ink experience on one or the other?
We do like our Trufire and the people at DigiTech, but I've had issues doing white jobs on it.

 

[parrott]

What issues are you having? We run a lot of large white jobs on our Trufire. The more you use it the better it runs.

 

[FireSprint.com]

Well, I think either way you got your title correct. It comes down to one of those two I think. Good luck!

 

[nate]

What issues are you having with white? I have a True Fire LT/X2 and white ink comes out as expected. Are you doing the daily maintenance on it?

 

[YardSignsResellers.com]

we have a Trufire LT/X2 for 2 months with about 100,000 sft printed with minimum issues, Im pretty sure the guys from Digitech will love to help you with any issues, comparing Vanguard with Digiteck is like comparing a Cadillac with a Chevrolet

 

[Trucks]

No experience running a Vanguard machine, but we have 2-LTX2's and 1-ST machine. IMHO you cannot find a more productive machine the the LTX2. We have run several million sqft through our machines with virtually no down time.

Nate, does your current machine have the auto-unloader? If not, you might want to take a hard look at it when getting your next machine. I was amazed at the productivity boost it gave us.

 

[parrott]

No experience running a Vanguard machine, but we have 2-LTX2's and 1-ST machine. IMHO you cannot find a more productive machine the the LTX2. We have run several million sqft through our machines with virtually no down time.

Nate, does your current machine have the auto-unloader? If not, you might want to take a hard look at it when getting your next machine. I was amazed at the productivity boost it gave us.

I agree 100%. If you are not running the auto unloader you are really missing out. We ran 5000 4x8s in just over 2 weeks. I could not imagine having to load and unload all of those. It takes a good bit of work off your operator and it pushes them to keep the machine fed.

I don’t know of any other machine in the price range that can compete. Digitech is literally 2x the speed of everything else (in terms of sellable quality). Maybe I’m way off, but everything else I have seen has been 20-25 boards an hour. Would love to hear other users opinions.

 

[Nate1n22]

White issues is only because we don't ever run it on our Trufire. I was just looking for opinions from people that run white a lot. We do a lot of small acrylic awards on our Acuity right now. Not necessarily looking to print those jobs faster but we need to do the other daily work faster than our Acuity and help take on big jobs. Our Trufire runs large runs pretty much non stop right now.

We do have the unloader as well. Just curious what pass you guys are running? 3pass to get 60 sheets an hour? We are happy with the speed the Trufire gives us. It replaced a early model Onset s40 that was dying.

 

[parrott]

Yes, we run primarily 3 pass on everything. Sometimes we have to drop to 5 pass but that all depends on the job/customer.

White all depends on the application. We range any where from 5 pass to 9 pass with different densities.

 

[Trucks]

White issues is only because we don't ever run it on our Trufire. I was just looking for opinions from people that run white a lot. We do a lot of small acrylic awards on our Acuity right now. Not necessarily looking to print those jobs faster but we need to do the other daily work faster than our Acuity and help take on big jobs. Our Trufire runs large runs pretty much non stop right now.

We do have the unloader as well. Just curious what pass you guys are running? 3pass to get 60 sheets an hour? We are happy with the speed the Trufire gives us. It replaced a early model Onset s40 that was dying.

We run both 3P-CM (53 sec/board) 5P-CM (83 sec/board).

 

[Trucks]

I'm just curious what market you guys are dumping 5,000 4x8's into? I appreciate that this is potentially privileged information, so any vague info would satiate my curiosity.

Hahaha, good question...but I don't have a good answer. We are a trade-only supplier.

 

[parrott]

I'm just curious what market you guys are dumping 5,000 4x8's into? I appreciate that this is potentially privileged information, so any vague info would satiate my curiosity.

Cant say who it’s for but I can tell you the demand is there. We are not printing jobs like this all the time, but when they come up…you have to be able to play ball. Which is the exact reason we invested in Digitech…they are twice the speed of everything else in their price range. You would not get a job like that done running 20-25 boards an hour. We ran 50 boards an hour for a little over 2 weeks and the job was a breeze. No hiccups, down time or anything. Load and go!

 

[parrott]

We don’t clean any of our sheets…at most wipe the dust off and let print. Ink adhesion from Digitech is stronger than any others I have seen. VHB tape will not pull the ink off corrugated. Very impressive.

 

[Nate1n22]

Aha! Perfectly vague guys.
Can't say I'd reveal such a customer, and of course trade only is just a matter of what your customers are selling their customers, just curious how one walks the board and makes such a dive.

My other very real question is how do you deal with contamination with an autoloader? Do you have a guy wiping down the next panel while the first is printing, or are these machines far superior concerning ink adhesion than the other machines I've heard about (like plasticizer migration in coro, stuff not sticking to acrylics)

Their inks stick really good. We have only had a handful of chipping issues that I think were media related.

parrott you must do a lot of coroplast on 3pass?

We have did 1 large acrylic job on our Trufire that was knocking sheets out much faster than our Acuity, even at 15pass for the white and a high density

 

[parrott]

Yes…corrugated is our largest product. We print a lot of materials but corrugated is the lions share.

we do a large acrylic job every quarter and the Trufire has made our life so much easier. Used to be a screen printed product that we are now able to shift to digital with speed if the Trufire.

 

[Nate1n22]

Question for Trufire operators - is anyone else using Caldera for their RIP?

 

[parrott]

We do. You having an issue?

 

[Zach Starr]

Does anyone have experience running both machines? Looking to replace an older flatbed printer soon. We have a Trufire that runs all our large runs. We haven't ran a lot of white on the Trufire. The printer we are replacing does all the white jobs. Trying to decide which does white jobs better? Anybody with white ink experience on one or the other?
We do like our Trufire and the people at DigiTech, but I've had issues doing white jobs on

Since you already have a TrueFire you are already know that printer, between the two I think Truefire is the better printer. But since you are looking to do alot of white with you new printer, I would recommend checking out the Stratojet Shark EFB2512(4'x8') once too, they have a white parking system which none of the brands i had researched have it. You can print upto 16 layers in single pass with White, and the white ink is very good too. There are some other bed sizes too

 

[nate]

Question for Trufire operators - is anyone else using Caldera for their RIP?

Sure do. Whats up?

 

[Pauly]

Since you already have a TrueFire you are already know that printer, between the two I think Truefire is the better printer. But since you are looking to do alot of white with you new printer, I would recommend checking out the Stratojet Shark EFB2512(4'x8') once too, they have a white parking system which none of the brands i had researched have it. You can print upto 16 layers in single pass with White, and the white ink is very good too. There are some other bed sizes too

Do you always have the need to spam post about stratojet? even in topic such as this one that has nothing to do with it?
A lot of us are getting tired of the same post on every thread.