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Upgrading from VG-540 to s80600

Nick Porter

Nick Porter

New Member
Hello! Iam based here in Norcal and specialize in Motocross graphics so that bright 021c and deep reds are very important. My Roland has been very reliable but iam not happy with there support these days.. And the color output on oranges are red are VERY limited. Yes, I can upgrade to a VF-2 or VG-2 with orange and green channels.. But I have zero issues hitting a perfect Kawasaki green with my current VG setup. (CMYK lk lm lc M). My question to everybody... Is the s80600 a good upgrade? It has been the same printer it looks like from 2016 to current?? Is there any changes through out the years? Is metallic worth it or should I use the widely used white? Thanks everybody!
 
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SignMeUpGraphics

Super Active Member
We love ours... very easy to maintain. Extremely easy to hit 021C, great reds and Kawasaki green isn't hard to achieve either with a good profile.
It's been the same machine since 2016. There is rumour we may see a replacement by the end of the year, but there is zero reason to believe it at the moment apart from it being due the amount of time since the range was released.
 
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CanuckSigns

Active Member
We love ours! We don't run white or metallic, we just have a cleaning cartridge in that spot, my understanding is you can put a white or silver cartridge in anytime then take it back out, you just need to purge the line, which the printer does automatically, but it wastes a bunch of ink and cleaner.
 
ProColorGraphics

ProColorGraphics

New Member
I have had the S80 since it came out. It has been an awesome machine! I have the silver in mine. I like it and have a few jobs I run it on. It is more like a satin chrome than a metallic. It can make some cool looking color!
 
F

fine point

New Member
ProColorGraphics said:
I have had the S80 since it came out. It has been an awesome machine! I have the silver in mine. I like it and have a few jobs I run it on. It is more like a satin chrome than a metallic. It can make some cool looking color!
Click to expand...
Just wondering if the silver ink get clogged easily like white. It would be awesome to be able to print metallic.
 
M

MS7

New Member
I worked with the s80600 for a long time and really liked it.
The handling is really easy, apart from having to feed new rolls from the back. But I guess that's only a problem if you swap from a front accessable printer with no space behind the machine. The menu is pretty much straightforward and understandable. We attached a mirror to the "cleaning box" on the left side to help with cleaning the printer heads though.
Print results have been great, the reds are coming through strong and vibrant. As mentioned before the metallic silver is more of a matte quality, but you can achieve a pretty sparkly gold effect in combination with yellow, for example. White is good also, but tends to soften up some of the vinyls to the point of being really floppy.
Printing resolution is also very good, even small details and fonts come out very crisp in the high res settings, but if printing roll to roll, low pass settings for more speed achieve acceptable resolutions as well.
Long drying times are always an issue with eco solvent inks, but I found that the recommended 24 hrs before laminating can be reduced significantly. Exceptions apply of course to silver and white, which have longer drying times.
As for clogging in silver and white, never had any issue with that, but it is strictly necessary to shake the cartridges frequently when installed (in my case every morning) and at least regularly even in storage.
The use of white and silver is only reasonable if you use it often, or by accumulating orders which require it, because of the not inconsiderable amount of ink lost in the process of cleaning and switching inks.

Overall I was really pleased with it, imho it is a very versatile machine.
 
D

Douglas Leech

New Member
Ours is a worthless pile of $h!/-
We are a pretty small shop and ran our last Mimaki for almost 7years but made the mistake of buying our s80 just over 2.5 years ago believing it was quality built reliable machine, and for the two years it was under warrantee it was!
We turn enough business to provide print jobs daily for the printer but not enough to wear it out by any means, it has never seen anything other than genuine Epson ink, regularly cleaned and all Maintenace performed as it should be.
But here I am trying to read forms on what printers might actually be reliable since right after the warrantee expired the P.O.S started randomly shutting down mid prints throwing a "Fatal Error code" this is when I began learning about how apparently most of the suppliers that sell these machines don't (or aren't allowed to) service them.
If you're willing to wait it out long enough on the phone to make it to someone at Epson you then learn they are no help at all either and Google is much faster at figuring out the error codes than their own tecs, but either way they will not sell you any parts or help you with service.
instead, they refer you to some incompetent, rude, 3rd party company they certify to stab in the dark at machine repairs.
ohh and the 20K+ Printer has an eBay resale value of roughly $1,300 if you drop a head
ok Rant over....Good luck !
 
A

a77

New Member
Wow, so under warranty it was great. Then you got a fatal error code. The 3rd party company that you were referred to.... did they do the necessary repairs, and if so, how much did it cost and what did they do to get your S80 up and running again?
 
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signrios

New Member
a77 said:
Wow, so under warranty it was great. Then you got a fatal error code. The 3rd party company that you were referred to.... did they do the necessary repairs, and if so, how much did it cost and what did they do to get your S80 up and running again?
Click to expand...
that's the truth, those 3rd party repair companies just like to bleed you to death, i called epson because i was having one the heads dripping black ink, i was advised by the 3rd party company that it was probably the head and that they could do the whole deal for $2200 since they were running a special. i went ahead and paid in advance,
when the tech came in, turns out it wasn't the head that needed replacement, it was just the head assembly which could have been like $700 with parts and labor.
im talking about a s40600 out of warranty
 
D

Douglas Leech

New Member
a77 said:
Wow, so under warranty it was great. Then you got a fatal error code. The 3rd party company that you were referred to.... did they do the necessary repairs, and if so, how much did it cost and what did they do to get your S80 up and running again?
Click to expand...
Still figuring all that out...Initially one morning (Dec 2021) when I came in half of magenta on head 2 was missing on test prints. Light/med/heavy cleanings did nothing, only seemed to get worse. (This is when I began seeking help with having the machine serviced/repaired)

The third-party company confidently told me they knew what was going on and proceeded to quote me for 2 new print heads, 2 new pumps, capping stations, a ASSY, ce45, g, esl, asp, also a duct, Rubber seal, Joint, and 7 more things shown as random letters and numbers.
So basically, IMO everything except the Motherboard...Sure hope that would fix it, Right!

Now before that could be done it started throwing the "Fatal Error Code" which my understanding of this is it can be either something to do with a ribbon not attached correctly or a blown fuse (which is apparently soldered to the motherboard)

However, I'm also told there is no way to distinguish if it is head related or motherboard so either do all of the above or do all of the head work and then if it is not fixed still, then also replace the motherboard and of course all on my dime....NOPE, F...U Epson ! if this is the crap there selling, I'm not giving them or their repair cronies another dime.

I will go buy another printer (not Epson) and then take this one, Set it up in a field stuffed full of Tannerite and make a youtube video of this s80600 mid print blowing sky high just so everyone can see how I feel about their product! Printer shopping this week VIDEO COMING SOON !!!
 
F

fine point

New Member
Douglas Leech said:
Ours is a worthless pile of $h!/-
We are a pretty small shop and ran our last Mimaki for almost 7years but made the mistake of buying our s80 just over 2.5 years ago believing it was quality built reliable machine, and for the two years it was under warrantee it was!
We turn enough business to provide print jobs daily for the printer but not enough to wear it out by any means, it has never seen anything other than genuine Epson ink, regularly cleaned and all Maintenace performed as it should be.
But here I am trying to read forms on what printers might actually be reliable since right after the warrantee expired the P.O.S started randomly shutting down mid prints throwing a "Fatal Error code" this is when I began learning about how apparently most of the suppliers that sell these machines don't (or aren't allowed to) service them.
If you're willing to wait it out long enough on the phone to make it to someone at Epson you then learn they are no help at all either and Google is much faster at figuring out the error codes than their own tecs, but either way they will not sell you any parts or help you with service.
instead, they refer you to some incompetent, rude, 3rd party company they certify to stab in the dark at machine repairs.
ohh and the 20K+ Printer has an eBay resale value of roughly $1,300 if you drop a head
ok Rant over....Good luck !
Click to expand...
Our S40 did pretty much the same thing after 2 years. Dropped it and got Roland VG2. It's a workhorse!
 
A

Alex116

New Member
SignMeUpGraphics said:
We love ours... very easy to maintain. Extremely easy to hit 021C, great reds and Kawasaki green isn't hard to achieve either with a good profile.
It's been the same machine since 2016. There is rumour we may see a replacement by the end of the year, but there is zero reason to believe it at the moment apart from it being due the amount of time since the range was released.
Click to expand...
Do you have a good recommendation for a Profil with onyx?
 
S

SignMeUpGraphics

Super Active Member
We build our own profiles for each media type. Every printer should have a spectrophotometer and not be relying on canned profiles as there is so much variation between printers, media and environment.
 
I

IndySignPro

New Member
Douglas Leech said:
Ours is a worthless pile of $h!/-
We are a pretty small shop and ran our last Mimaki for almost 7years but made the mistake of buying our s80 just over 2.5 years ago believing it was quality built reliable machine, and for the two years it was under warrantee it was!
We turn enough business to provide print jobs daily for the printer but not enough to wear it out by any means, it has never seen anything other than genuine Epson ink, regularly cleaned and all Maintenace performed as it should be.
But here I am trying to read forms on what printers might actually be reliable since right after the warrantee expired the P.O.S started randomly shutting down mid prints throwing a "Fatal Error code" this is when I began learning about how apparently most of the suppliers that sell these machines don't (or aren't allowed to) service them.
If you're willing to wait it out long enough on the phone to make it to someone at Epson you then learn they are no help at all either and Google is much faster at figuring out the error codes than their own tecs, but either way they will not sell you any parts or help you with service.
instead, they refer you to some incompetent, rude, 3rd party company they certify to stab in the dark at machine repairs.
ohh and the 20K+ Printer has an eBay resale value of roughly $1,300 if you drop a head
ok Rant over....Good luck !
Click to expand...
I mostly agree with your post. The S80600 when it is working properly is a Great Machine. Beautiful print quality and fast. The issue is this, it is not made for heavy use. I was told this by an Epson Service Tech. Literally asked me what in the world we were doing to the machine. Told him it starts printing at 8am and stops at 5pm and he said that's excessive use. In the first year of ownership they spent more on warranty repairs than we spent on the printer. Since the warranty expired we have spent an additional $7000 on service. I have an 8 year old Roland XR-640 that I don't think we have spent $7000 on to date and it gets worked like a rented mule. Will not make the Epson mistake again.
 
balstestrat

balstestrat

Problem Solver
IndySignPro said:
I mostly agree with your post. The S80600 when it is working properly is a Great Machine. Beautiful print quality and fast. The issue is this, it is not made for heavy use. I was told this by an Epson Service Tech. Literally asked me what in the world we were doing to the machine. Told him it starts printing at 8am and stops at 5pm and he said that's excessive use. In the first year of ownership they spent more on warranty repairs than we spent on the printer. Since the warranty expired we have spent an additional $7000 on service. I have an 8 year old Roland XR-640 that I don't think we have spent $7000 on to date and it gets worked like a rented mule. Will not make the Epson mistake again.
Click to expand...
With that kind of experience and you already see the wear, why in the world would you not get a service contract on it???
 
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