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Used UV Flatbed

Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
I'm starting to look at UV Flatbed and UV Combo Printers. Here are some of the models that interest me.

Agfa Anapurna M2 or M4
Mimaki JF1610 or 1631
Gerber CatUV

My biggest question is what should I be looking for quality wise when looking at used UV Printer.
Print Hours? Lamp Hours? Service Record?

Also are there any other printers out there that are comparable to these? I really like the vacuum belt for our application. I don't need white and I don't need the fastest printer out there. I just need to be able to print on rigid material in the same spot over and over to be cut down easily after to size.

Thanks for all of your help.
 
particleman

particleman

New Member
The agfa isnt what you want then. The belt does walk. Read my old post about our Agfa m4F experiences. Check out the hp fb500, the belt is locked in place and you can get pretty good registration with it. Other machines to consider Oce,Fuji, and CET
 
Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
Colorado Signs- I like the idea of CET being able to upgrade the gerber flatbeds with there gantry and heads for a reasonable price. Also my gerber rep told me that Gerber will continue to support the printers for atleast the next 5 years so if I could get a CatUV or an IonX used for a decent price and get my feet wet with digital printing and then in a year or two upgrade it to the CET gantry and heads and just use the gerber table it would be a lot cheaper than a new CET printer. Just where my mind is going.

Particleman - I like the HP FB500 that would be my number one choice but 100K is out of my price range. Thats why i'm looking used but there aren't many used FB500s out there right now and the ones that are they still want 75K and up for. I'm looking in the 40K range. Any suggestions would be very helpful oh and I'm also looking in the 60" wide hybrid or 4' x 8' flatbed.
 
10sacer

10sacer

New Member
Obvious question... what will you be printing on over and over again in the same place?

You have a mid-range budget based on the models you have chosen. What are you looking to spend?

You have to get an idea of what square footage per hour you need + the quality expectation at that speed to get a realistic answer. All other features are worthless until you get an answer to that.

I am upgrading to the newest CET and will sell you my current 6x10 flatbed. It is 6 color + white + varnish with Konica512 heads that print very good quality. I can get you near your budget.
 
Last edited:
Nicky Zhou

Nicky Zhou

PrintLinks
Ditchmiester said:
Colorado Signs- I like the idea of CET being able to upgrade the gerber flatbeds with there gantry and heads for a reasonable price. Also my gerber rep told me that Gerber will continue to support the printers for atleast the next 5 years so if I could get a CatUV or an IonX used for a decent price and get my feet wet with digital printing and then in a year or two upgrade it to the CET gantry and heads and just use the gerber table it would be a lot cheaper than a new CET printer. Just where my mind is going.

Particleman - I like the HP FB500 that would be my number one choice but 100K is out of my price range. Thats why i'm looking used but there aren't many used FB500s out there right now and the ones that are they still want 75K and up for. I'm looking in the 40K range. Any suggestions would be very helpful oh and I'm also looking in the 60" wide hybrid or 4' x 8' flatbed.
Click to expand...


Around 40K, A brand new 4' x 8' flatbed, YES, Now it is possible.

If you do not need white. You can go for such 4' x 8' flatbed printer, with konica 512/14pl head, qulity speed around 135 sq ft/hr.

Contact me:

skype: floranicky
Email: zmlnicky@gmail.com
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Nicky..............

The way you're sporting around here, you might want to consider a Merchant Membership. Otherwise, you're kinda steppng on people's toes.
 
Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
Thanks ChicagoGraphics. It looks like they have a lot of good deals. My only concern there is I have never run a diital printer before especially a large flatbed is there a large learning curve? Not getting any training with a used one would it be hard to get it up and going?
 
10sacer

10sacer

New Member
Depends on how complicated a system you get - but more importantly - which RIP you get with it. If you are used to onyx already them get that RIP with whatever you buy. If you are starting from scratch - get one that uses Caldera.

Your biggest concern with UV-curable is understanding that it is a printing press type of application and not a dektop plug and play that you never touch. These things have rails and bearings that need lubrication and heads that need considerable attention and all sorts of other daily/weekly/monthly/annual maintenance that you need to do to have confidence that when you hit print - you get what you were expecting and not some garbled mess you have to diagnose while your customers are waiting on you.
 
FishnSigns

FishnSigns

New Member
There is a pretty big learning curve with large format printing. I'm in the process of buying a flatbed but I have a lot of experience with solvent roll to roll machines. A good vendor will get you up and running but there is truly an art to making profiles and producing quality prints with consistent color. Most of this is trial and error on your part (sorry to say). I was never able to find a great source for training. If you find one, please let me know because I'm sure we have a big curve ahead of us for our soon to be flatbed. Best of luck.
 
10sacer

10sacer

New Member
Yeah, I was fortunate to have alot of experience as a technical manager and color profiling instructor when i was with Dupont, so i was pretty much in-tune with UV-curable oddities, different materials and color profiling.

CET has a great group of guys that do an outstanding job of setup and training and continuing support. Quick and easy to get on the phone to help diagnose or solve issues you may have.

They have now partnered with a new service organization to get more knowledgeable feet on the street for installs and break/fix. I can't remember the name off the top of my head, though.

Alot of what you need to learn is predicated on what the bulk of your material is that you will be running. Month over month, we tend to print on the same 6-10 substrates - expanded PVC (Sintra and the like), styrene, coroplast, foamcore, gator, white corrugated, Ultraboard. you will learn all the details to print on each best by trial and error and asking alot of questions. Like I learned to never leave your flashlight any where near the gantry when you are done replacing a bulb - it gets knocked into the screw drive and ruins the home position sensor when the gantry tries to go home and crushes the flashlight into the sensor (generally not good when your printer can't figure out where home is).
 
Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
We only print on about maybe 5 different substrates and one of them would be probably 90% of the time. One question, Is it possible to UV print on anodized aluminum?
 
TwoNine

TwoNine

New Member
Yeah - UV's will go onto ANYTHING. Ceramic Tile, Plywood, Ceiling Tiles, Glass, Banner...Anything.
 
10sacer

10sacer

New Member
Ok... there isn't a UV curable machine currently made that will print onto ANYTHING. Thats why most manufacturers give you options for inksets depending on what your core business is. Try printing to melamine with standard Vutek inks. It'll print - but you can peel the ink off in sheets. Try printing to glass with most UV ink. It'll print, but it won't pass a tape test.

There's a big difference between print to anything and STICK to anything.

I can print to acrylic... and it looks great... but the adhesion is less than desirable, so I print to polycarbonate because it has better bite and all works well.

Printing onto metals like anodized aluminum you need to make sure you get material that doesn't have an oily coating applied to it as some metals do.

There are adhesion promoters that will help with some materials that don't have good surface tension - but they stink to high hell and it adds alot of time to your print cycle.
 
Ditchmiester

Ditchmiester

New Member
10sacer,

Thanks for the info. I will keep that in mind when having test prints done. I've found a 2007 Fuji Acuity HD2504 any thoughts on that printer?
 
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