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Wanted entry level UV Flatbed
- Thread starter DirtDoggy
- Start date
SIGNSHOPCARROLLTON
New Member
We have a HP 500 Scitex in very good shape for sale if your still looking 502 732 5789
There are likely plenty of Gerber ION Solaras on the used market, but be forewarned that they have stopped making them, service techs are really expensive and eventually parts will be increasingly difficult to procure. Konica/Minolta have taken over the ink and head manufacturing.
Ours is a real workhorse and we've only seen our tech once in over a year and that was only for our annual preventive maintenance visit.
Ours is a real workhorse and we've only seen our tech once in over a year and that was only for our annual preventive maintenance visit.
Christian @ 2CT Media
Active Member
You have got to be the only person to say anything good about the Gerber solaras.
We bought the business and it in 2014 after Gerber announced its discontinuation of the machine. We knew that and intended to give it a year or two to gauge its value to the company and either dump it or run it until the wheels fall off, which is what we are doing.
We do a lot temporary signs for festivals, fairs, events, etc. on 4mm coroplast and it just cranks the stuff out. We can print a good looking 4'x8' on the middle speed and resolution setting 360ppi/8Pass/Uni in 20 minutes. We pick our battles on what jobs to run on it. We're in a ultra high UV region and if we want a job to last a bit longer, we'll spray it with FrogJuice clear and that seems to help quite a bit on colorfastness.
I had very low expectations of it after seeing the print quality coming off it initially with the old owner still running it. Once the outgoing owner was gone after a few months and I applied myself on both learning the proper RIP settings to run it at depending on the substrate and after instituting a far more thorough and daily cleaning protocol, the number of breakdowns, wasted prints, service tech visits has plummeted to almost nil. Even if a tool is older, I can't see giving up on taking care of it properly. Especially with heads running $1,500 a piece.
This thing kicks ass on coroplast, styrene, sintra, magnetic, acrylic, aluminum and usually on DiBond unless you're trying to accomplish really solid light grey or light colored backgrounds over a large area. It rocks on stuff with lots of built up blacks and boosted colors. If I'm designing something to be printed on it with a red in it, I throw a little pigment from all four colors into the color like giving it a multi-vitamin. ie: C: 5 / M: 100 / Y: 100 / K: 5 and you get a really solid build. On its highest setting 720 ppi / 8 pass Uni, it prints slow but the image quality is quite good.
Here are a few typical jobs.
We do a lot temporary signs for festivals, fairs, events, etc. on 4mm coroplast and it just cranks the stuff out. We can print a good looking 4'x8' on the middle speed and resolution setting 360ppi/8Pass/Uni in 20 minutes. We pick our battles on what jobs to run on it. We're in a ultra high UV region and if we want a job to last a bit longer, we'll spray it with FrogJuice clear and that seems to help quite a bit on colorfastness.
I had very low expectations of it after seeing the print quality coming off it initially with the old owner still running it. Once the outgoing owner was gone after a few months and I applied myself on both learning the proper RIP settings to run it at depending on the substrate and after instituting a far more thorough and daily cleaning protocol, the number of breakdowns, wasted prints, service tech visits has plummeted to almost nil. Even if a tool is older, I can't see giving up on taking care of it properly. Especially with heads running $1,500 a piece.
This thing kicks ass on coroplast, styrene, sintra, magnetic, acrylic, aluminum and usually on DiBond unless you're trying to accomplish really solid light grey or light colored backgrounds over a large area. It rocks on stuff with lots of built up blacks and boosted colors. If I'm designing something to be printed on it with a red in it, I throw a little pigment from all four colors into the color like giving it a multi-vitamin. ie: C: 5 / M: 100 / Y: 100 / K: 5 and you get a really solid build. On its highest setting 720 ppi / 8 pass Uni, it prints slow but the image quality is quite good.
Here are a few typical jobs.
Attachments
Christian @ 2CT Media
Active Member
Those look incredible.
Do you see alot of lawnmower lines or apparent banding?
Do you see alot of lawnmower lines or apparent banding?
If I'm really worried about getting super solid background colors I'll either fortify the colors a little and run them at the highest setting, or like in the Charles & Sons magnetic, I'll dial back the fills transparency to 75% and run them twice at the 360 ppi / 8Pass Uni setting which goes twice as fast as the highest setting and it fills them in really nicely like you can see. The Grape Emporium and Trevor Noah are single runs on the highest setting. Every year we do dozens of the show posters like the Trevor Noah one for that venue along with tons of other work for them. It all starts with great artwork. We did one show poster this year for David Crosby with a really great image of him and it was super clean.
We only get banding if we try to run something too fast with really subtle colors spread over large areas.
We don't use it for "permanent" signs intended to last longer than 4-5 years, but it fills a niche and we're the only shop in a 75 mile radius with one. We do some wholesale work for other local shops for stuff they can't knock out without using a bunch of vinyl/laminate and mounting/trimming time on.
We only get banding if we try to run something too fast with really subtle colors spread over large areas.
We don't use it for "permanent" signs intended to last longer than 4-5 years, but it fills a niche and we're the only shop in a 75 mile radius with one. We do some wholesale work for other local shops for stuff they can't knock out without using a bunch of vinyl/laminate and mounting/trimming time on.