Wanting to upgrade and looking at the 370 pros and cons

[anthony smith]

Any real users out there that could give me the pros and cons
We now use Mimaki JV33 's these things are bullet proof, however quailty and color can be a issue from
time to time
also looking at a sii they are really fast but still solvent
any advise would be greatly appreciated
from the outside looking in the 370 seems l a bit costly to operate
with print head changes and all but i know no one who is running one to speak
with

 

[P Wagner]

The HP Latex 370 occupies the top of the 300-series product line, and is oriented at higher production operations that consistently use > 15 liters of ink per month. It's primary benefit over the Latex 360 model is more unattended print capability due to greater ink capacity, and lower cost of ink (between 25 - 30 percent savings).

In all other respects, the Latex 370 is equivalent to the Latex 360. There are many Latex 360 users on this site, and I will let them speak to their specific experiences with the machine.

Paul

 

[anthony smith]

No one wanting to sing there latex praises

No daily users out there

 

[Correct Color]

Anthony,

I'm not a daily user, but I do have several clients who are. Of the 360 anyway, which, as Paul said, is the same basic machine.

And of the several clients I have, about half are pretty happy with the machines, and about half hate them.

There are several issues. But at the top of the list is color inconsistency. Some people claim not to have an issue, but they may or may not; it kind of all depends on what they're printing.

I have one client in Minnesota who prints truck wraps for a fleet, as I understand it, and the trucks are pretty much grey. And, interestingly, he is so fed up with constant color shifts on his 360 that he is considering moving this entire project back to his Mimaki JV33.

What I can also tell you is that I have several clients running various Seiko models. Invariably, I profile them once, and never profile them again.

The unfortunate part is that somewhere, buried under all the s**t that's associated with the 360, I do think there's a pony.

But I see just about every machine out there, and as of now, I'm not recommending to anyone that they buy the 300 series HP.

 

[Hotspur]

Wow!

Seems to be a very high proportion that 'hate' their latex! - it's certainly not my experience and I have sold over a thousand Latex printers and am responsible for color support.

I currently don't have a single outstanding support call re colour consistency but have had a handful in the past (more with v1 & v2 latex ink though)

I run the Barbieri DOC system and have run substantial tests over many rolls with consistency results always under 1 delta E over the length of a roll.

If half of users hated their latex and they were so inconsistent that they were not commercially viable then I would hear of it immediately and this would be all over the net and sales would be crashing - but thats just not the case - sales are soaring and most users report they are very happy so from what I see, read and hear I have to disagree strongly with your conclusion and it seems from my pretty large install base, so do most users.

Your clients must be having color challenges for them to employ your services - or at least be very discerning clients with high expectations demanding excellent color.

But for every one of these users there are 99 others who are very happy and have no color issues and thus don't employ your skills - from my experience your conclusions are drawn from a small selection of the latex user base (which now is measured in the tens of thousands of units worldwide) and are not supported by feedback from a much wider sample.

Just a thought!

 

[Correct Color]

Your clients must be having color challenges for them to employ your services - or at least be very discerning clients with high expectations demanding excellent color.

But for every one of these users there are 99 others who are very happy and have no color issues and thus don't employ your skills - from my experience your conclusions are drawn from a small selection of the latex user base (which now is measured in the tens of thousands of units worldwide) and are not supported by feedback from a much wider sample.

Overall I'd pretty much agree completely.

Yes, there are plenty of the machines out there, and yes, from what I can see, a good chunck of their owners -- though far from all -- are pretty happy with them.

Also yes, most of those owners are not my clients. Also yes, all of my clients are very particular about reproducing color, or they wouldn't be my clients.

However, what that says to me is that it's at least somewhat likely that a good many of the people who are happy with these machines just aren't discriminating enough to see what is going on.

Fact is, a good number of large format printers just assume it's impossible to print greys with any machine. Obviously if you don't even think it's possible, then you're not going to notice a machine that can't do it consistently.

So, I'd sure take that into account. If you want a cheap, rugged, not terribly fast but not overly slow printer that produces adequate but in some cases inconsistent color, and has some graininess issues as well... sure, the 300 series HP might just fill the bill for you.

Thing is, though, since my clients are my clients, at this point, I'm not going to recommend the machines to them.

 

[Gino]

No HP user here, but if you are basing your opinions on a fleet of grey prints, many many printers have problems with greys regardless of latex, solvent or even thermal. Grey is a problem for everyone.

For the OP, be patient as others will in. Get the opinions from end-users who are not steering you in any particular direction solely on profits or system knowledge. Perhpas, instead of leaning towards any specific direction, make up some files and go to various distributors, have them print your files and see for yourself. Remember, service afterwards on any machine is most critical. Anyone can sell you supplies, but a good tech when something fails, which they all do, is key in most sales.

 

[anthony smith]

Nothing shocking here

Well out of all the thousand of machines out there, No one likes or dislikes.
At least in the real world day to day shops
I am very cautious when looking at new equipment. Have been using Mimaki for close to 10 years
no big issues had a tech in the shop 1 time and was operator error that caused
the issue.
Had a HP UV and it stayed broke as much as it ran but it was a color span make over so not really fair to bash HP
old 5445 model should never had been on the market
Terrible machine 80.000.00 grand boat anchor.
Have gotten tons of info on the new Latex printers and would really like to get away from the wait to lame
prints. But really love to hear from someone with one of these things in their shop.
any takers please

 

[Bly]

Do a search the 360 has been discussed at length since it was released.
People are probably tired of repeating themselves.

 

[jawdavis]

I'm about to buy my 3rd 360.

 

[dypinc]

People are probably tired of repeating themselves.

Well said. I posted many times my likes and dislikes about this printer. Go look them up.

To make it short, it does get the job down and mostly does a great job correct color wise if you stay on top of it and make your own profiles.

The biggest disappoint is that you can only run it as a contone device, meaning you have no control over individual inks. Most of the time this is okay, but I ran a job today that need much higher usage of the light inks to avoid peppering in a specific color. Why won't HP write sererate drivers for the RIP makers that allow it to be addressed it as a contone or a monotone device like we have available to us from Canon and Epson for there aqueous printers. If you wants some real fun do curves and ink limiting on Canon's 12 ink printers.

One big word of warning. All media setups and profiles generated before the last firmware will not get you correct color on any L3xx printers.

So you need to have the ability to create you own color management and profiles. With the L360 and L370 you can generate that onboard for some medias, but I wonder how the owners of the rest of the L3xx series are fairing if they do have their own calibration and profiling abilities.