What would be considered a lot of printing hours on a Roland sp 300i

[Oneeyedjack1]

Looking at a refurbished roland sp 300i. Says it has 3000 printing hours which sounds like a lot. Still waiting to hear what they have replaced on it. So is that considered a lot of hours.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Have them print the system report and send it to you. This will give you more of an idea of the use of the machine. Specifically you want to look at the nozzle fires of each head. 6 billion is considered end of life for these heads. The closer they are to that number, the more likely you will need to change one in the near future. The SP300i series is not super old so as long as everything is working properly, head life is really all you need to worry about. Motors almost never go bad. You just want to make sure it is clean and everything is working properly. I don't have a lot of statistics on how long the average machine lasts but 3000 hours would be about 2-3 years of use in a small shop. I see these machines running anywhere from 5 - 10 years with proper upkeep.

 

[Oneeyedjack1]

Ok thanks. Think heads have been replaced but going to find out. It's a dealer and comes with 6 months warranty

 

[Oneeyedjack1]

I have a history report for the printer I am looking at buying. Not really sure what I'm looking at here.

 

[Solventinkjet]

So the printer has only actually printed for 862 hours which is better than you thought. The first print head, which I believe is the Cyan/Black head, has been changed recently and only has about 3.3 million fires per channel. So it's basically brand new. The 2nd head which is the yellow/magenta head is older and has about 2.4 - 3.3 billion fires which is about half the life span of these heads. Still pretty good for a used machine. It looks like at some point they were having issues with the scan motor system which is why there are 44 scan motor errors. This was most likely a bad encoder strip or sensor as the motor was never changed and motors almost never go bad in my experience. Looks like the machine is in good condition on paper. I would definitely go check it out in person to make sure it isn't making a bunch of weird noises or just looks really dirty.

I forgot to mention, the machine is a little over 7 years old based on the sleep time. So in 7 years the owner only printed with it for a total of about 36 days. This machine is old but barely used. The fact that they had to change the 1st head at about 2 billion fires tells me this machine basically sat around not being used every day and the head dried out. It should be a good buy if the price is right.

 

[Oneeyedjack1]

VanderJ thanks for the help. So what would you think for a price for this printer. Dealer is asking $7000 CAD with set of inks ans 2 rolls of vinyl and 6 months part warranty

 

[Solventinkjet]

We sell used refurbished SP300Vs all day long at around $4500 to $5500 USD. The SP300I is the newer version of the SP300V so it is worth a little more. With the heads being in good shape and the full set of inks, 2 rolls of vinyl and a warranty, we could probably get $6500 USD for that machine. The probelm is that you can get brand new printer cutters from Mimaki that are faster and have newer print head technology for right around $10,000 so it's making it harder to get as much for a used machine these days.

 

[Oneeyedjack1]

Ok so that puts it right in that ball park at $7000 cad. They have a VS 540I getting refurbished this week, asking $11,495 cad with ink,vinyl,6 month warranty so this is another possibility.

 

[Oneeyedjack1]

It looks like at some point they were having issues with the scan motor system which is why there are 44 scan motor errors. This was most likely a bad encoder strip or sensor as the motor was never changed and motors almost never go bad in my experience.

Dealer got back said motor scan errors were result of a pinch roller, said once it was aligned no more issues. Does that make sense to anyone?