White and Metallic Inks VS540

[Robert Gruner]

What is the general feedback regarding the use of white and metallic inks on the Roland VS540?

 

[Jack Knight1979]

There is some info here and there on it. I think it's a cool item, but the white ink is problematic for clogging heads. The metallic needs to be laminated and the printer is slow as molasses printing metallic.

Go on rolands site and look at the specs for the printer without metallic and then with metallic.

Metallic printing is about a third the speed or less.

Personally I wish I had enough of a demand for it. I would have one machine just for metallic work, but I am in a small town w/ no demand for it.

 

[WCSign]

I havent used white yet, but Ive done a few metallic colors in wraps on motorcycles and zumas.. people flip out when they see it in the sun..

yeah it takes awhile to print.. ive found that the fastest (and the best looking) way to print is to do just the metallic, then make sure you return to origin and then do the cmyk

 

[MikeD]

I've tried white and metallic on 3 different solvent inkjets and was not pleased with any of them in regard to opacity of the white, along with the need to agitate some of the white cartridges. (Roland does it automatically.) There is extra machine maintenance when using white ink beyond what is required in more common color sets.
The solvent Metallic inks will rub off with light thumb pressure unless laminated as they have less solvent in them.
UV white is more opaque, but doesn't produce prints that look as crisp and smooth as solvents to me. I should say that I have never printed UV; only seen examples.
Thermal Resin printing of white and metallic color give the best results in my opinion.