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Will a properly set up HP 115 latex printer print grainy images?

Kevin Schultz

Kevin Schultz

New Member
I've narrowed down from my original idea of a Roland TrueVIS to a Mimaki UCJV300 or HP 115 printer/cutter combo but I've seen alot (well... Too many criticisms for me) of folks saying the latex machine's prints are grainy. If you have experience with these machines, can you help a guy out? Do they print smoothly or is it an issue?
 
FCD

FCD

New Member
It depends on what you’re trying to achieve. My Latex 115 prints amazing for most things. I run a lot of 3-4” stickers, some colors can have some light grain, some are super smooth. Printing environment, media, and settings will affect it too to some degree as well. I’ve never had anyone complain about any graininess. If your clients are picky and most of what you’re printing is very fine detail on a small scale, don’t go with the latex. If you want instant laminate readiness and scratch resistant prints with compatibility on a wide range of media, go latex. All printers will have things they do better or worse than others, get some samples of a test file from each printer and compare and see what you like best.
 
zstekovic

zstekovic

New Member
I have 115 and printer quality is awesome if you’re printing on good quality vinyl, banner or wallpaper. (manual upgrade of firmware required).
If you’re using super cheap materials or thiner paper it’s not so good (wrinkles and head strikes).
I prefer it over my old trusty Roland VS540i which I loved.
+ you can order sample book from HP
 
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CC-CMYK

New Member
HP Latex is grainy. If you’re doing stickers I wouldn’t go for HP. I have two of them and they are not good at stickers. They are made for large prints but in my experience they are terrible at wall murals too. Panel to panel color consistency and length is not reliable. If you were to get an HP Latex I wouldn’t get anything less then an L365.
 
edcooleyar

edcooleyar

Premium Subscriber
We reviewed the latex prints and they are grainy compared to solvent or uv. HP was good about sending samples but the quality was not good for our market.

Make sure you see print samples of your type of work before dropping a dime. You also want to see the machine in a production environment.
 
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ikarasu

Active Member
Just want to point out - I mainly sell stickers. When I had my latex, I've sold to thousands of different customers, many repeat. Never once was I told the image was grainy.


I could point out screen printing is smooth and call solvent "garbage" because compared to Its grainy. Or solvent vs aqueous... But does it matter? I


What matters is what the customer thinks. Order a light blue / grey image on a solvent printer, even the s80, and you'll notice grain as well.the only thing I found printed better on solvent than latex was reverse print, tiny text - it laid it down better so the tiny text was smoother... We're talking hairline 6-8pt text.


Both are good technologies. Personally if I were running the printer one week out of the month, I wouldn't consider a solvent / UV at all. The "only" choice would be a latex / resin... And I don't know how long you can let a resin printer sit, so I'd say a latex just to be safe.


I find it funny that not one comment has compared latex grain to UV grain yet. I can t comment on the Mimaki uv... But if you put a latex print up next to our cet print, I'd take the latex anyday. Same with our fb500 print... I can't compare latex to the Mimaki as I've never run one, and I'm sure much like the Colorado uses uvgel... The Mimaki is a different kind of UV as well. Maybe it's nice and smooth like a latex print. But I'd be curious to hear from someone who's run both on which is better quality!
 
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Rayd8

New Member
I had a Mutoh VJ1304 and compared to an HP Latex it feels a bit the same. The only downside of a latex is when putting its print next to a solvent or uv print. Those have more resolution. But then the latex is nicely ready to use the second it's printed and is fairly scratchresistant. I don't have a lot of volume right now, which meens the latex printer can sit for multiple days without any printing and the printheads don't mind. I once left the printer powered off for multiple weeks, a few headcleanings (from the operation panel, no manual things or swabs etc like u need to do with solventbased printers) where needed. Try to do that with an ecosolvent and your printheads most likely will have nozzleproblems. Which brings me to maintenance compared to ecosolvent: you don't need a lot of maintenance tasks to do, like i needed to do a manual 2-weekly cleaning with swabs etc... As for grainy: yeah, compared to my Epson photoprinter it's not that good, but then again you won't buy a latex for printing pictures you want to see up close. I also print on canvas and i must admit that the quality on the hp is good enough for my clients, never had any complaint.
 
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victor bogdanov

Active Member
Eco sol /UV will be better quality than latex
ikarasu said:
. I can't compare latex to the Mimaki as I've never run one, and I'm sure much like the Colorado uses uvgel...
Click to expand...
Colorado print quality is very good, I do small photo prints and the photos come out as good as a real photo printer. I had some gray/light gray labels I printed on vinyl and they looked just as good as aqueous samples the customer provided
 
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CC-CMYK

New Member
I’ve definitely lost jobs/ didn’t have repeat jobs due to grainy prints. However it only seemed to be when we did fine art stickers (stickers for artists/ graphic designers). Those who want label or promotional stickers for a business have not said anything and have come back. I think if we had a solvent printer we would do more stickers.
 
balstestrat

balstestrat

Problem Solver
Cut Cut said:
I’ve definitely lost jobs/ didn’t have repeat jobs due to grainy prints. However it only seemed to be when we did fine art stickers (stickers for artists/ graphic designers). Those who want label or promotional stickers for a business have not said anything and have come back. I think if we had a solvent printer we would do more stickers.
Click to expand...
I'm just curious, have you done some printing uni-dir? Any diffirence?
If you have 110 I hope you have done advance calibration to your profiles, otherwise the movement will always be wrong.
 
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Ronny Axelsson

New Member
My HP365 is doing a very good job in most cases.
Yes, it may be a little more grainy than eco-solve (had a Mimaki JV33 with SS21 ink) and very small text or fine details may be a little more blurry.
But as long as a head alignment is performed before crucial prints, and the right printing conditions are used, it does an excellent job.

Unfortunately, and for some reason beyond human understanding, HP have chosen to only have bi-directional printing on these machines, and I'd say that's where most of the blurriness appear, no matter what we do.
 
dypinc

dypinc

New Member
If there is grays being used in the colors you can minimizing grain somewhat by building your output profile GCR to replace the grays with the 3 other colors. Other than that there is not much you can do with HP Latex printers since we can not do anything about HP's built in inking curves.
 
balstestrat

balstestrat

Problem Solver
Ronny Axelsson said:
My HP365 is doing a very good job in most cases.
Yes, it may be a little more grainy than eco-solve (had a Mimaki JV33 with SS21 ink) and very small text or fine details may be a little more blurry.
But as long as a head alignment is performed before crucial prints, and the right printing conditions are used, it does an excellent job.

Unfortunately, and for some reason beyond human understanding, HP have chosen to only have bi-directional printing on these machines, and I'd say that's where most of the blurriness appear, no matter what we do.
Click to expand...
You do have 10-pass UniDir. Just update firmware to latest and you will see a new profile.

*correction
 
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dypinc

dypinc

New Member
I have that on the L360 but it looks like your only option is 10pU_CMYKcm_110. Does not seem that you can add anything new mode to that substrate and see the U or even change that mode to say 120 ink density. I have not really tested it so wondering what others have found?
 
C

CC-CMYK

New Member
balstestrat said:
I'm just curious, have you done some printing uni-dir? Any diffirence?
If you have 110 I hope you have done advance calibration to your profiles, otherwise the movement will always be wrong.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure it is possible to do unidirectional printing on a 110 just bidirectional. I’ve tried a lot to make our printers print good quality prints and it dose but nothing close to an epson. If you have additional advice let me know.
 
balstestrat

balstestrat

Problem Solver
dypinc said:
I have that on the L360 but it looks like your only option is 10pU_CMYKcm_110. Does not seem that you can add anything new mode to that substrate and see the U or even change that mode to say 120 ink density. I have not really tested it so wondering what others have found?
Click to expand...
Oh yeah sorry 10-passUnidir on those machines. You can't modify it, it's only this one print mode. However I think you can duplicate the profile then delete the color reference and make new calibrations.

Cut Cut said:
I’m not sure it is possible to do unidirectional printing on a 110 just bidirectional. I’ve tried a lot to make our printers print good quality prints and it dose but nothing close to an epson. If you have additional advice let me know.
Click to expand...
I actually can't seem to check this for 110. It's possible that it is outside of this update but you can still check if you can see it:
Same advice as before, update to newest firmware and you should also see "Generic Self-Adhesive Vinyl optimized for small text" that has 10-passUnidir printmode.
But because your 110 does not have OMAS you should always do advance calibration to your profiles. It makes a big difference if the substrate is not the "universal" thickness.
Printhead alingment or anything else wont correct the wrong advance that can introduce noticeable graininess and blurriness.
 
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