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Large format printers on wide range of meterials
Hi,
I am thinking to invest on a large format printing sytem for a new business. I am looking for a large format (upto 28"/70cm wide - A1+) printer to produce customized window posters and other materials: 1. Most of the window posters will be laminated but still the colorfast is an issue. 2. Can we print on a special transperant materials that we can use in lightbox signs? 3. Can we use the same printer to print on different meterials like fabrics, vinyl or canvas? indoor-outdoor flags, banners. 4. What would be the resolution/dpi of a picture to produce a good-quality output on a A1 poster on a machine like this? I need some expert advice on prices, different technoplogy trade-offs (like epsons, and hp's ink technologies, Is Epson's 9500 range has a better technology than the others?) and reliable, cost-effective solutions. Thanks. Steve |
#2
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"MAX" wrote in
: I bought a Epson 7600 and can say that it produce must better quality than the HP i had. "Steve" wrote in message om... Hi, I am thinking to invest on a large format printing sytem for a new business. I am looking for a large format (upto 28"/70cm wide - A1+) printer to produce customized window posters and other materials: 1. Most of the window posters will be laminated but still the colorfast is an issue. 2. Can we print on a special transperant materials that we can use in lightbox signs? 3. Can we use the same printer to print on different meterials like fabrics, vinyl or canvas? indoor-outdoor flags, banners. 4. What would be the resolution/dpi of a picture to produce a good-quality output on a A1 poster on a machine like this? I need some expert advice on prices, different technoplogy trade-offs (like epsons, and hp's ink technologies, Is Epson's 9500 range has a better technology than the others?) and reliable, cost-effective solutions. Thanks. Steve Epson's 9500 is a good machine. They can be found for under $3000.00 USD used. The new 9600 has better quality, as well as stock inks that last longer. For either unit, I would recommend ink from http://www.mediastreet.com since it is less expensive than the stock ink. I use their new Ultrachrome (G6) ink in my 9500. And have used/continue to use their Enhanced Generations (G4) ink in desktop printers. Depending on the length of time these posters must last, you will not need to laminate. That of course, keeps your cost down.Using non-stock ink will have its trade-offs. You will need to use some sort of color correction to get the images to print correctly. A small trade-off for the savings and longer life of your prints. You may also want to look for printers made by Encad (Kodak). You can find some of them for around $2500.00 used. And Encad makes a few that are 60 inches wide. The trade-off is maximum resolution on the Encad's is 600x600 dpi. Use the GO ink for lightfast/outdoor signs. |
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(Steve) wrote in
om: Epson's 9500 is a good machine. They can be found for under $3000.00 USD used. The new 9600 has better quality, as well as stock inks that last longer. For either unit, I would recommend ink from http://www.mediastreet.com since it is less expensive than the stock ink. I use their new Ultrachrome (G6) ink in my 9500. And have used/continue to use their Enhanced Generations (G4) ink in desktop printers. Depending on the length of time these posters must last, you will not need to laminate. That of course, keeps your cost down.Using non-stock ink will have its trade- offs. You will need to use some sort of color correction to get the images to correctly. A small trade-off for the savings and longer life of your prints. You may also want to look for printers made by Encad (Kodak). You can find some of them for around $2500.00 used. And Encad makes a few that are 60 inches wide. The trade-off is maximum resolution on the Encad's is 600x600 dpi. Use the GO ink for lightfast/outdoor signs. Thanks for your replies. Some more information about how the posters will be: Posters will be laminated anyway as it will be on display over 1-2 years to protect against dust, wet etc.. So the inks must be colourfast at least 2-3 years. Posters will be image intensive so colour match is essential. Some posters will be printed on transperency or canvas. With which models can I print posters on different materials with colourfast and colour-accurate inks? Do you know any review which compares the "real" cost per prints of each large format printers? Thanks. Steve. For absolute colormatch, you will want to look for stock inks. The Epson 7600/9600 will be the ones to look for. If you are willing to make your own profiles, then the Mediastreet inks will be great. You can also look for reviews and inks at http://www.inkjetmall.com and http://www.inkjetart.com . I just started using the Mediastreet Ultrachrome inks in my 9500 with good results. These inks were designed to image well on RC papers as well as other fine art types and canvas. I haven't tried them on backlight film yet, but they work better than previous versions on RC paper. The previous versions worked fairly well on backlight film, so the newer ink should work better on backlight. Their inks are rated at 100+ years in accellerated aging tests. They have a link somewhere on their website.Once in a while you can find a used Epson 9600 for around $3500 USD. They run about $4500 to $5000 USD new, and from what I hear, very fast with great prints. You will also want to get a RIP (raster image processor). While not absolutely needed, they make things like color correction MUCH easier to deal with. People hate the Fiery RIP for the Epson 9000/9500, but they are inexpensive used, and mine seems to work very well for me. There are many other brands of RIP, the cheapest starts at about $1500 USD. For color correction, you could use something as simple as Monaco EZ color and your scanner. Or your inks may come with a color profile for several types of papers. If you buy a decent RIP, it should come with some decent tools for profile generation. Though some will require special hardware. The last choice for profiles is to have them created for you. Some for as little as $25 per profile. All that said, I stand behind the ink from MediaStreet. I have been using their ink for about 5 years now. And once I learned how to get my color correction setup, I really started to enjoy the quality of my output. I just recently (2 months ago) bought a used Epson 9500 and decided to use Mediastreet's newest ink (ultrachrome). Now that I have the profiles for the papers I use into my Fiery RIP, life is good. Now I just need to drum up some business. As I said before, the 9000/9500 can be found for under $3000 used, and the Fiery RS-5100 RIP for around $350 used, working with manuals and software. Prices for common parts for the 9500 are pretty low. The ink maint. kit is around $125 and the heads are about $100 each. The heads are rated to last for a pretty long time, in terms of pages printed. The ink maint. kit not very long, something like every 2 to 4 cartridges worth of printing. The ink maint. kit need not always be purchased if you are good with some common tools, and buy a service manual ($24 on CD-ROM). You can clean and rebuild the parts for a few dollars each time. Required are some sponges to soak up the waste ink. 3/32 inch Inside Diameter tubing, 1/8 inch ID tubing. Some kind of disposable wiping cloth, and some cleaner (Simple Green and Windex are my favorites). And of course, a decent degree of mechanical aptitude. Definately not rocket science though. The important thing is to clean the edges of the heads, and the head cleaner itself. The head cleaner is a little piece of fabric/rubber that wipes across the heads to "scrape" the extra ink away. This ink builds up on the edges of the heads and on the wiper. This build-up will make smears on your prints. So that said, don't simply reset the ink counter, actually clean the thing. As far as cost per page, I haven't really seen any sites that compare them. Using aftermarket paper and ink definately saves money over always using OEM ink and paper! 50% savings on ink is a good rough estimate, 5 to 25% savings for papers. As far as I know, there are aftermarket inks available for every wide format printer. Though no one ink that will work on all of the different types of printers, due to the differences in thermal and piezo printheads. On the best papers from Mediastreet, I can print full color, full coverage for about $2.15 a square foot. Canvas for about $1.60 a square foot. No frills white Matte paper for around $0.50 a square foot. Semi-gloss (luster) and glossy about the same as canvas. All of those are archival and tested at more than 100 years. And the best papers are truly fantastic. Though with this newer ink, I'm really starting to like the semi-gloss too. Many people like the Epson printers, many do not. Those that do not seem to like the HP printers. Canon also has a new wide format machine out, but I don't really know anything about it. Back when I started, the favorite budget machine was the Epson 1520, which I bought. Since then I have only purchased Epson printers. Maybe I'm missing some opportunities, but I don't seem to mind. They seem to have one of the widest range of different inks and papers available. Though saying that a certain paper only works on a certain printer is a little misleading. The Epsons seem to be a little slower than others, but I have not been able to compare them with any others. |
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