Looking for CET printer experience/feedback

[Rmurray321]

Greetings everyone!

I’m interested in acquiring a UV flatbed and ran across a clean 2015 CET Q5-1000 unit that caught my eye.

Everything appears to be clean and properly maintained and serviced….problem is that I have absolutely zero experience with CET as a whole.

Can anyone here give me some overall insight on the units? Any specifics I need to look for. Are they a giant pile of shit? Quirky? Poor support/serviceability?

 

[MarkSnelling]

I used to distribute the CET machines.....the service aspect lacks quite a bit. While I haven't distributed their printers in a few years, one of the main reasons we stopped was due to turnover and inconsistencies in their service people and ability to get parts.

We moved over to Fluid Color which uses the same engine but has remarkable people supporting it. You can hit me up for parts and suggestions should you need any help. They have everything you need. Being in Alabama, you could likely hit up a southern distributor for Fluid Color for support to get something more local. I believe they have Mac Papers running the south for them. Regardless, if you need help, you can reach out and I'll do my best.

 

[Rmurray321]

I appreciate that insight Mark! Right now I have a roland VG3-540 and my local dealer, Intoprint, is extremely excellent to work with, and Roland overall has been great. This machine is out of warranty so I'm not too worried about direct support from CET per se, but the dealer says they can't exactly offer direct support on he unit either...which does concern me, he referred me to another dealer out of Atlanta, but overall I'm very satisfied with their work and it has me on the fence.

I've been going back and forth on this one for a few weeks, and also a LEJ-640 out of Texas. both of them are around 10k. Speed at this point isn't an amazing concern, but It most likely will be in the future, as I plan on getting a good bit of yard signs, so I think the Roland may be a bit of a rough ride at 3 boards an hour..

 

[MarkSnelling]

The Roland is a great device, but holy slow. We've sold many of them but usually to in-house corporate shops who want to make mock-ups of boxes/packaging/proofs etc. The good news is that the Handtop units are pretty easy to fix and a lot of the parts are designed for snap-in-snap-out replacement. If they can give you a good nozzle test and the machine appears in good shape, I'm pretty confident you can make your $10K back. Then when you do, you can target a better production unit down the road with great support from your local Fluid Color distributor.