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Any Colorado 1650 Owners.

Bly

New Member
Care to share your experience with this printer?
I'm curious about:
Media compatibility.
User friendliness.
Actual sellable print speeds gloss and matte.
Double sided operation.
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
We have a 1640 but went to a demo of the 1650.

looks like they’ve ironed out a lot of the problems that still exist with the 1640 (that they should’ve just fixed there, that’s another story).

the sellable print speeds were still actually pretty quick. We took our own media’s down and there wasn’t any banding on the “production” speed for gloss and Matt.

as far as user friendliness goes, they’ve fixed a few things that bugged me, such as being unable to advance the media from the machine, the calibration now calibrates at every print speed instead of just reliance.

user friendliness, it’s the same as the 1640, if you’ve used a wide format printer before, it’ll be straightforward enough.

when we went to the demo (last week) the canon rep said double sided was still being worked on and the tolerances currently were about 1.5 inches. And it’s not as smart or “automated” as they lead you to believe. Also said there’s about 3’ of wasted material either side of the prints so if you’re offering d/s, make it long runs. (All this despite the fact they’re placing units in the field).

all I’ll say is, if there’s anything you’re not happy with, with that machine. Don’t expect canon to fix it, just wait until they’ve sold a bunch, failed to fix it then released a 1660..
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
Forgot media compatibility, all the SAV’s we tried were a lot better than on our 1640, but still not great. I hear a lot of the companies are actually happy to warranty their SAV now so there’s a start at least
 

zspace

Premium Subscriber
Care to share your experience with this printer?
I'm curious about:
Media compatibility.
User friendliness.
Actual sellable print speeds gloss and matte.
Double sided operation.

We installed a 1650 about 10 days ago. We’ve been running basic stuff - IJ35 and banner material. Our initial impressions are favorable.

IJ35 runs at just over 400sq ft per hour. Banners run better than twice that speed. The banners look fine at the higher speed with just a small reduction in ink saturation. We have the option to run the IJ35 at the higher speed but haven’t tested it yet since speeds over 450 sfph turns off all the auto quality features.

We have only run gloss mode and we are happy with the print quality and initial durability of the the ink. We have a couple of wall covering jobs coming up so we’ll be putting the matte mode through it’s paces next week.

Double sided prints are definitely not automatic. The material has to be webbed from the back roll with the front roll removed. It takes a little time to set up. We probably won’t get a ton of use from that feature.

We have not seen the ink cracking issues people mention with the 1640. We’ve cut a lot of full bleed decals without any edge chipping. The ink seems flexible enough that we are going to do some easy wraps with it to test the stretch limits.
 

Megagrafix

President
Mthx everyone as we are considering replacing our HP 570 and 370s with this because of theirs all in program, A sq’ charge for everything except the substrate.
 

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
Mthx everyone as we are considering replacing our HP 570 and 370s with this because of theirs all in program, A sq’ charge for everything except the substrate.
I don't quite get that, they showed us their calibrated numbers and our HP all in cost is only 3¢ more... I hope there is a Real Latex competitor soon so HP can get their crap together and go back to offering real customer service.
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
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We have a colourwave also that we use for indoor stuff or specific jobs that require to be kept in order. We have a click charge on that so having the Colorado and being able to run low ink consumption jobs on that does make life easier.

as far as the uni costs etc go, I seen this online. Not sure how accurate it is. Probably doesn’t factor in a few other costs.
 

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
View attachment 143468 We have a colourwave also that we use for indoor stuff or specific jobs that require to be kept in order. We have a click charge on that so having the Colorado and being able to run low ink consumption jobs on that does make life easier.

as far as the uni costs etc go, I seen this online. Not sure how accurate it is. Probably doesn’t factor in a few other costs.
Those figures aren't right at all. 3L 570 inks are $375 or $0.125/ml, our average calibrated ml/sqft at 8 pass is .89ml.

Our total per sqft cost at 8pass is $0.25, This figure includes ink, heads, cleaning kits, maintenance adjusted lifespan machine cost, electricity, and labor... do those same figures on the Oce' colorado and it is almost 50% higher... Ink is such a small factor in the actual running costs. Our figures are based on a historical track record of 4 generations of Latex, 11 years of operation, and current consumption numbers by our machines. I adjust factors quarterly and our number barely fluctuates.
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
Very true, the cost of the some of the maintenance equipment on the Colorado is laughable. Even the nitril gloves are 7x dearer from canon than the exact same gloves from a different supplier.

I’m not massively keen on canons business tactics with regards to the wide format printers either. It’s all about getting a machine in your shop as cheap as possible then shaft you on all the *hidden* costs.

they’re also failing to mention that you can get 3 latex printers for the price of a Colorado..
 

Bly

New Member
The samples I have show the ink to be bulletproof.
Far better than latex.
Iso, thinners and acetone have no effect.
 

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
I have rolls of 1650 samples here from dealers and Canon directly, the Gloss mode is great... Matte, I can chip right off the vinyl surface. They all blame that Canon hasn't created the right profile for it. If I have to wait for Cannon to make a profile for me, It's not a production-ready machine!
 

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
The samples I have show the ink to be bulletproof.
Far better than latex.
Iso, thinners and acetone have no effect.
Are you looking for speed or something specific in the Colorado? Have you looked at the Mimaki with LUS200 inks? Those are super durable. I have an unlaminated sample on a vehicle with no issues so far.
 

Bly

New Member
It looks like a comparable Mimaki is 40% more expensive than a 1650.
Looking at speed. Length and colour consistency. ROI naturally.
 

Bly

New Member
I don't have the space or patience for 4 slow printers.
The UJV500-160 is $140k AUD ($95kUS) RRP + delivery and installation.
 

Bly

New Member
That RRP is from the Mimaki Aus site so I'm sure you'd get one for less.
They have LUS200 as an option.
How much are 1650s in the States?
 

jasonx

New Member
Hey Brian,

Have you seen the machine print? When I looked at a 1640 we kept getting a gloss banding issue in the demos in all but the slowest mode.

Is the 1650 any better?
 
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