Attention HP l25500 owners!

[jayhawksigns]

RIPs, hate 'em but got to have 'em. We are going to start with Flexi 10 since we already have it, and then possibly try and demo Onyx 10 if possible.

And we just got the printer off of our "mobile dock" and into the shop. I don't plan on fully setting up the printer, but I don't think that it is going to be able to sit in our front lobby in the shipping box for two weeks either.

 

[National Sign Co. - Print]

I just figured if someone like Merrit Graphics brags about Caldera, it must be good! I did a 1-on-1 webinar chat with a guy from Caldera where he showed me how it worked and the features and I have to say that I think it looks way better than Onyx. The upgrading is way better and cheaper too.

Just for the record we have no versions of Visual rip+. But have a few machines with Grand Rip+.... I am certain Visual is great but have no feedback on it.

Grand Rip+ is the best Rip on the market today. Onyx is good and we will always keep that where needed but Caldera is leap years ahead... We would never buy a new machine without the ability to use Caldera on the front end......

 

[nate]

Just for the record we have no versions of Visual rip+. But have a few machines with Grand Rip+.... I am certain Visual is great but have no feedback on it.

Grand Rip+ is the best Rip on the market today. Onyx is good and we will always keep that where needed but Caldera is leap years ahead... We would never buy a new machine without the ability to use Caldera on the front end......

We've got Visual RIP+ and GrandRIP+. Essentially VisualRIP is for large format machines where Clader actually drives the printer and Grand is for grand format machines where Caldera delivers the file to a front end host for the machine. Other than that there's not much difference, and when you have both it's seamless.

We run 15 large format machines with it, and one grand format. Each printer has it's own dedicated computer for file processing, RIPing and printer driving. The LX800's computer simply RIPs the file and sends it to the Internal Print Server on the LX800 for it to drive the machine. Really the only difference.

We control everything through four workstations where anyone can load, manipulate and send a file to one of the printers. In addition, each printer has it's own spool screen at the machine itself for ease of operation.

It all runs on Debian Linux. It's brilliant.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

Alrighty, I'm going to be a little bit of a ... cause I'm not seeing what I'm looking for in latex printers being asked about. I've read by others that there is less wasted ink compared to solvent, but how often do you guys have to clean the heads and how long can the printer sit without having to worry about clogs? Is the ink transluscent or pretty much opaque to cover the surfrace pretty thickly, covering up a bottom element? how well does it bond with metallic and reflective vinyls and are there any brands that work better than others? How much pull on wrapped elements does it have and does it get spider cracks in the ink when pulled around compound curves?

 

[ProColorGraphics]

Alrighty, I'm going to be a little bit of a ... cause I'm not seeing what I'm looking for in latex printers being asked about. I've read by others that there is less wasted ink compared to solvent, but how often do you guys have to clean the heads and how long can the printer sit without having to worry about clogs? Is the ink transluscent or pretty much opaque to cover the surfrace pretty thickly, covering up a bottom element? how well does it bond with metallic and reflective vinyls and are there any brands that work better than others? How much pull on wrapped elements does it have and does it get spider cracks in the ink when pulled around compound curves?

The wrap videos I have seen on YouTube show where they stretch better than solvent inks. Not sure about metallic and reflective.

 

[SE SignSupply]

Don't try and stop the side to side shimmy the printer does!!! It is supposed to "rock" back and forth as it prints... it's not a design flaw, it does it by design. One of our centres tried "wedging" it in a space so it didn't move at all, and it screwed up their print registration and they had all kinds of problems. Removed the "blocking", and it worked just fine like it is supposed to when it rocks!

Not to get too far off topic but is this for real, or a joke?

 

[Latigo]

Why do you ask? Should it be locked in place? Our Mutoh moves too and it always printed perfectly.

 

[ForgeInc]

Anyone looking at latex (or I would say ANY HP printer) should do themselves a favor and get Caldera instead of Onyx.

We had to replace our onyx because it had banding in certain files. The only way we got rid of it was to use caldera. Printing the same file in both rips...onyx produced banding, caldera was perfect.

 

[jayhawksigns]

Would you mind sharing what Caldera cost you?

 

[ProColorGraphics]

I bought the caldera visual rip+ from advantage for $2650. This comes installed and ready to go on a new Mac Mini.

 

[nate]

Would you mind sharing what Caldera cost you?

We put about $25-30K in to it for 15 large format, 1 grand format, 4 cutters, 15 users, 15 Adobe RIP Engines, etc.

The base package is somewhere bwetwwn $2500-3000 or so from what I understand.

 

[HulkSmash]

Would you mind sharing what Caldera cost you?

Formated our computer with linux, gave in one of our flexi keys (over 1k back towards caldera) and got it for 900!!!!!!!!

 

[GB2]

What is required to run Caldera? Will it run on a Windows 7 computer?

 

[E36]

I bought the caldera visual rip+ from advantage for $2650. This comes installed and ready to go on a new Mac Mini.

That's interesting, you mean you paid $2650 for a Mac Mini plus VisualRip+?

 

[nate]

What is required to run Caldera? Will it run on a Windows 7 computer?

It runs on Linux or Mac, though I suppose you could try doing it virtual on Windows, but I'd imagine being virtual will take a hit on performance.

 

[ForgeInc]

We are trading in our 2 onyx10 rips for 2 calderas with similar feature set...all in all I think we will owe like $900ish after the swap. Our reseller is working a deal that basically involves giving back onyx 10 for what we paid, then we pay any extra out of pocket for new setup. Caldera is slightly more $ than onyx, but well worth it. It is very "plug in" based, meaning you buy the parts and feature sets specific to what you need so it's very hard to compare pricing without knowing exactly your required setup. That said, our previous 2 onyx rips could only run on 2 computers, from what I understand we can run our caldera setup on up to 4, maybe more.

 

[jens]

i have worked with onyx and wasatch, and now for 4 years with caldera (on linux ) i would not want to change anymore. Great software , easy install. it can run on win 7 with the program virtualisation. but i would reccomend the linux it is far more stable. Caldera 8.01 runs on a debian version with comes with the software and is free. We converted 3 Rips to linux caldera stations. there is also e special key APPE for transparancy issuses. Dont know if onyx is already transparancy proof.... stopt working with it at produtionhouse 7

 

[nuke]

Caldera

Did you purchase from caldera or is there distributers. Thanks

 

[ProColorGraphics]

That's interesting, you mean you paid $2650 for a Mac Mini plus VisualRip+?

Yes sir!

 

[nate]

Did you purchase from caldera or is there distributers. Thanks

Not sure who you're speaking to, but we purchased it from Ben at Caldera. If you call him tell him Nate sent you.

Here are his contact details:
BEN AMOR | Sales Manager | North America
aba@caldera.com
Skype: aniss-caldera
Office: 612-216-5212 (ext. 2)
Direct: 612-604-4266
Cell: 612-423-8972
Fax: 612-486-9485