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BN 20 6 months in

Welder.man

Welder.man

New Member
I bought a BN20 with the metallic in option, it is in getting repaired at the moment as the pinch roller lever now will not lift or lower the rollers.

I have been asked by a few people what I think of the machine so far so I thought I would post my findings so far.

The so called easy media loading system I find to be a bit of a pain, It might be easier if the machine is on a stand but I have mine on a desktop.

I also have a lot of trouble when I print something with the crop marks take it out hang it to dry, laminate it reload it to cut, but I find 9 times from 10 the optical eye will not find the registration marks, So I have started printing a faint line just out side of the cut-line so if it will not find the registration marks I can trim around the faint line I printed, this gets very annoying and time consuming I have spoken to many different people about this but I have not been able to get it to work properly. I use the crop marks on my Roland GX24 all the time and it works fine.

The metallic ink is OK but the machine is very slow and the metallic prints need to be laminated or they will smudge.

I find the waste ink cartridge fills up very quickly I am about to put the third new one in and at around $70 they add up. Every time I turn it on it cleans itself if it I leave it on standby all the time and it cleans itself.

I see now it can print white how ever my Roland tech told me to change it to white would involve changing anything that the metallic ink ever touched so everything from the cartridge holder to the print head would need to be replaced. So it is not a realistic option for me.

The biggest thing I find to be a problem with is getting materials for it most of my suppliers will only sell me a full roll 1370mm wide and 50m long as the machine cannot support a 50m roll I have to not only get the roll cut into 500mm wide lengths but I also have to roll half onto a separate roll to make the 25m long, Some of my suppliers refuse to unroll and cut due to contaminates, So I am very limited with what I can buy and where I can buy if from, Here in Australia anyway
 
briankb

briankb

Premium Subscriber
Thanks for posting this on S101. I am considering the BN-20 as well but I also found out about GO EcoMax 24" which is a Epson 7700 converted to use the new Sepiax inks. They added some pre/post heating elements to make the ink stick to materials. From what I've read the EcoMax with Sepiax ink is pretty good. There is no white ink option as yet.

Are the registration marks for the BN-20 the same as the ones for the GX24? If so why not try cutting on the GX24 the next time the BN-20 fails. I use a Graphtec CE5000-60 24" and it needs a good 1" margin around each edge and about 3" on the end to be able to find the registration marks consistently. You loose a little material to waste but it finds the registration marks because it isn't fighting with the edge of the material. Before you give up on the BN-20 I would try bringing in the registration marks a little, if that is an option.
 
Welder.man

Welder.man

New Member
No the GX24 only uses 3 marks and the Bn20 uses 4, I am looking at printing the GX marks on the BN20 print and than will load it into the GX and see if it can read the marks and cut them, It is a painful way to have to do it but so is the amount of material I have wasted due to them no working.
 
briankb

briankb

Premium Subscriber
Are you sure the GX24 can't read the 4 marks provided by the BN20? My Graphtec can read a registration mark with 3 and 4 targets. I would hope being the same brand that your Roland GX24 can also read the marks from the BN20. It may need to be changed in the software you are using for printing on the BN20.

In Wasatch SOFTRip it's a printer setting when you use a contour cut and it provides several options for adding registration targets.

If you have the option to call someone familiar with the BN-20 ask them about setting up so you can print on the BN-20 and cut (contour cut) on the GX-24. This is pretty common technique for a busy print/cut printer.
 
dcurtisroland

dcurtisroland

New Member
Welder.man said:
No the GX24 only uses 3 marks and the Bn20 uses 4, I am looking at printing the GX marks on the BN20 print and than will load it into the GX and see if it can read the marks and cut them, It is a painful way to have to do it but so is the amount of material I have wasted due to them no working.
Click to expand...

Welder,
If you're using VersaWorks, you can load the GX-24 into VersaWorks and use VersaWorks to drive the cutter for print/cut. This way you can leave the BN-20 to print while the GX does the cutting.

-Dana
 
Welder.man

Welder.man

New Member
I had a rep call in and tell me the same thing, he added the GX to versaworks but could not get it to cut anything.

It is there and I can add jobs to the Que but when I send the job nothing happens, The status in versaworks for the GX is unknown, I am wondering if has been addedt correctly.
 
Pacific Coast Sign

Pacific Coast Sign

New Member
Some printers have a hard time reading the registration marks if the lam you are using is high gloss. One of the tricks we have heard about is placing a piece of matte transparent tape over the marks. It may help the optic eye read them better by reducing the glare.
 
S

seajayemm

New Member
I know this is an old thread but this might help someone out there searching for this problem. If after laminating your BN20 or plotter can not read the registration marks do this: Place a small piece of masking tape over each registration mark. I had the same problem and found this workaround that has never failed, even with cutting chrome and metallic vinyls.
 
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