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Colorado Owners

How often does your maintenance tray fill up?
Only really started to take notice of this but our 1650 seems to get to about 75% after a month.
I understand the need for it to spit to keep the printheads optimal but it seems a bit excessive.
 

victor bogdanov

Active Member
I guess about once per month, 100% full is like half the container. I'd say it wastes little ink if you consider how much it can print in a month, other printers would waste way more printing that many sqft
 

GC Decor

Super Printer
Yeah 75% percent per month is about average for us. Like victor said above the bin is roughly half full when it signals to empty. This is very typical for UV printers, our flatbed is the same way. Purge ink and wipe every few hours of use. The ink is well priced so I’m sure the waste is under $50 per month. I’ll get the weight of my next waste bin and get the actual cost.
Still amazed we are printing full rolls in 2-3 hours running Matte Quality.
 

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
It depends how you use it. We don't see it filling up as much as we consistently do full rolls.
It'll purge after each print / job
 

Grizzly

It’s all about your print!
We had the 1640 and only went through 2 maintenance trays per year. Very comparable to the other machines waste usage. (Unless you're comparing the Arizona Series Flatbeds which wastes ink like the 1650 does)
Then we got the 1650 and it was going through it in 3 weeks! We called and submitted a service claim and they basically told us that the ink has to maintain more and uses more ink.
So like 5-6 times more ink. And those trays are roughly 1.5 Liters which equates to between 18-22 Liters of wasted Ink per Year * Average of $165/liter which is $3,000 of waste. They didn't seem to care.
They did finally do an update and I think we're about 5-6 weeks.
 

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
AS victor said.

On the colorado - it's a production machine.
Set up all your jobs in the rip. press print once.

each time the machine prints a new job in its queue, it'll purge the heads.
If it's printing it all at once, it'll purge only once.
 

GC Decor

Super Printer
The Colorado does purge/ clean periodically throughout the day and night as well. I don’t know exactly how many times it does it per day but it’s at least a few times.

Other Colorado news - you guys see the new flex printing? Our dealer showed us Canons flex print samples last week and they looked sweet.
 
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Pauly

Printrade.com.au
The Colorado does purge/ clean periodically throughout the day and night as well. I don’t know exactly how many times it does it per day but it’s at least a few times.

Other Colorado news - you guys see the new flex printing? Our dealer showed us Canons flex print samples last week and they looked sweet.
Yeah we've seen them.

Great if you have the application for it. Also prints extremely slow.
 

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
That's cool, I might have a use for it.
It'd a physical upgrade for installed units. They add extra mirror and a few things.
Comes with all new units.

It prints at 7m2/h so it's the slowest speed. I think this gives the gloss layer enough time to smooth out before getting hit by the curing lamps.
 

victor bogdanov

Active Member
It'd a physical upgrade for installed units. They add extra mirror and a few things.
Comes with all new units.

It prints at 7m2/h so it's the slowest speed. I think this gives the gloss layer enough time to smooth out before getting hit by the curing lamps.
Ok I was trying to imagine how the 2 finish in 1 pass curing would be possible , makes sense that something physical is changed.

Probably something cool to play with but not do jobs with if speed is that slow
 

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
Ok I was trying to imagine how the 2 finish in 1 pass curing would be possible , makes sense that something physical is changed.

Probably something cool to play with but not do jobs with if speed is that slow
It now has 2 mirrors instead of 1, and from memory, it prints the gloss pass with the leading lamp on. and matte pass with the trailing lamp on. or something like that. it's done in layers.
 

GC Decor

Super Printer
From my Understanding, you get a matte finish because the ink is cured right away with the mirror.You get a gloss finish when the ink is not cured immediately. I think there is also a software add on required to get the flex finish.
Canon has some truly amazing tech with UV Gel. The slow speed makes sense, I definitely have some customers that would pay the extra fee for the feature, our printer isn’t maxed out yet either so we have some open time.
 
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Pauly

Printrade.com.au
From my Understanding, you get a matte finish because the ink is cured right away with the mirror.You get a gloss finish when the ink is not cured immediately. I think there is also a software add on required to get the flex finish.
Canon has some truly amazing tech with UV Gel. The slow speed makes sense, I definitely have some customers that would pay the extra fee for the feature, our printer isn’t maxed out yet either so we have some open time.
It's slow enough to print a whole roll of stock overnight.
Flex+ has its place.

We're not upgrading ours. we don't have that niche
 
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