Considering a 48" PrismJet Package from SW

[Kemble]

Been doing single color graphics with my Graphtec CE3000 24" machine for 4 years now. Looking to expand my business to full color. For what I do a 48" machine will be just fine for my needs.

Been looking at a combo package from SW for a 48" PrismJet, a Q54 cutter, and a 53" enduralam cold laminator. This package will include Flexi 8.6, crossover cable, cleaning cartridges, a set of inks, speed upgrade (I assume so it's as fast as the 1304), and a car wrap business bundle (which was told includes pro-outlines). All this for $16,000 delivered (but not installed).

$2500 more for a rep to set-up and train for 2-3 days which I may consider since I don't know a damn thing about going full color.

Would this be a good buy?

Is it worth spending an additional $1,800 for a take-up roll system?

Thanks

 

[ProWraps]

not for $20,300.

 

[Kemble]

Oh, does this printer give off any fumes? does it need to be vented?

 

[Stealth Ryder]

No ventilation needed with eco-solvent inks...

 

[cajun312]

Do a search here for sign warehouse and prism jet and you will find several good threads.

 

[bob]

Been doing single color graphics with my Graphtec CE3000 24" machine for 4 years now. Looking to expand my business to full color. For what I do a 48" machine will be just fine for my needs.

Been looking at a combo package from SW for a 48" PrismJet, a Q54 cutter, and a 53" enduralam cold laminator. This package will include Flexi 8.6, crossover cable, cleaning cartridges, a set of inks, speed upgrade (I assume so it's as fast as the 1304), and a car wrap business bundle (which was told includes pro-outlines). All this for $16,000 delivered (but not installed).

$2500 more for a rep to set-up and train for 2-3 days which I may consider since I don't know a damn thing about going full color.

Would this be a good buy?

Is it worth spending an additional $1,800 for a take-up roll system?

Thanks

I have a Mutoh 1204, the same thing as your prospective PrismJet, It's my second 48" printer. I agonized over a 54" vice the 48" but I've never, as in ever, needed anything larger than 48. ~70% of my jobs are banners and maybe 10% of those are 48". The rest are 36" or less. Virtually all of the vinyl I print and cut is 30". Other media, canvas, paper, whatever is all under 48".

I'm an old unreconstructed sign writer and my lack of interest in doing wraps approaches total. I might do the odd pickup tailgate but nothing more than that. I really don't want to wrangle anything larger than what I have.

I've never had a laminator either. Every encounter I've ever had with one has resulting in eating a lot of media and very little output. Whatever laminating I do is with a Big Squeegee.

The one mistake I made was buying the take-up mechanism. I find this particular design next to useless and I seldom use it. Some people seem to like it, I think it's from hell. The old design on the old Falcons was far superior.

No matter what you buy, count on burning through a few rolls of media and at least a couple of sets of ink cartridges before you start to get the hang of it. It will take you six months to a year to become predictably productive regardless if you hire people to show you how or not.

 

[Mainframe]

I would be careful about buying a 48" printer for that kind of money, If you buy a 54" inch machine, you have he 4 foot banner with a full bleed covered, why spend the money for something that is "close"? I also know there is a lot of 54" media available because that size is a very popular size. I am not sure the 48" media selection is as popular, but if I were you I would check with whoever you buy your supplies from. Laminators are nice, but you can do a boatload of laminating & applying with a Big squeegee to get you started.

I DO NOT ADVISE anyone to ever buy a printer without having the set up & training from the dealer. I got mine from Sign supply USA, who is now proveer, but they showed up & installed the machine & trained me exceptionally well. -all free of charge.

I have a Roland 540 VPi, & I can't speak for the machine you are looking at but I am sure if I had it I would think it was the best in the world, I can tell you I am very glad I have the 54" & also like the cutter built in for some smaller stuff I don't lam & indoor stuff I do.

I didn't have much trouble getting started on my machine, it was pretty much plug & play, design in illy, pay attention to the cut lines, save as pdf & go. Banners are good money & I had 3-4x10 footers waiting in my email when my machine was set up, I punched them out the second day I had it & never looked back. When you get your hands on a printer, the opportunities grow. Make sure you have them covered. & good luck

 

[Kemble]

You guys are awesome, great replies. Good info, keep em coming.

I don't think I'll need to spend the extra money on a take-up roll mechanism, I can't ever see myself using it. 99% of my work is small decals ranging from 5" to 23". therefore I don't see myself worrying too much about maximizing a 4ft banner. Been doing small graphics for 4 years and I've done less than a dozen banners total. Perhaps it may change once I go full color but I have a special niche that I do which is 23" in size and lower.

I love the fact I don;t need to vent, thats a huge plus working out of my basement.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

Buy as big as you can afford. My BIGGEST mistake in this business was to purchase equipment from SW. So, shop around, and use the search feature. The reps couldn't install my equipment as it needed to be disassembled and brought through a 2nd floor window with about a 1/2 clearance on either side, something I wouldn't let them attempt after the first 1614 arrived SMASHED due to the way THEY packaged it. Take up roll is a BIG +. Besides Flexi, you're not getting much in software extras.

 

[heyskull]

We bought a VJ 1604 which is the 54" machine.
It has been unbelievable for the last 2 years.
Glad I bought bigger than 48"
The 54" and bigger valuejets are a better built machine.

SC

 

[Techman]

I would get and old model printer.. practice a lot and climb the learning curve. Something cheap to run to learn on for about a year.

Then and only then go spend 2 grand for a printer. Meanwhile outsource the prints from a respectable print supplier. You will find it hard to make that printer pay for itself if you never had one before.

The market is saturated with printers now. Ppl are selling their prints for just about cost.

 

[heyskull]

I out sourced our prints for a long time but found out later how rubbish the quality some companies were producing. So ask for samples and a quality pledge.

A friend bought a JV3 and I was given free run of the machine for the cost of ink which was great. I only decided to buy a machine of my own when we ended up having to fight for time on the machine. I even seen me turning up at 9pm and printing till the next morning!

You won't get much of a printer for 2 grand.
For that 2 grand you might end up spending more time maintaining/repairing it than making money.

I agree the market is saturated with digital printers and they are selling prints for less than cost which is frustrating.

 

[mark galoob]

you need a take up roll, it will save you lots of time and money on big prints, and what if you have a big print that takes an hour or 2 to print...are you just gonna sit in front of your machine and roll by hand...take up roll is great, i can gang prints and just let the darn thing print and not have to worry about it...sometimes its printing for several hrs at a time...mutoh 54" by the way...i also think you need to have a good lam and cutter...

mark galoob

 

[Kemble]

Is having training for 2 days worth spending the extra $2,500? $2,500 is a lot of money, I suppose the value of the training all depends on how well you take it in and will be different from one person to the next.

Has anyone paid for SW's $2,500 training? What were your experiences?

 

[Graphics2u]

99% of my work is small decals ranging from 5" to 23". therefore I don't see myself worrying too much about maximizing a 4ft banner. Been doing small graphics for 4 years and I've done less than a dozen banners total. Perhaps it may change once I go full color but I have a special niche that I do which is 23" in size and lower.
.

The thing is You're not offering printing now so you don't know what kind of business may come you way once you have the capability. For that reason I would go with the 54" just for the fact of the availability of materials in that size. The take up reel is great to have, although I agree with Bob that the ones on the older falcon printers were much easier to operate. I would still get one.

 

[The Big Squeegee]

The down side of owning your own printer is that, if you don't use it much, the maintenance gets to be very costly. If you are doing less than 30" stuff then get a machine to do that work. If you find that you need an occasional print that is wider, farm it our to one of our fine MM''s here at:signs101:

 

[Edserv]

We purchased a vj1204 and 24" plotter (with optical sensor for contour cuts) from Sign Warehouse. Living in Hawaii, installation help wasn't an option. We had never printed a sign or banner before and were pretty apprehensive about purchasing the vj and plotter without any help (we did receive fantastic phone support from SW.)

2 years later and I can't tell you how happy we've been with our setup. We just recently purchased a 36" cold/hot lam on Craigslist for car wraps and over-lamming outdoor signs, but our eco-solvent vj colors seem to hold-up 99% of the time even without cold-lamming. (Even in the super-intense Hawaiian sunlight!) No fading!

I really believe if you're somewhat technical, and don't mind researching to find help, you will be able to get up and running quickly with this equipment. This forum is a great resource for help.

I would also highly recommend a couple "Big Squeegees" to overlam some of your color prints (it's awesome- works great and is easy to use.) Trust me, get a couple Big Squeegees (36/48 at least.) You can find the Big Squeegee info on this forum or buy it also from SW. We still use our Squeegees even tho we have a cold lam. It saves time and handles our 48" wide overlam jobs easily.

The only problem we had with the vj 1204 was that our machine (2 years ago) came loaded with the wrong firmware, but with some patience and great help from SW, we quickly downloaded the update and printed our first full-color banner within 20 minutes which still hangs in our shop today.

I'm not sure about your pricing, but you can buy the equipment in pieces to save money. We originally bought our plotter without the optical sensor but added it within a couple months and installed in ourselves.

I think you could get into a vj1204 for 7 to 10k, and you might be able to update your plotter for contour cuts with research. You can sometimes find the vj1204 on Craigslist and Ebay, but you might want to know what you're doing before taking a chance on used equipment. I would feel comfortable adding additional vj's at this point, but you can be in an unknown territory with damaged and troubled equipment. But if you can buy a vj for 2 to 4k used, it might be worth the risk.

As far as the smells from the eco-solvent inks- there really aren't any that have bothered us too much. We now use a closed facility with air conditioning, and nobody complains. I've owned a true solvent printer (for plastic card printing) and it was horrid. Headaches, etc. But our vj doesn't give us any problem.

By the way, you can also feel free to contact me if you would like some help with finding resources for Flexi software. Our ops manager purchased some tutorials that made him a master at Flexi fairly quickly. I think that is somewhat important for the tricky artwork conversions and ripping. Also make sure you have a reliable and beefy cpu for your artwork/ripping. And make sure you back up your files!

Hope this helps,

Chris,
Lets Go Banners

 

[907customs]

I have attended two different printer training courses at SW, for my last 2 purchases. The $2500 that you are mentioning sounds a little steep, but if that's part of the package, you may not be able to get it without that. Weather or not you attend is up to you. In my experiences, it is worth the time to get the training, especially since this is your first printer. Printing is a whole different world, with color profiles, printer maintenance, etc.

Here are my suggestions being a long time SW customer, and Valujet user:

Buy the package you mentioned, add the take up real (you will thank me), attend the training (take notes). If you need a good sales rep, call Leisa at ext. 2114. pm me if you need any other first hand info. I've always had good luck with SW and Mutoh printers.

 

[Kemble]

Buy the package you mentioned, add the take up real (you will thank me), attend the training (take notes). If you need a good sales rep, call Leisa at ext. 2114. pm me if you need any other first hand info. I've always had good luck with SW and Mutoh printers.

Yeah, Leisa is great, she's been my rep for as long as I can remember.

 

[tomence]

Don't limit yourself. Get the widest printer you can get at least get the 54" this way you can offer more services to your customers. Getting smalller size printer and at the same time you are blowing 20 Grand man that is a lot of money to spend on 48" printer. If i was you i would get a new Roland VP-540i and all you need to get is the laminator. Roland comes with its own rip software so no need to get flexi. Or maybe get the less expensive one SP540i you can get this one at $16500. Just think about it i was the same as you, looking at 30" printer coz i was thinking at the time i didnt need anything bigger than that. But to my surprice i got a 54" Roland and now i do lot of 4 foot banners, window perf graphics which are larger than 48", i mean you can always print smaller on big printer but cant print big on small printer.