Unfortunately there will always be a color difference between the two.
When I get down to where there's only a couple feet left on a roll, or large enough pieces of scrap that would normally just go in the trash, I cut it off, roll it up and stick them in a box. When I need to do color matches/ color proofs I rotate em' 90 so they're long enough, stick em' in the printer I'll be using for the job. Waste doesn't go to waste, don't have to use what's on full rolls you need for jobs just for these things, and colors be accurate. I always have a few pieces of the most commonly used stuff for this. Doesn't take up much room, and off of standard 54" wide material you can get a quite a bit on a 24" wide strip, not just for proofs, but experimenting, testing profiles and other things, or just trying to match colors. You can waste a lot of vinyl trying to hit some colors, making a swatch or two, or even small decal proofs to show a customer. Been doing this for decades, and can't even imagine how many rolls of vinyl it's saved having to purchase, a foot here and there adds up to a lot over time. One man's trash is another man's treasure
I should have been more specific. The printer is not just for proofing. Its mainly for our designing and sampling flow. We outsource our printing and so sampling and production happen at different locations. So we cannot do without the desktop printer.I was curious about when you tried using a different printer as a proofing printer- did you compare the proofing printer's
Ok, I thought you did your own printing in house. That changes things.My bad.
Great..Anything from Epson or Canon that can print on Vinyl? As those brands are easily available here.
Roland is the only one I know of that has one that bridges that gap for vinyl use. Most companies make desktop paper machines, or large format (36" and up) for vinyl, with nothing in between. Desktops are made for documents, photos, they will print to some thin vinyls like label & crafting sheets with coatings that simulate printing to paper specifically designed for use in them, so the inks will dry without heat. Adhesive vinyls used in the graphics and sign industry are too thick and heavy for them, so heads strike the material, and without heat, inks on vinyl will just puddle.
You may be able to find some 24" printers that may be able to handle vinyl, still considered large format (although in the "entry level" category), but still not desktop. Can get away with not using a RIP for printing, although not necessarily a good thing if trying to deal with sampling of items that final production is going to go thru a rip.
