Differences in Roland printers

[mladams7259]

Are there any differences between a CammJet 5000 and The Hi-Fi Jet Pro besides the ability of the CammJet to cut also? I know where I can get a deal on either. Just like to know from someone experienced what the differences were. Also what might I expect to pay to upgrade to the eco-sol inks on these printers?

 

[Charlie J]

I was just told a few minutes ago that it would cost about $4000 to upgrade

 

[mladams7259]

hmm, thats good. seems like it would be more feasable to buy a used cammjet for 2500 and upgrade to solvent for 4000 and then you would have a brand new roland solvent printer for 6500. Surely im missing something. Theres got to be more to it than that?? Anyone?

 

[Hollywood]

The FJ 500 is a little faster than the CJ and it prints in 8 colors, CJ print 6, and CJ Contour Cut, or as a stand alone plotter.

 

[Hollywood]

Science is always gettin better, so there may be a few miner things, most people just don't convert, they may have the business to support a new $20-$40K printer, and the newer one are must faster.

 

[mladams7259]

what about a Mutoh RJ-4100 can it be converted to Eco Sol inks?

 

[Gino]

Basically, you can upgrade anything, but the machine was really built with different intentions. When we looked into it, it cost about $5,000 or so if I remember correctly, but the head heights were different, carriage speed was out of whack and some other things that didn’t quite jive. All in all, it was explained to us that to let the machine go as it was intentioned and get the correct machine for the application you need or desire. This was not told to us by a rep or salesperson. This was told to us by the man that works on our machines. He had nothing to gain, but a lot to lose by telling us that. He had done many conversions and although everything worked, it never worked at 100%. Now if you don’t know what 100% is to begin with, does that mean you’re not missing out on anything ?? Well, can you take that chance… can your customers take that chance with you… can your business take the chance of foundering because you want to save on a piece of equipment that is probably going to make your living for you ?? Your call…. !!!

 

[paul luszcz]

We have a CJ540 EX Series II, which became the SC540 EX six months after we bought it. It is identical to the Sol Jet in every way except it has no heaters and uses water based ink.

We have a quote in hand to convert it to solvent inks for $7650. This includes replacing everything the ink touches, including the print heads. It also includes installing the heaters.

My technician claims Roland itself converted many of these originally and the conversion kits are sold by Roland. Most dealers deny this and advise against converting.

I've been trying to decide who to believe for a couple of years.

 

[Hollywood]

When I called roland about the convertion, they are the one's that told me that they do convertions with a kit, this came from Roland, they said it was a nice kit.

 

[mladams7259]

Im not trying to be cheap, just trying to save a few bucks, and thats always a good thing. I didnt know if there were any major issues that would arise if i converted one to eco inks or if it was a fairly seamless transition. Anyways, If it comes to spending several thousand dollars and no one is for sure if it will work 100% right, I believe Ill just go with the real thing, No conversions. thanks!

 

[geedub]

yea, stay away from the conversions. If you want an eco-sol, get one made to use the ink, it's going to be made with better materials the entire way through. If you have to trust someone to come out and do a conversion, who knows if the conversion will include all ink feed lines, which may end up corroding due to the harsher inks. Let's not forget about cleaning the heads, are the aqueous cleaning stations going to have enough vaccuum to get all the hardened ink particles out of the solvent heads? Also, how will the printer interpret the color? Aqueous ink tends to have a larger color gamut, so it may put together a color, that would be a red color with aqueous inks, but come out an ugly brown or gray color with eco-sol inks. ANOTHER point to think about is, no one media company is going to support conversion printers, so when you go to download their scientifically researched icc profile, and you find out there is no support for your frankenstein large format printer, you will definately be wishing you had bought the eco-sol printer, so you can have scientifically researched icc profiles, with almost no color matching involved, and no having to create your own icc profiles.

so, as you can tell, i'm on the "go for the eco-sol printer" side.