Do you charge more for white ink?

[TrustMoore_TN]

Just curious... we just spent almost 3 weeks with our Agfa tech getting our Anapurna XL back up to speed to be able to print white. We've learned some costly lessons that I'd like to share with you. Since white ink is much more viscous than other colors and it tends to separate out if not used, we are now printing something with White Ink every day whether we have a job for it or not. This keeps the tanks stirred up and the white ink in the lines from separating, and ultimately clogging the heads. This might be a unique situation with this printer and ink, but I have a feeling we aren't alone in this. We just replaced the pre-white and spot white head because both heads had so many nozzles clogged from sediment in the bottom of the white ink tank.

My question is, with jobs that require white ink, do you upcharge for that? Our white ink cost is double what all of the other colors are. I'm not sure if thats the case with other printers. How would you determine your price for using white?

Thanks in advance for your input. Looking forward to hearing from you guys.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

Haven't thought of upcharging for white. I may just start.

 

[TrustMoore_TN]

Thanks for your input Wraps(cubed). LOL I think that since we are offering something that isn't immediately available to most digital printing vendors especially in Atlanta, that we should be able to charge a premium for it.

 

[Malkin]

I think it makes sense.

Our white printing capabilities are tied to the EDGE, which retails for more than the solvent machine anyways.

 

[sjm]

BlueMoonAtl,

Who set-up's the spot white, over and underprint's for example? Or how about a three layer print on a florescent 2" material. The combinations are endless. I think you should be charging.

 

[Gino]

We're having a 25% off sale on signs that are white lettering with a white background up til 'Memorial Day'.

 

[sjm]

hehe, are they being screen printed? Must save on film costs.

 

[Gino]

Nope, but we'll honor most types.

Mostly hand painted.


Any white substrate will receive a 25% discount off of our n regular pricing by just mentioning our ad. No other color will be substituted.

This promotion cannot be used in conjunction with any other ads we might be running at the same time.

Offer expires May 31st at midnight.

 

[greenchuck]

The shop that I work charges for white and i think it's crazy not to. We print 2-3 layers of white in a lot of different instances to get the opacity we're looking for. Combine that with the fact the your white is twice the CMYK and it's definitely justified.

On another note alot of white ink printers have recirculation systems that constantly recirculate the white ink through the ink system to avoid what you're describing, I'm not familiar with Agfa's but fear you may be fighting an uphill battle on this one, my friend.

 

[RoCo]

I run a Scitex FB6100 with white ink. It has an automatic white ink circulation systems for the exact reason the original poster described. And you should definitely be charging more for white - it costs more, and, with my press, takes two print cycles to do a single piece (the white ink prints separately from the CMYK) so it takes more production time to do it. It's a premium product - charge a premium price.

 

[Antonyu]

We charge more for printings with white ink. 1ltr of white ink costs the same has any other color so its only fair for that extra fee.

From my experience, when printing with full white coverage the cost of printing is higher then only printing CMYK because of the total white ink used not being charged to the customer. Oh well, you got to keep clients happy


Regarding white ink automatic recirculation, its a good thing this machines have it but they only recirculate up to the head or only from main tank to secundary tank (back and forward). The problem is the white inks deposits inside the head and/or between secundary tank to the head.
Our Xaar 500 white ink heads need regularly cleaning solution through them to clean all nozzles.
This can be avoided if you print white everyday.

 

[Rasmus]

It makes sense to charge extra if running jobs with white ink.
I have worked with the Durst Rho800 Hybrid printer, never had problems with the white heads or the nozzles. Every morning I did a wet wipe and a purge followed up by a nozzletest.
The white ink has another viscusity of course, it was thicker in the Durst.

Any thoughts to do with the Anapurna XL? The company I work within now has 2 Anapurna's. Is it a nice printer? Pretty slow compaired to other? What about the resolution?

Rasmus

 

[HulkSmash]

White ink costs more.. So charge more.

 

[johnnysigns]

White ink on our Nur/HP certainly cost more when we ran it so I'd be very inclined to charge a premium for it.

 

[SecondCityPrint]

We charge more for white ink jobs on our OCE Arizona for 2 reasons. First: it costs more, plain and simple. Second: it takes 3 times the printing time since it must be layered. If the job is simple and straight forward we may discount the price but we have taken to charging a larger file setup fee to compensate since each file has to be prepped to create the spot layer... also time consuming depending on the file .