First time buyer questions - looking at Epson S60600/S80600

[DigiDude]

I posted a post similar to this post in the Mimaki forum inquiring about the JV150. If there are any Epson S60600 or S80600 owners/dealers that could help answer my questions about these two Epson machines, it would be greatly appreciated!

I'm looking to get my first digital printer (I will also be purchasing a laminator and cutter, as I currently have neither of these). My budget is $40,000 - $50,000, I will be creating decals, wraps, basic signage, POP, photo prints, and wall coverings. I'm currently researching Mimaki, Epson, and HP. Below are my questions about the S60600 and S80600.

1) Who is a good, reputable seller of Epson that will do a great job setting up and installing the S60600/S80600, and who also has excellent after-the-sale customer service if something goes wrong? I currently reside in Virginia, near North Carolina and Tennesse

2) What is required for basic, routine maintenance of the S60600/S80600 and any associated maintenance costs? In specific, how often and how much time will it take per week to maintain the S60600/S80600? Also, how much ink will regularly be wasted for maintenance, and what other consumables are involved in the maintenance of the S60600/S80600? Please keep in mind that I'm new to this business, so it's quite likely that initially the machine won't be used but a few days a week until I build up my book.

3) What is the cost of ink per sq. ft using this machine? Or, how many ml of ink is used by the S60600/S80600 to print on 1 sq. ft. of SAV?

4) I will need the S60600/S80600 to sometimes print bright/neon-like colors. Will the S80600 give me any advantage over the S60600 in accomplishing this? I have a very basic knowledge of ICC profiles, as I've done photography work in the past and regularly calibrated my monitor with an i1 device. I know it will be different creating profiles for an output device such as a printer. Any advice for equipment for creating custom profiles for achieving these types of bright/neon-like colors would be much appreciated.


Thanks!
Jason

 

[DigiDude]

Also, I am needing test prints from these two machines that I am happy to pay for. Any dealers/owners of these machines out there who can accommodate me on this?

 

[mbasch]

This is just my personal experience and oppinion. I'd suggest not buying an Epson. We bought an Epson S70670 and it was a HUGE disappointment. We bought it primarily for wallpaper to be able to incorporate the silver ink. We could not get 2 panels to line up even close and were never able to successfully print a single job. Some would be 1" off on an 8' (vs 1/16 off on our HP). The biggest disappointment was Epsons "oh well" response. The claimed we weren't calibrating it correctly and pointed the finger at us. They eventually sent out a tech who said that was just the best we would get. We had the 10 color machine and white constantly clogged print heads and used a ton of ink in its self cleaning. We also did a vehicle wrap that required a lot of orange only to discover that the orange was only good against fade for about 6 months (Ultra Chrome GSX inks) and we had to redo the wrap at our cost. This was just our experience, but I would NEVER buy another Epson solvent. For you first printer and with only operating it a few days a week to start, I'd go with an HP. FYI: We still have the epson but only use it for short term, indoor work until we can sell it , we also have 2 HP's, 2 Fuji Acuities and a Mimaki solvent. For roll printing HP is our go to. Just my 2 cents.

 

[ProColorGraphics]

This is just my personal experience and oppinion. I'd suggest not buying an Epson. We bought an Epson S70670 and it was a HUGE disappointment. We bought it primarily for wallpaper to be able to incorporate the silver ink. We could not get 2 panels to line up even close and were never able to successfully print a single job. Some would be 1" off on an 8' (vs 1/16 off on our HP). The biggest disappointment was Epsons "oh well" response. The claimed we weren't calibrating it correctly and pointed the finger at us. They eventually sent out a tech who said that was just the best we would get. We had the 10 color machine and white constantly clogged print heads and used a ton of ink in its self cleaning. We also did a vehicle wrap that required a lot of orange only to discover that the orange was only good against fade for about 6 months (Ultra Chrome GSX inks) and we had to redo the wrap at our cost. This was just our experience, but I would NEVER buy another Epson solvent. For you first printer and with only operating it a few days a week to start, I'd go with an HP. FYI: We still have the epson but only use it for short term, indoor work until we can sell it , we also have 2 HP's, 2 Fuji Acuities and a Mimaki solvent. For roll printing HP is our go to. Just my 2 cents.

That's weird. I have had great luck with my S70. I have done several 11' tall panels of Dreamscape and they always lined up great. I have not had any complains about fading. I am very meticulous about doing cleaning and nozzle checks, so I haven't had any issues with clogs either.

I have an S80 and a Fuji Acuity as well.

 

[unclebun]

I've had a Mimaki (older generation) and currently use an S70670 with the 10 ink setup.

The colors we can hit with the S70 have a much wider range than our 4 color Mimaki did, but I believe Mimaki has expanded gamut inks now too.

We have produced wallpaper with our S70 and have not experienced the problem with length. There is a length calibration you can do, and it is repeatable. However, you can have length discrepancies between the first print and subsequent ones because of takeup reel tension being absent at the beginning.

We get around the orange ink permanency problem by not using orange ink on permanent outdoor signs (by making a different profile for it). The S80 doesn't use orange ink, but I don't know if the red ink they substituted has any better permanency.

When we first got the printer we had a clogging problem with white ink caused by Grimco not actually having any white ink in stock and Epson not having any either (we bought the machine very early) and the printer having to wait 2 weeks shut down because of no ink. Once the print heads were replaced (by Epson under warranty) we have had no further incidents of clogging. If you are not printing regularly or are not using the special colors, printing a nozzle check once a day is sufficient to keep everything clear. Manual cleaning is about once a week, prompted by the machine, and all inks have to be shaken once every 3 weeks; silver and white have to be shaken daily.

I'd say that even without daily use, routine automatic head cleaning will use about a quart of ink every 2-3 months (spread over all the colors--this is based on how often I have to dump the waste ink container). I never print silver (I do use white regularly) and have to buy a cartridge maybe once every 9 months.

In 5 years of use, I am on the first pint of head cleaning solvent still. I buy a maintenance kit of swabs and wipers and other parts about twice a year, maybe 3 times.

I haven't actually figured up a cost per square inch, but the Epson website should have numbers for you.

We bought ours from Grimco as they were the only choice around here. I set it up myself, because I needed to use it immediately upon arrival. But they came out the next week and went through things with me. I think you'll have to go to the dealers available to you and try to determine their quality and level of service.

All after-sale service I've used has been direct from Epson. That's how Epson rolls. I highly recommend buying the maintenance contract with them, at least until you've paid off the machine and have money saved for service calls and repair/replacement parts in the future.

 

[ColorCrest]

Yup. What unclebun says.

 

[unclebun]

I didn't answer your question about neon colors and profiling.

First, it is impossible to print neon colors/fluorescent colors without a fuorescent or neon ink. However, when it comes to printing bright colors, ones that might fool the viewer into thinking they are looking at a fluorescent ink, you can approach that. With a straight CMYK printer, the gamut is such that many of these bright colors are hard to replicate. Adding Lc and Lm helps somewhat, but it's the addition of colors like Gr, Or, Re that really helps with that. I don't think anyone makes a printer that uses Green ink any more, as you can achieve all the "neon green" colors using C, Lc, and Y. Having the Orange ink made producing a bright orange possible, something we needed. Likely the same is true of having Red ink, and possibly more, since the use of R+Y should make possible deeper, purer dark oranges that don't look dirty or brown.

I use an i1 for profiling, and if you are using a RIP that has the capability, then making profiles is a relatively easy, though time-consuming, process.

 

[Bly]

We just bought a 60600 and I'm pretty impressed so far.
Had it running since Tuesday and we've run about 6 rolls of vinyl through it.
Not sure about ink costs yet. There's an Epson app which calculates that.
Reports seem to suggest they are fairly frugal with ink.
The quality is great at higher passes, you can trade some quality for speed which is fine.
With droplet size like this printer you don't need light inks so the double CMYK is adequate.
Colour gamut is perfectly fine too - forget about printing neon or fluro though.
I think you'd need to make your own profiles to get the best out of this machine.
Maintenance seems easy, ink dries quick and the takeup is sturdy and trouble free.
I can see us using this printer a lot.
Initially I thought if we like it we might get an 80600 as well but at this stage I'd go for another 60600.

 

[CanuckSigns]

We've had an S80600 for about 6 months now, it has been a real workhorse for us. We do quite a lot of printed wall graphics, mostly on vinyl and have never had an issue with the length being off, in fact this printer is way better at paneling than our old Rolands, the colour consistency panel to panel is absolutely perfect, even over a whole roll of vinyl.

Maintenance is a breeze, the machine basically cleans itself, you need to do a manual clean about once every 3 weeks, which takes about 5 minutes.

Overall we are very happy with the machine, only downside we have noticed is the strong ink smell, it's much stronger than any other eco sol machine i've run.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

The S80 doesn't use orange ink, but I don't know if the red ink they substituted has any better permanency.

I had to clear this up.. the S80600 does indeed use orange and red inks. It's one of very few machines that can accurately achieve Pantone 021 Orange.

That being said, we love our 80600. Faultless so far with colour consistency, long runs, scratch resistance etc. Most jobs leave here at 6 or 8 pass, which look far better than most competitors 12+ pass modes.
Our only issue is that it can sometimes print too fast (hah!), so need to put some fans onto the outgoing media so the job dries before the take-up unit has a chance to roll it away.

 

[DigiDude]

We've had an S80600 for about 6 months now, it has been a real workhorse for us. We do quite a lot of printed wall graphics, mostly on vinyl and have never had an issue with the length being off, in fact this printer is way better at paneling than our old Rolands, the colour consistency panel to panel is absolutely perfect, even over a whole roll of vinyl.

Maintenance is a breeze, the machine basically cleans itself, you need to do a manual clean about once every 3 weeks, which takes about 5 minutes.

Overall we are very happy with the machine, only downside we have noticed is the strong ink smell, it's much stronger than any other eco sol machine i've run.

When you say "the machine basically cleans itself", does it go through an automated, daily/weekly/monthly cleaning routine? What if I'm away from the office for several days, will the S80600 and S60600 do like the JV150 series from Mimaki will do in that they do an hourly cleaning involving on picoliters of ink, and a 48 hours refresh that uses 12ml of ink? Also, can you describe any manual cleaning and maintenance that would need to be done to the S60600/S80600 (daily, weekly, monthly)? Thanks.

 

[ProColorGraphics]

When you say "the machine basically cleans itself", does it go through an automated, daily/weekly/monthly cleaning routine? What if I'm away from the office for several days, will the S80600 and S60600 do like the JV150 series from Mimaki will do in that they do an hourly cleaning involving on picoliters of ink, and a 48 hours refresh that uses 12ml of ink? Also, can you describe any manual cleaning and maintenance that would need to be done to the S60600/S80600 (daily, weekly, monthly)? Thanks.

There is very little maintenance to do on the S80. All I do is clean the cap tops and around the heads like once a week.

It does have self cleaning setup that does a lot of the cleaning automatically. (might be using the wrong terminology here)

 

[DigiDude]

There is very little maintenance to do on the S80. All I do is clean the cap tops and around the heads like once a week.

It does have self cleaning setup that does a lot of the cleaning automatically. (might be using the wrong terminology here)

Thanks for the info! Any idea of the amount of ink that would be used in a month's time in self-cleaning of the S80?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[CanuckSigns]

Thanks for the info! Any idea of the amount of ink that would be used in a month's time in self-cleaning of the S80?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

You're overthinking it, the cost of ink used in cleaning for a month is less than you spend on toilet paper in the same month.

 

[dmcgary]

First time digital printer... I'd consider the S40600. Half the speed of the 60600, but 2/3rds the price if you don't truly need the speed. I don't think that the 80600 widens the color gamut enough to justify getting it on that purpose alone. I understand wanting the best, but you'd have to be the one to determine if it is what you truly need. The 40600 and 60600 prints very nicely if your profiles are set up correctly. If on the fence, I'd try to set up a particular file that you needed to see in print, and have a dealer print off of both units 80600 and the 60600 or 40600 to see the difference in color. If that isn't still bright enough, you most likely would need flourescent ink I think. Problem with that may be that it is not light fast and short term use only. Perhaps third party ink in a different (test) printer.

 

[31legen]

Get an epson s80. Grimco offers decent service and has an outfit out of charlotte that will come out and get you up and going. If your on the fence and want to see one working, your welcome to come by my location in Richmond.

 

[Robert Mowad]

I got a floor model Epson 60600. Grimco never came to set it up with the tech. But now 8 months later we are having trouble with the pressure of the pinch rollers. It will not register or read the material each time we get an error to reload media and push take up reals. Any advice as to why this may be and a corrective measure to take.

Thanks
RM

 

[jon vital]

Do these GS3 inks still require full outgassing time as per older solvent inks? We're looking at a new machine but we often do full bus wraps and the drying time of solvent is an issue when you have circa 100m of print

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Epson claim 6 hour dry time ready to laminate.
We still dry overnight as a minimum. Seems to work well so far.

 

[unclebun]

We are using the previous generation Epson S70670 and find that laminating after 3-4 hours is perfectly fine, with no failures, no outgassing under the laminate, etc. It's still not immediate laminating so you still have to have a place to put the print for a while, but it can help to keep things moving.