General flatbed question

[CanuckSigns]

Ok, I don't have any experience with a flatbed, however it seems to be very overwhelming, I was hoping someone cold tell me what kind of speeds you can realistically achieve with a flatbed.

lets say I have $80,000 to spend on a new flatbed printer, one that can be bought and easily serviced in North America, how many 4x8 sheets can I expect to be able to print in an hour at a quality that I can actually sell to clients.

secondly, is it possible to get a flatbed print to look as good as a print off my Roland versacamm? All the prints I have seen at trade shows always have a grainy look to them, reminds me of screen printed 4 colour process prints. The few times I have ordered flatbed prints from wholesale shops, the quality leaves A LOT to be desired.

sorry for the noob questions, but like I said, I find flatbed printers very confusing!

 

[TimToad]

I can't speak to the current crop of $80k machines out there for either speed or quality, but the $80k Gerber Ion Solara I bought (for pennies on the dollar) with the business I recently purchased does a better job than I expected.

At its fastest setting with some basic, solid colors, coroplast type yard signs, 10 up on a sheet, we can get 4-5 sheets printed in an hour with IMO, decent quality. Does it match the saturation, sharpness and vibrancy of an inkjet, NO, but at its highest setting on Alupanel or other really smooth substrate, its pretty damn good. What it really excels at is like architectural renderings on construction site signs. We've done plenty of photographic prints on Alupanel that the clients have been really impressed with.

I'm sure some of the newer machines are even better than this thing, but due to it coming with the business at a huge discount and it being discontinued by Gerber, we're running with it until it turns into a boat anchor.

 

[StarSign]

My Oce 250 can push out 130sqft hr in production mode, but trying to compare a flatbed with a solvent, Latex, or eco solve printer is apples to oranges IMHO

 

[CanuckSigns]

My Oce 250 can push out 130sqft hr in production mode, but trying to compare a flatbed with a solvent, Latex, or eco solve printer is apples to oranges IMHO

Can you expand on that? I'm curious what the difference between the 2 types of printers are from an application standpoint. Are there certain things a flatbed can do that a solvent can't?, even with a few additional steps?

 

[MagnificentBastid]

HP Scitex FB700

We got an order for 420 24"x48" Single Sided Coroplast with easils on friday; began the job on monday, and finished it by the end of the work day today. We printed them at around 7 min per 4x8 sheet in express mode (104 4'x8' sheets total). Quality looked great! We even had time to knock out a few other jobs, and maintenance the printer as well. Definitely and improvement over our older method of printing solvent on vinyl and mounting to coroplast.

This printer is out of your price range, but the HP FB500 is closer and is almost as fast. I hope this information is useful!

 

[chafro]

Spend more!!! You won't regret it.