victor bogdanov
Active Member
duplicate
-
I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...
News HP Latex R530
- Thread starter balstestrat
- Start date
P Wagner
--
The cost of of quality polymeric calendared (54-inch x 50 yard) vinyl roll is roughly $200, this is close to $.30 per square foot - with many costing more than this. Even the least expensive economy grade monomeric vinyl is difficult to find at $.15 per square foot ($101 for a 54-inch x 50 yard roll), and it will likely shrink and fail in short order with outdoor exposure.
Yard signs on Corrugated Polypropylene are a very competitive market segment. To be cost competitive and grow rigid business is very challenging in today's market with print & mount. Second, there are a many higher value applications that print & mount cannot compete effectively with direct print, including printing to acrylic, glass, brushed metallic surfaces, high-end wood for interior, and more.
Finally, cost justification for lower volume rigid printers is simple and straightforward - and it doesn't take anywhere near thousands of boards to get there.
victor bogdanov
Active Member
Wouldn't UV be more desirable for the higher value applications?
Another way to look at it is it's like having another employee. You can load a 4x8 sheet in walk away doing other stuff while it's printing.. it's slow enough that you can print a board and go load printers / laminators / graphtecs while it's printing
We run almost everything on 50" x 100" sheets, while we're UV printing were operating our summa / graphtec / weeding stuff, and doing other preparations ... It takes 5-10 seconds to pull a sheet off and begin printing the next sheet... If we were using an applicator table, that same employee can't be weeding / finishing other products while doing it. Even if you're low volume in the direct to substrate portion.... It still allows you to use the 1 guy to do multiple things at once and frees up labor.
I do too feel like it's quite a bit expensive compared to UV printers of.similar speeds though... But I get what they're going after... Latex is a nicer print than UV flatbeds, and this allows them to do roll to roll as well in 1 machine.
I started with an fb500 though, and I hate belt / hybrid printing. Registration is much, much harder and it was never bang on for us.... The suction is nowhere near as good as a true flatbed... (Maybe you can turn off zones on this new printer?) or maybe it has a better registration system.
Would be interesting to know the sales of the r1/r2, see if it met hps expectations.... Or if the sales were bad so they came out with this model trying to compete.
i can see lots of smaller limited space shops picking this up though.
victor bogdanov
Active Member
Yea but it takes under a minute to mount a 4x8 on flatbed table. Again if you're doing a sheet here and there idk how much time you're saving and if you are doing more then there are probably better flatbeds available in this price rangeAnother way to look at it is it's like having another employee. You can load a 4x8 sheet in walk away doing other stuff while it's printing.. it's slow enough that you can print a board and go load printers / laminators / graphtecs while it's printing
balstestrat
Problem Solver
Like I said before it's nothing like FB but really it's the successor of it as the low-mid range machine. R1/2 has good registration and I expect this to have the same. Automatic vacuum zones as well and real vacuum pump (3) while FB just had some fans.
I think this model is the one people were waiting for all along. If this came 5 years ago before inflation and all, and sold for $70k a lot of FBs would have been converted to this.
Then again that flatbed is sitting doing nothing if you happen to have no board(job)s to print and no roll option. Problem with that is also the ink you have chosen to use. There's always a trade off.
johnnysigns
New Member
Is this the small format R2R printhead architecture? Looks like no cleaning station or intermediate tanks for ink delivery.
balstestrat
Problem Solver
It's basically L800 inside. Small heads, maintenance cartridge (not separate roll) and yes it does have intermediate tanks.
The maintenance cartridge is apparently new as well in a way that you can empty the waste ink separate and keep using the main part longer.
Last edited:
Morten CHristensen
New Member
FB500/700 was way more automated and industrial than this new overpriced plastic toy!
If only I had been able to fit a never generation printhead on our old FB500 I would have kept it... in the end Print quality / speed was the only thing that killed ours, could be solved with never gen heads.
Personally I would keep my eye on: https://www.hongsam.cn/
If only I had been able to fit a never generation printhead on our old FB500 I would have kept it... in the end Print quality / speed was the only thing that killed ours, could be solved with never gen heads.
Personally I would keep my eye on: https://www.hongsam.cn/
P Wagner
--
The R530 is shipping now. Check with your reseller on delivery window timing.
balstestrat
Problem Solver
Yeah it's already being delivered, already having my hands on one. Maybe if you order now it might take a month or two.
And how is that? I don't think you have even seen this new one let alone used it.
Morten CHristensen
New Member
Balstestrat is correct is correct I haven't personally used the machine, but saw it demonstrated at last weeks Fespa show in Berlin.
I could be wrong, among other things, it looked like it lacked the camera/placement function which I find is a great feature on the old Scitex FB'sit's could also be the demonstrator not being quite up to snuff on all it's features - In general it looked kind of cheap, which it only is compared to the Big Brother Latex flatbeds..
And that is coming from a guy who has loves his latex' since gen 1 and currently running 3 x 570 in production.
Too expensive for the small shops currently running roll to roll and too cheap for the big buys running semi industrial UV, as I see the world right now.
balstestrat
Problem Solver
It has automatic position and width detection. Usually when they run shows they just print chosen things with simple setup and won't do anything else.
And I would argue way more automation than FB ever did. You can pre-setup 100 jobs and just keep on inserting material (even different substrate) and it will keep on printing.
Also it's got the same exact belt system as big R but then its got basically Latex 830W bolted on top. Vacuum is a little less but way more than FB.
There's still a massive market for entry level machines. Plenty of people to sell it to. Not everyone is just beginner and industrial.
I'm not saying it's perfect or the same as R1000 (buy that if you want "industrial") but definitely potential.
Okay thanks. Yes, our supplier said August if we ordered now. Sorry, my message was unclear on that.
Do you know if it will have the same issues as the bigger R1000/2000 with thinner substrates and the heat causing warpage? Also with the double sided 1st surface getting damaged during 2 surface printing? From the R1000 thread it looks more like profile settings can alleviate the latter?
We are scheduling a demo soon and hopefully will be able to address these issues directly but wondering if anyone has hands-on on this machine yet.
balstestrat
Problem Solver
I would say expect similar performance. You still need heat and if the substrate is heat sensitive.... It's going to deform.
Can't say for sure about the double sided but again, it's the same belt, same ink, still heated... expecting similar result. You can work it pretty well tho with settings.