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HP R1000 - How Fast?

VTSigns

New Member
I'm wanting to get real world feedback on how many boards an hour those who have an HP R1000 are getting when printing coroplast or similar. I have an HP FB500 and I'm trying to get a grasp of how much faster the HP R1000 is than my existing FB500. I'm well aware of the specs that are posted by HP but I'm looking for actual user feedback.
 

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
A bit of research shows this:
FB500 max width is 1220mm
R1000 max width is 1625mm

FB550 "outdoor signage" 30 SQM
R1000 "outdoor signage 3 pass" 56 SQM

Although the R1000 sounds a lot faster, but realistically not by that much. the SQM print rate increases as the max width is bigger.

It gets difficult trying to visualise and guess how much faster 1 machine is to the other.
You also have to determine the print quality for those speeds.
Some machines can print fast, but poor quality. Some can print fast and retain good quality.

Also factor in ink costs vs the 2.
 

MelloImagingTechnologies

Many years in the Production Business
I have several customers who accidently purchased R1000 based on speed.
They now tell me it takes 10-15 minutes to warm up and then if you want something without banding- you're in 8 pass and it takes 12 minutes.
One of their bosses has informed me that when they do a double sided 4x8 it takes 50 minutes.
The operators hate how much maintenance there is to do every day.
Shoot me an email and I will give you the contact info for these poor operators.
Bruce
melloimaging.com
 

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
I have several customers who accidently purchased R1000 based on speed.
They now tell me it takes 10-15 minutes to warm up and then if you want something without banding- you're in 8 pass and it takes 12 minutes.
One of their bosses has informed me that when they do a double sided 4x8 it takes 50 minutes.
The operators hate how much maintenance there is to do every day.
Shoot me an email and I will give you the contact info for these poor operators.
Bruce
melloimaging.com

Surely there's media advance correction to adjust banding
 

parrott

New Member
Have no real world experience with these machines but we run 2 of the fb series. Have seen them in action at several of the print shows and was never impressed with the speed or quality. If you want/need production, buy a production machine. These things are plastic toys that are dressed up to look cool. When we were researching, we narrowed it down to Digitech and Vutek. We went with Digitech as they were faster with better quality. We are currently running 60 boards an hour in real sellable quality. Check them out as they are quality built machines right here in America.
 

balstestrat

Problem Solver
I'm wanting to get real world feedback on how many boards an hour those who have an HP R1000 are getting when printing coroplast or similar. I have an HP FB500 and I'm trying to get a grasp of how much faster the HP R1000 is than my existing FB500. I'm well aware of the specs that are posted by HP but I'm looking for actual user feedback.
You can expect following approx speeds and quality for coro in continuous printing. And yes, numbers pretty much from the spec sheet but that is quite close to real speeds as long as you understand it's continuous speed.
Outdoor 3/4-pass ~55-40 m2/h ~590-430 ft2/h
Indoor 6-pass ~28m2/h ~300ft2/h

FB500 max width is 1220mm
R1000 max width is 1625mm
FB500 and R1000 is the same width 64".

I have several customers who accidently purchased R1000 based on speed.
They now tell me it takes 10-15 minutes to warm up and then if you want something without banding- you're in 8 pass and it takes 12 minutes.
One of their bosses has informed me that when they do a double sided 4x8 it takes 50 minutes.
The operators hate how much maintenance there is to do every day.
Shoot me an email and I will give you the contact info for these poor operators.
Bruce
melloimaging.com

Some of this may be true but overly exaggerated. So I have to debunk some of this.
Warm-up won't take 10-15 minutes. Maybe 5-10 minutes on the first print of day/batch. 8-pass is needed for ACP but coro, PVC, foam, vinyl you can do 6-pass no problem.
There is no way one double sided board will take 50 minutes on 8-pass which is ~7 boards per hour. Even if you print just a single board it will take 5 mins to warm-up, 5 mins to cure side A and 5 mins to cure side B additional. Add ~20 minutes for printing and 35 minutes total is still far from 50 minutes. Want another board? You will get two double sides in 50 minutes.
They clearly don't know how to use it efficiently if they have a big issue with the warm-up time. You know it only warms up when you start but if you do more than one board it doesn't need another warm-up. It will continue to the next board.
What and why the heck do they maintenance every day? There's one maintenance every two days which doesn't even have to be done so often, weekly is fine. And the weekly maintenance takes about 10-15 minutes. Add another 10min for monthly.


I do agree that if you ultimately want speed don't buy it, it can't keep up with those 60 or 120 boards per hour machines.
 

balstestrat

Problem Solver
do you guys know the cost per sq ft of ink in 12 pass / 6 pass / 3 pass?
You will never get a good answer to that because it depends so much from the work you do. You most likely won't be printing the same image in 3 and 12-pass.
I've seen from R's that have printed well over 500000ft2 that the average ink use is about 1.1ml/ft2. And that includes all sort of jobs, different speeds, white ink, waste ink etc. You can get some idea from that. But it's the same thing, it can be 1.0 for someone and 1.3 for another.
 

Jrdn

New Member
If speed is your primary concern, this is not the printer for you. I get 7ish boards an hour at 6 pass hot loading the same file. I also run lots and lots of vinyl off it, so UV is not an option for me. The color range and consistency is fantastic. The white ink system is effortless... takes 2-3 mins to put in and take out and prints beautifully with no banding. Yes it makes you perform very regular maintenance, but it's quick, simple and very straightforward. Excluding white ink, and full coverage prints at 100-120 density, I'm averaging about $0.22/square actual ink usage cost. The maintenance roll goes quicker than I'd like, and at $350 a pop it can add up. We factor about $.45/ square ink cost into our models which seems to be a good average for 6c + intermittent white + maintenance.
 

Lunar Graphix

Button Pusher
Lots of bunk in this thread, not sure where you guys are getting your info.

I have a thread here on the forum where I have been documenting my findings with this new printer, and answering questions from the community. There was not much real world info on the internet when I bought this thing. I've definitely learned a lot!
https://signs101.com/threads/ive-owned-an-hp-r1000-since-april-2019-ask-me-anything.157677/

6 months ago we sold our r1000 and bought the r2000. 30% more throughput and 30% cheaper ink cost. Couldn't be happier.

Here's a snippet from my thread that discusses the numbers everyone's wondering about:

Please find attached our ink consumption and SQFT printed for the last 3 months.

365,496.883 ft² of substrate printed 3 months
150.194 L ink consumed in 3 months
Estimated cost per sqft = $0.045
(this is based on 3 months of printing with 60% of prints being on yard sign/ coroplast @ 3pass)

We have three main quality settings we use across all of our profiles:

Majority quality level used (about 60% of total jobs) = 3 pass, 4 color, 70 density (yard signs). I can get 100-110 double sided 18x24" signs per hour.

Second most used quality level = 4 pass, 6 color, 80 density (for nearly all prints that aren't required to be ultra high quality)

Least used quality level = 6 pass, 6 color, 90-100 density (for high res images & some solid color prints)

Keep in mind you can go up to like 10 or 12 pass. However, on a full coverage print I don't notice quality improving past a 6 pass. For fine text prints we would do 6 pass + 600dpi

White ink starts out at a 33 pass.
We hardly ever printed white in the last year. I think I did a single job. We just don't go after that kind of stuff.
White 33 pass 54" x 48" translucent vinyl (sandwich mode white/color/white) took approximately 45 minutes to print.

3L ink from grimco is $285. There are 8 colors : CMYK, LC, LM, Optimizer, Overcoat (actually 9 if you count white). You must use overcoat and optimizer on every print, though for certain things I profiled my substrate to use less than 5% for each (HP default profiles around 15-20%)

Print head is $460 - We replace @ between 50 and 60,000ml fired. (they are warrantied to 12,000ml). They are solid heads and easy to change out. I could swap one with my eyes closed. For us this was like every 3-4 months. Depends on the color though. Some heads I can get 6 months on them. Typically a print issue can be resolved by a calibration and so no need to replace the head.

R series cleaning kit (basically a paper towel roll & filters) $397 - we have to replace every 2 weeks or so. Good news about this is if you're replacing them it means you're printing which means you're making money. It only uses the roll during printing. Takes about 15 minutes to swap and clean properly.

Sometimes we would have a bad head and if it was under 12,000ml fired, we'd open a case and get a free head. Otherwise, we always kept 2 heads on hand. Remember, HP support and most suppliers are closed on the weekends so better to have your own stock of parts.

The R series beat the pants off the Scitex flatbed 550 I had, and the cost savings on ink and heads pretty much made the payment itself. Pros of latex versus UV:
  • No ink smell
  • No white ink turning yellow
  • White ink heads can be removed when not in use, and stored in a box inside the machine. This prevents white ink being wasted during routine purges.
  • Cheaper and easier to replace printheads
  • I'm not allergic to latex ink, while UV would have me breaking out in seconds of contact
  • Ink lines don't clog.
  • When ink dries, it is ultra thin and so will show the texture fo the substrate. If you print on glossy media the print will be glossy and likewise for matte and satin
  • R series has an intermediate tank system, meaning you can replace ink boxes without the machine stopping when the Out of Ink message appears.

Last thing you might want to know, HP offered me a 3 year extended warranty contract for $1445/month (full coverage). I'd certainly recommend this but I've always been a fan of warranties on printers.
 

Attachments

  • Print Production, May 6 - Aug 5, 2020.pdf
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Lunar Graphix

Button Pusher
Wanted to follow up with our daily maintenance:

Clean pinch roller - 3 minutes
Scrape filter cages - 2 minutes

that's it :)

There are of course routine maintenances that occur between every 2 days and 3 months. These on average take a few minutes each. Most of it is just wiping off build up in different areas.
 

Lunar Graphix

Button Pusher
Good stuff but that's not true. It starts like 7p or something for spot white. For most people double sided use is non existent anyways.

My info is a copy/paste from my thread. It's info from pre MR3 firmware, back in 2019. White ink in sandwhich mode minimum 33 pass.

Since then they've added 25 pass, but it's not opaque enough for most jobs

Never done spot color with white
 

balstestrat

Problem Solver
My info is a copy/paste from my thread. It's info from pre MR3 firmware, back in 2019. White ink in sandwhich mode minimum 33 pass.

Since then they've added 25 pass, but it's not opaque enough for most jobs

Never done spot color with white
Yeah it's true for the sandwich but I'm saying the most used white printmodes (Spot, Underflood, Overflood) are faster than 33-pass and start from around that 7-pass.
As I said, the people who use white mostly use those printmodes and the use of 3-layer or 5-layer is very minimal. From my experience anyways.
Sandwich didn't even exist for the ~first year when the printer came out.
 
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