HP R530 - Who's got one?

[White Haus]

Went to check one of these out today, I have to say I'm pretty impressed.

Only thing I was concerned about was the heat curing buckled flutes on 4mm coroplast to the point where it never came back. Assuming this can be fine-tuned and reduced?

Anyone running one of these?

Love it, hate it?

I've never had any interest in HP or latex, but this thing might check a few boxes for us. Would probably be mainly for coroplast, random substrates, and occasionally vinyl I suppose. I've run a Canon/Oce flatbed for 10 years, Roland, Mimaki, Epson roll printers. Would this be a huge learning curve coming from a non-HP shop?

Good/bad/ugly? I'm all ears.

 

[RabidOne]

I have run HP's (550 & 2000) as well as Oce's.
They are quite different in the way they handle media.
That warping coroplast issue is a problem on or R2000 especially when we are running many boards of double sided. The machine gets hot!
The auto measure multi-up on the HP's allows you to run a large quantity of smaller blanks fast, not sure if that is a feature on that machine.
The other plus is the HP has a lot of user maintenance options that keep you service tech away compared to the Oce's.

 

[Ldireprophil]

I’ve had mine a year coming up on July 4th. Run it everyday. ACM, Coro, Adhesive vinyl, Clear vinyl w/white ink, and framed canvases mostly. Love everything about the machine.

 

[ecilop]

We have been running one for a few months and love. It takes a little fine tuning of the heat and curing settings to prevent warpage on 4 mil, but once you're there, you're there. We do a lot of 4mil & 10 mil coro, foamboard and some acrylic.

 

[White Haus]

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreciated.

Anything you've come across that you can't print on? Any issues with printing to substrates then going right to CNC / laser cutting?

 

[dasigndr]

we print 4,6,8 and 10 mil coro, acm, vinyl and at first was great. Then we started having issues the last few weeks. Turns out it was a bad firmware. Tech was in and backed us up one version of firmware and all is well in the world. (well, sorta. LOL)
It is printing nice once again and no warping issues.

 

[White Haus]

we print 4,6,8 and 10 mil coro, acm, vinyl and at first was great. Then we started having issues the last few weeks. Turns out it was a bad firmware. Tech was in and backed us up one version of firmware and all is well in the world. (well, sorta. LOL)
It is printing nice once again and no warping issues.

Glad to hear you're back up and running. How is HP tech support in Canada? I've been spoiled dealing with Canon for the last 12 years. We're 10 years out of warranty and can still call or email anytime with questions/help and they're fantastic.

 

[dasigndr]

Glad to hear you're back up and running. How is HP tech support in Canada? I've been spoiled dealing with Canon for the last 12 years. We're 10 years out of warranty and can still call or email anytime with questions/help and they're fantastic.

Funny the HP tech that showed up was from Michigan. LOL
They are not always quick to reply, but seems to be getting better than years past.

 

[hybriddesign]

We were debating getting one for real estate signs but we usually print on vinyl with our Epson, intermediate lam and then go onto acm or pvc. The rep from HP we talked to told us that we'd still need to laminate the signs if we printed on the 530. Any thoughts on that? That pretty much killed the deal for us.

 

[P Wagner]

We were debating getting one for real estate signs but we usually print on vinyl with our Epson, intermediate lam and then go onto acm or pvc. The rep from HP we talked to told us that we'd still need to laminate the signs if we printed on the 530. Any thoughts on that? That pretty much killed the deal for us.

No lamination is needed with expanded PVC foam boards such as Celtec, Trovicel or Palram. Ink adhesion is excellent with this class of medias.

For ACP sheeting, pre-treated ACM boards are recommended for best ink adhesion when post-print lamination is not desired. These are recommended:
• 3A Dilite
• Alupanel A-lite
• 3ADibondDigital LX
• Redbond advanced

 

[rx7boy]

We love our R1000 but yes it does take some tweaking to get settings right for some media’s. The one that is hard to print is styrene is a no go. So we just use our Oce or Epson flatbed for styrene

 

[Ldireprophil]

We were debating getting one for real estate signs but we usually print on vinyl with our Epson, intermediate lam and then go onto acm or pvc. The rep from HP we talked to told us that we'd still need to laminate the signs if we printed on the 530. Any thoughts on that? That pretty much killed the deal for us.

I've never laminated a corrugated plastic yard sign in 30 years, no different with the R530.

 

[White Haus]

No lamination is needed with expanded PVC foam boards such as Celtec, Trovicel or Palram. Ink adhesion is excellent with this class of medias.

For ACP sheeting, pre-treated ACM boards are recommended for best ink adhesion when post-print lamination is not desired. These are recommended:
• 3A Dilite
• Alupanel A-lite
• 3ADibondDigital LX
• Redbond advanced

This is all good to know, thanks.

Regarding ACP, if you were to laminate direct printed sheets, any brand may do the trick? I'm assuming the laminate will only be as good as the ink adhesion to the substrate at the end of the day.

For unlaminated prints on things like coroplast, is durability similar to tradition UV / UV-LED inksets?

 

[balstestrat]

This is all good to know, thanks.

Regarding ACP, if you were to laminate direct printed sheets, any brand may do the trick? I'm assuming the laminate will only be as good as the ink adhesion to the substrate at the end of the day.

For unlaminated prints on things like coroplast, is durability similar to tradition UV / UV-LED inksets?

Yes, you can use pretty much any laminate you want. Cheap out as you wish.
Yes, extremely good, won't chip like some UV.

 

[White Haus]

Yes, you can use pretty much any laminate you want. Cheap out as you wish.
Yes, extremely good, won't chip like some UV.

Thanks. I meant more in terms of the ACP brand.

I've never quite understood the whole concept of direct printing signs then laminating them - but just considering all the ways we could use one of these things.

Personally I'd rather stick with our high-tack vinyl + laminate mounted to pre-cut ACP pieces, but who knows. Maybe there's a more efficient way to go about it without losing durability.

 

[DaveD]

We have one and love it. There are a lot adjustments you can make to the heat. Beware of the bad firmware that came out. We downgraded to the lower firmware and any issues we had went away.