Media for the L65500 is still a bit of unknown, except for the HP products. We have had to do a lot of R&D on our own to find out what would work and what would not. When our printer was installed in late October/early November, we couldn't find any definite answers as to what would work, or what would not. Of course all of the HP products were pushed, but the price point of those are 2 to 3 times the third party products are. Which is what other sign shops are printing on their non-green printers, and beat the pants off our pricing if we went HP's way.
So we notified all of our suppliers and to our surprise, they were in shock that we had a L65500 printer. Our suppliers don't know what media will run or not on the latex inks. These distributers can not get their hands on a L65500 printer to test their materials. Their story is that they send their media to Spain for testing on the L65500, and all they would get out of HP is ether a yes or no answer to whether it would work. No instruction as what is wrong, or how to fix the problem. HP would not send the printed media back to let them see the quality.
It is in my opinion that HP is not allowing distributers to have the printer because HP is in the media supply business for the latex in a big way now, larger than they have in any other technology. HP doesn't want them to have any advantages, but we are helping our suppliers. Our suppliers sent us test rolls at no charge, where we had to buy full rolls of the HP media.
The biggest disappointment of medias on the L65500 is the gloss banner. We loaded the media and had some spots in heavy ink areas. The plasticizer that the manufacturer applies to the media to keep it from sticking to itself, that is what makes the noise as it unrolls, interacts with certain latex colors and causes this effect that looks like a laminate was applied and then removed, it's dull and spotty. So we do not use gloss except for long distance viewing, and if we have a roll we want to get rid of.
The medias that I have tested and run great are multiple matte banners, mesh banner, eco banners, floor decal, carpet decal, regular decal, white static cling, clear static cling (at high density), clear removable (at high density), multiple papers, backlits (at high density), repositionable media, canvas, and multiple wallpapers.
We have a few more to test, but there are mainly matte banner products that randomly get sent to us that our suppliers are curious about. The way the HP tech explained it to me, was that the latex inks will stick to anything, the only question is how the printer treats the media. Will the media stretch too much to trick the sensors and mess up the feed? etc.
We have tried to find out as much as we can from HP, but everytime I talk to someone there, they start pushing their products, which I tell them are not competitively priced.
So we notified all of our suppliers and to our surprise, they were in shock that we had a L65500 printer. Our suppliers don't know what media will run or not on the latex inks. These distributers can not get their hands on a L65500 printer to test their materials. Their story is that they send their media to Spain for testing on the L65500, and all they would get out of HP is ether a yes or no answer to whether it would work. No instruction as what is wrong, or how to fix the problem. HP would not send the printed media back to let them see the quality.
It is in my opinion that HP is not allowing distributers to have the printer because HP is in the media supply business for the latex in a big way now, larger than they have in any other technology. HP doesn't want them to have any advantages, but we are helping our suppliers. Our suppliers sent us test rolls at no charge, where we had to buy full rolls of the HP media.
The biggest disappointment of medias on the L65500 is the gloss banner. We loaded the media and had some spots in heavy ink areas. The plasticizer that the manufacturer applies to the media to keep it from sticking to itself, that is what makes the noise as it unrolls, interacts with certain latex colors and causes this effect that looks like a laminate was applied and then removed, it's dull and spotty. So we do not use gloss except for long distance viewing, and if we have a roll we want to get rid of.
The medias that I have tested and run great are multiple matte banners, mesh banner, eco banners, floor decal, carpet decal, regular decal, white static cling, clear static cling (at high density), clear removable (at high density), multiple papers, backlits (at high density), repositionable media, canvas, and multiple wallpapers.
We have a few more to test, but there are mainly matte banner products that randomly get sent to us that our suppliers are curious about. The way the HP tech explained it to me, was that the latex inks will stick to anything, the only question is how the printer treats the media. Will the media stretch too much to trick the sensors and mess up the feed? etc.
We have tried to find out as much as we can from HP, but everytime I talk to someone there, they start pushing their products, which I tell them are not competitively priced.
