We are doing a joint venture with a commercial printing company that got out of the wide format market. Long story, but they needed space and so 6 months ago we took their machinery and are using their equipment along with ours to fill orders for them on a wholesale basis. One of the machines is a Mimaki JV34-260. Between our customer base and theirs, we currently have a very small demand for 8' wide banners, which seems to be the only product we would use this machine for versus our two HP Latex printers. The machine is proving to be difficult to maintain, particularly when we use it so infrequently. It is in need of ink pumps and a couple of other items and the estimated total repair cost will be in the $2,000 range.
The company we are working with paid something like $60K for it a couple of years ago. I see them advertised new on a couple of fishy looking Asia-based sites for under $20K. I visited the Mimaki booth in Atlanta during the SGIA show and they clearly haven't sold many of these machines. We are in Birmingham, Alabama and Tubelite is our local Mimaki rep. None of their tech people have ever worked on one of these, but one guy has been very helpful and says he has worked on enough similar machines to be able to work on this one pretty well.
What would a used one of these be worth? Do any of you own one of these? I know it has dye sub capability also if you purge in those inks. We have no market for dye sub but could explore that option. Any feedback on this machine, the dye sub market, and anything else that I may need to factor would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!
The company we are working with paid something like $60K for it a couple of years ago. I see them advertised new on a couple of fishy looking Asia-based sites for under $20K. I visited the Mimaki booth in Atlanta during the SGIA show and they clearly haven't sold many of these machines. We are in Birmingham, Alabama and Tubelite is our local Mimaki rep. None of their tech people have ever worked on one of these, but one guy has been very helpful and says he has worked on enough similar machines to be able to work on this one pretty well.
What would a used one of these be worth? Do any of you own one of these? I know it has dye sub capability also if you purge in those inks. We have no market for dye sub but could explore that option. Any feedback on this machine, the dye sub market, and anything else that I may need to factor would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!
