Mutoh and roland

[altereddezignz]

So i have been going back and forth over the Mutoh 1638X Dual head or Roland VersaCAMM VS640I.

I have already received a price on the Mutoh setup and installed but am waiting on the Roland. Mutoh has a killer rebate right now. Has anyone had experience with either or both?

 

[Solventinkjet]

These machines are very different.

The 1638X is a dual head printer with no cutter. It is almost 4 times faster than the VSI series at the lowest resolution. If you are doing a lot of banners, posters and signs, it's a great production machine.

The Roland VS640I is a single head machine with a cutter. If you are doing a lot of decals and contour cuts, it's a great machine. Both use the same head so the resolution is the same but the second head on the Mutoh makes it faster. The Roland also offers the white and metallic ink whereas the Mutoh doesn't. White and Metallic ink is very troublesome but if you need it, Roland is the way to go between the two. I would recommend the Mimaki JV150 or 300 over the Roland for that ink set however.

Roland drops you as soon as the warranty is over so having a good dealer with a tech is key. Mutoh supports their machines directly and through dealers and, in my opinion, has superior tech support to Roland. It may be because Roland is a huge company and Mutoh is much smaller. I have had customers with 10 year old machine call Mutoh and they helped them over the phone. Roland does not do that.

Overall I recommend the Mutoh but it all depends on what your needs are in the end.

 

[altereddezignz]

These machines are very different.

The 1638X is a dual head printer with no cutter. It is almost 4 times faster than the VSI series at the lowest resolution. If you are doing a lot of banners, posters and signs, it's a great production machine.

The Roland VS640I is a single head machine with a cutter. If you are doing a lot of decals and contour cuts, it's a great machine. Both use the same head so the resolution is the same but the second head on the Mutoh makes it faster. The Roland also offers the white and metallic ink whereas the Mutoh doesn't. White and Metallic ink is very troublesome but if you need it, Roland is the way to go between the two. I would recommend the Mimaki JV150 or 300 over the Roland for that ink set however.

Roland drops you as soon as the warranty is over so having a good dealer with a tech is key. Mutoh supports their machines directly and through dealers and, in my opinion, has superior tech support to Roland. It may be because Roland is a huge company and Mutoh is much smaller. I have had customers with 10 year old machine call Mutoh and they helped them over the phone. Roland does not do that.

Overall I recommend the Mutoh but it all depends on what your needs are in the end.

The print cut capability is not a big deal to me. The reason being is we also will have a new plotter as well. I have always been a little on the lyrics side of printing and cutting without laminating. It seems to me that the prints that are laminated are not very thick and all and could be troublesome to some customers trying to use them. When we purchased the used moto 13:24 that we have now there were a cumbersome amount of issues. Moto actually helped us with the issues over the phone even though the machine had been out of warranty for a while.

I also swore that I seen where the 1638 had the capability to use white and metallics as well but I might have misread. At the moment we don't really have a need for whites or metallics and with all of the issues that I am hearing about I'm not sure I want to tackle that anytime soon.

 

[Solventinkjet]

You're right. Mutoh added the white and metallic under my nose.

 

[chrisphilipps]

The 1638x can't use the white and silver. It doesn't have the recirculation pumps. It can be setup as CMYKx2 or CMYKLcLmLk. The CMYKx2 is by far the most common setup. We have sold about 20 of them so far and everyone is very happy with them, I actually just installed on yesterday to a company that traded in their 1624. The key is a good dealer that can set it up properly. The initial calibrations on the print heads are very important and must be checked.

 

[altereddezignz]

The 1638x can't use the white and silver. It doesn't have the recirculation pumps. It can be setup as CMYKx2 or CMYKLcLmLk. The CMYKx2 is by far the most common setup. We have sold about 20 of them so far and everyone is very happy with them, I actually just installed on yesterday to a company that traded in their 1624. The key is a good dealer that can set it up properly. The initial calibrations on the print heads are very important and must be checked.

Well since we do that many dealers to choose from we are limited. Fellers. Tubelite 2 name the main 2 and about the only 2

 

[rjssigns]

Buy the printer from the place that can get a tech to you in 24 hours or less. Even if you have to spend more. IMO most printers are fairly equal nowadays. Meaning they all print great quality and will break down at the worst possible time.

My next rig may be a Mutoh since the dealer and techs are 30 minutes away.

 

[altereddezignz]

Buy the printer from the place that can get a tech to you in 24 hours or less. Even if you have to spend more. IMO most printers are fairly equal nowadays. Meaning they all print great quality and will break down at the worst possible time.

My next rig may be a Mutoh since the dealer and techs are 30 minutes away.

Both dealers are pretty well known for their service but i have never dealt with tubelite only fellers. Fellers had a GREAT tech department and service department.

Now its just down to the nitty gritty i guess, lol