Review Mutoh ValueJet 1628X or your mutoh experience in general

[nofear94]

Need feedback of Mutoh ValueJet 1628X or your mutoh experience in general! Thanks

 

[Jackpine]

I have a 1204 48"and no problems over 4 years. I print something everyday and clean often. With my change of needs I would have taken a good look at the 24" 1628X if it were available at the time.
If you can go to a dealer and see a demo it would be good to see the speed, different quality and maintenance settings.

 

[FatCat]

Have had a Mutoh 1204, 1304, 1604, now currently have upgraded to a 1624 and 1624x at our shop. Very reliable machines, DX5 heads are easy to maintain and print great. Cant comment on the 1628x from direct experience, but should be a safe bet.

 

[rickcurtis]

Mutoh 1628X

Need feedback of Mutoh ValueJet 1628X or your mutoh experience in general! Thanks

We love ours. The print quality is exceptional, maintenance is easy, cost to operate is so much lower than the Roland we had.

I would recommend not getting the metallic setup. The ink is ungodly expensive, and unless you plan on using it a lot (and charging for it), I'm not sure it's worth it. We have used it twice in over a year.

I would, however, recommend getting the built in cutter just for the convenience. I would also highly recommend getting the photospectrometer. It's a little pricey, but if you're hoping to do any color match work, it's indispensable.

 

[pjfmeister]

We have used the 1204, 1324, 1614, 1624...still have a 1624 and a 1614. They are workhorses. We have had plenty of problems and repairs but all in all they are very reliable and easy to work on when they break down.

Lots of support here on the this site as well from some very knowledgeable owners/suppliers.

 

[SubliTWILL]

Need feedback of Mutoh ValueJet 1628X or your mutoh experience in general! Thanks

Not sure what type of printing you do, however, we do sublimation.

We're currently running an RJ-900 and a 1628x. The RJ is still going strong after 8 years and the 1628 was a new purchase a year ago.

Couldn't be happier with both machines! As a previous poster eluded to, we've had problems, just as you'll have with any printer, however, it's all been fairly simple to resolve.

 

[nofear94]

Thanks for the replies so far... I will mainly print on vinyl and banners

And don't worries I have zero interrest in the metallic ink... 4 colors process that's really fine by me.

I had sp-540, now running on Epson surecolor that I really like but never say no to better ;-)

 

[Desert Sands]

Thanks for the replies so far... I will mainly print on vinyl and banners

And don't worries I have zero interrest in the metallic ink... 4 colors process that's really fine by me.

I had sp-540, now running on Epson surecolor that I really like but never say no to better ;-)

We bought our first solvent based printer looking to get into whatever we can offer our school district. We are knee deep into banners and played with a few car wraps and stickers. What we didn't know was that the metallic and white inks included with the Mutoh 1628X was/is for those that need metallic and white for constant use. If you only plan on printing something with white or metallic maybe once or twice a year, then your wasting your money, your litterly flushing it down the toilet. We found out the hard way and can not turn back to just four color. Anyway...
What I'd really like to ask and don't know where to really post this question and or concern of ours, a pain of a problem thats never gone away... is that on long prints up to 96 inches and above we get uneven feeds and the media begins to buckle bad... anybody hear experience this? Please move to proper thread if I posted the question at the wrong area.

 

[Rick Vestuto]

Heres my 2 cents

I was a Mutoh user for years
I learned how to fix them myself because they broke down a lot
DID you know you can turn any Dyesub or inkjet printer into a Solvent printer just by adding Heaters
Did that for years as well and made a ton of money

All this being said...Mutoh is junk
Construction compared to a Roland or Mimaki is horrible
My 64" Mimaki weighs 200 lbs more than my 64" "Motuh because of
Mutoh's lack of metal construction
the Capping station is junk on the Mutoh and has to be replaced almost every 3 or 4 months (For a busy graphics shop printing all day every day)
Also in my vast experience, the heaters go bad after a few years and have to be replaced
and I have had to replace many circuit boards and the list goes on and on

IMO with 20 years of experience, Mutoh as a company uses cheaper made parts
compared to Roland and Mimaki and no I am not a Mimaki Fan Boy nor am I a troll

Im just a 53-year-old guy with 20 years of workable experience with many types of large format printers
and I am still owning a sign shop to this day with 2 large format printers, 2 DTG's, 2 large format laminators,
2 64 inch Graphtech cutters and so much more

As far as "WHITE" ink goes
Stay away from "Solvent" based "White" ink
Solvent-based Whit inks are not Opaque (there transparent)
Only Laytex inks are Opaque so if you need to print white (dont know why you would)
then buy the Epson S80 for $25,000


If I were you I would look at the Mimaki for sale on this forum (CJV30-160)
its a workhorse and will blow away the Mutoh any day of the week in construction, Print speed and value

Good luck and best regards rick

 

[Rick Vestuto]

mm

 

[jriley]

If you only plan on printing something with white or metallic maybe once or twice a year, then your wasting your money, your litterly flushing it down the toilet.

It would have to be more than once or twice a year to make it worth it. Every time you run a cleaning (which is done frequently) you will be using the specialty ink. Even if you don't have white/metallic jobs, you'll need to run prints regularly using this ink to keep the nozzles healthy and move it through the ink lines because the pigments tend to settle out. You'll find yourself spending lots of money on ink that was never used for jobs. Not to mention that these specialty inks take up channels that could otherwise be used for CMYK--you will not print as fast as you would without them.

If you're just doing vinyl and banners and don't anticipate a substantial need for specialty inks, just get a CMYK or dual-CMYK machine. For 54" the VJ-1324X is a good printer. For 64", you're looking at the VJ-1624X or the VJ-1638X (two print heads, much faster prints).

As far as Rick's complaints, I can't discount his experience. If we're talking 20+ years, part of his experience is with the old Falcon Outdoors, etc. Rick, does this extend to the latest iterations? The modern ValueJets use different heads, inks, and are designed completely differently than their predecessors. I've worked on dozens of Mutoh's, old and new. I have never ran into any case where I needed to replace the maintenance station every 3 months. Are there any current Mutoh owners here that have had this experience? Mutoh recommends replacing them once a year, but the average person I encounter is replacing theirs between 1.5-2.5 years, depending upon how well they keep up on maintenance (cleaning the cap/around head/wiper, etc.).

 

[Solventinkjet]

As far as Rick's complaints, I can't discount his experience. If we're talking 20+ years, part of his experience is with the old Falcon Outdoors, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if Rick was running the Falcons. They were horrible machines. The ValueJets are solid in my experience.

 

[Desert Sands]

It would have to be more than once or twice a year to make it worth it. Every time you run a cleaning (which is done frequently) you will be using the specialty ink. Even if you don't have white/metallic jobs, you'll need to run prints regularly using this ink to keep the nozzles healthy and move it through the ink lines because the pigments tend to settle out. You'll find yourself spending lots of money on ink that was never used for jobs. Not to mention that these specialty inks take up channels that could otherwise be used for CMYK--you will not print as fast as you would without them.

If you're just doing vinyl and banners and don't anticipate a substantial need for specialty inks, just get a CMYK or dual-CMYK machine. For 54" the VJ-1324X is a good printer. For 64", you're looking at the VJ-1624X or the VJ-1638X (two print heads, much faster prints).

As far as Rick's complaints, I can't discount his experience. If we're talking 20+ years, part of his experience is with the old Falcon Outdoors, etc. Rick, does this extend to the latest iterations? The modern ValueJets use different heads, inks, and are designed completely differently than their predecessors. I've worked on dozens of Mutoh's, old and new. I have never ran into any case where I needed to replace the maintenance station every 3 months. Are there any current Mutoh owners here that have had this experience? Mutoh recommends replacing them once a year, but the average person I encounter is replacing theirs between 1.5-2.5 years, depending upon how well they keep up on maintenance (cleaning the cap/around head/wiper, etc.).

We use white to flush out the white lines on our Mutoh....no seriously..have no idea why why we got the silver and white... our last Director here thought it would be a nice edition to the shop is my only guess..only we have yet to print a single project that needs white or silver..and we've had the machine for almost three years! And guess what...the white on the print head is clogged now..lol! theres a $4000 part needed if we ever do decide to use white.. just a weird situation here. Otherwise...no problems really..we print a lot of banners here, and this machine shines. Just one hiccup with paPER AND WOULD APPRECIATE SOME FEED BACK, whenever we use underside paper the feed after 6ft starts to go off by up to an inch sometimes...feeds crooked. Our vendor recommended just using top print paper, that that's whats recommended for the Mutoh...bs or legit??

 

[Dtron10]

I love reading all these responses. Now my question...obviously this is a solvent thread. But what's your guys opinion vs. Latex. I prefer Latex for the fact you don't have to "wait 24 hours" to gas out. I love being able to grab prints right off the printer and laminating and moving on.

 

[Ian2]

Need feedback of Mutoh ValueJet 1628X or your mutoh experience in general! Thanks

 

[Ian2]

We are in Toronto, Ont and can find only one mutoh technician. Mutoh cannot provide any other contact, so...our experience is support is terrible.

 

[Craig Keller]

[

explain how u do sub dye?


QUOTE="SubliTWILL, post: 1312413, member: 19392"]Not sure what type of printing you do, however, we do sublimation.

We're currently running an RJ-900 and a 1628x. The RJ is still going strong after 8 years and the 1628 was a new purchase a year ago.

Couldn't be happier with both machines! As a previous poster eluded to, we've had problems, just as you'll have with any printer, however, it's all been fairly simple to resolve.[/QUOTE]