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Next Question- VP vs SP....Battle royal!

vectorterrorist

New Member
First off many thank yous to everyone who shared thier insight on the sp 540 thread- I toast my :bushmill:to ya'

I have a new question- so turns out the SP I was going to look at last night was a craigslist scam. when I called the guy to come see the pritner he gave every excuse for not allowing me to come over after we had a set appointment we made from the previous day.

I know the VP is the more modern printer but I guess my question is about the quality of a SP vs the quality of a VP. I woul dlike to do mx graphics and I am pretty picky about about quality. Some of you mentioned a quality factor with the 2 printers...is the quality really noticable or would the SP be fine for this type of application...reason is I can find all kinds of SP540's for sale but cant find a VP540 for sale..and I'm kinda set on a 54 vs a 30" so I can do more stuff down the road-

Thanks and happy st. paddies!
 

zmatalucci

New Member
quality wise, I know the Sp more than holds its own. I have done some extremely detailed prints that are displayed in a museum, and I have never heard anything negative about them.
 

synergy_jim

New Member
for the money.... if you don't need the extra speed, buy the sp. We loved ours, but we needed way more throughput and a robust take up system.

Thats the only reason we sold it.
 

synergy_jim

New Member
and by the way.....

we had our sp300 for 3 years and printed the balls of that thing. The guy I sold it too has had it for 2 years and still has not replaced a single part on the thing...
 

vectorterrorist

New Member
customer

Through a customers eyes...would they be able to tell a quality difference between the 2 printers if I had something done on each machine? I've seen the quality of a vp so I just want to make sure a sp would not be considerably different in this area-
 

Bigdawg

Just Me
I have some decals that were done on both... they are very fine reversed out type. I see a difference... I think the customer - IF THEY LOOKED HARD ENOUGH - would see a difference.

Most of 'em (customers) don't pay any attention as long as it's legible... but then there's the ones that demand perfection.
 

Doyle

New Member
I have owned a SP for about 4 years and can tell you that no customer of mine has ever complained about quality, prints very nice.... though I have not compared it to a VP, I think that for MX graphics a SP would more than suffice. Print speed is a little slow, especially if you are printing on high quality (which I hardly ever use).
 

petepaz

New Member
both machines are the same dpi we have both and so far they are both work horses
the vp does have an addition print head that's why it print faster and the only quality difference we noticed was we get alittle better color out of the vp
your customer will not know the difference
next question do you have a laminator because which ever machine you get you are going to have to laminate the decals
 

GSSA-Russ

New Member
I agree with everyone above, but definitely get the 540 if you are thinking about getting into more stuff down the road, you will quickly outgrow the 300.

Speed is the main factor other than the two additional print heads in the VP model. Most upgrade to the VP because of the speed issue that's why you see more SP's available than VP's. Pick up the SP save yourself some coin, and grow your business until your abundance of customers force you into a faster machine.
 

petepaz

New Member
we had the sp300 for 6 months and then bought the vp540
we out grew the sp300 that fast and now we run both machines like crazy
 

Mike_Koval

New Member
biggest complaint of a 30" machine..."I wish I had went with the 54"!" that is me quoting most customers that have a 30.
 
The VP models now have the intelligent pass control (like the XJ and XC models), this new firmware upgrade GREATLY improves print quality and especially at higher speeds (no banding!).
The VP has a cog belt (like a timing belt) that runs the carriage very smoothly, the SP has a cable that stretches over time and needs many adjustments to keep the contour cut on line.
The VP is a much more reliable printer overall...all though I still like the old SP's too.
The VP comes with a 2 year warranty if you register the printer with Roland - only a one year if you don't....so PLEASE be SURE to register your printers!
 

biggieg

New Member
The only down side I see to my Sp540 is it is SLOW... But no complaints on print quality and 75% of our business is MX Graphics.
 

Riskok

New Member
The only down side I see to my Sp540 is it is SLOW... But no complaints on print quality and 75% of our business is MX Graphics.

Same thing for me whit my Sp-540 and we also do 60-70% MX Graphic.
But I think it works fine. The printing takes some time but I haven’t got a hang of the laminating yet so it takes more time ;)

BR Patrik
 
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