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Question Printer upgrade recommendations - Roland vs Epson.. etc.

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VCE INDUSTRIES

New Member
Whats been people's experience switching from a Roland VG series printer to an Epson? The shop I do production at is looking to upgrade away from our VG2-540 - its being a pain. My first simple inclination is to go for the new XG offering from Roland, but with how new it is I haven't heard anything about it, and some of Roland's latest business practices (like making additional job queues in Versaworks a fkn monthly subscription service), as well as this damn TR2-CY ink that seems to be nothing but constant issues and headaches, I'm kind of leaning towards moving to a different manufacturer. One of the most interesting things to me is that one of the selling points I've heard from people about the new Roland XG is that it... uses Epson print heads lol - which makes me think.. why not just buy an Epson?

Color matching existing fleets may be a bit of a pain as we move to a different brand of printer, but that will just require some extra tests and attention. I am also interested in Latex printers - but my very very limited understanding is that those are sometimes prone to cracking and don't handle wraps as well.

Very open to UV as well but don't know much about it.

Use-case is largely vehicle graphics/wraps, as well as signage like ACM, etc. and then a bit of stickers and the like. We don't currently do much banner stuff or anything outside of vinyl printing, but we definitely do printed full-wraps at least fairly often. We also rarely use the Roland for cutting, we have Summas for that, and are already also interested in moving away from Versa to something like Onyx, etc., so included RIP software isn't really a huge selling point either.

What are peoples experience here going from Roland to anything else? Or does anyone have an XG yet that has thoughts on it?
 
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LizKeenan

New Member
If you want to use Onyx I would recommend Epson. Roland has been a big pain with not being able to send cuts directly to plotters, the paneling feature is also garbage. The only thing I really like about the Roland is the Roland spot colors.
 
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Reactions: 1 user
R

Roland Certified Tech

New Member
The XG is a very nice printer.
There is no subscription service needed. You just need to run DG Connect, a program that run in the background and to get your 2nd year warranty. NO FEE.
It does use TR3 ink which is different and only time will tell if the dreaded TR2 cyan issue returns.
Since they use the same Epson i3200 heads in both the XR and Epson, I do believe the ink is actually Epson manufactured ink for the XG. So it comes down to features, price, RIP, warranty.
 
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Reactions: 1 user
V

VCE INDUSTRIES

New Member
LizKeenan said:
If you want to use Onyx I would recommend Epson. Roland has been a big pain with not being able to send cuts directly to plotters, the paneling feature is also garbage. The only thing I really like about the Roland is the Roland spot colors.
Click to expand...
Yeah we are leaning Onyx for that reason exactly - for cutter support. Roland teased add-on "modules" to Versaworks 7 including third-party cutter support, but have yet to deliver, and all the modules they have released are subscription-based crap.
I hadn't considered spot colors - how does Onyx handle setting up cut lines in the same print/cut job? We currently create essentially 2 duplicate files, one with the print data and then one that only has vector shapes to send to GoSign/Summa
 
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VCE INDUSTRIES

New Member
ProColorGraphics said:
I haven't had a Roland in probably close to 15 years, but I do love my Epson's. The S9170 is awesome!
Click to expand...
Good to know! Any issues with the S9170? We would probably be looking at the S80 line... tho I must say that newer Epson printer with the "user replaceable print heads" sure does look interesting....
 
V

VCE INDUSTRIES

New Member
Roland Certified Tech said:
The XG is a very nice printer.
There is no subscription service needed. You just need to run DG Connect, a program that run in the background and to get your 2nd year warranty. NO FEE.
It does use TR3 ink which is different and only time will tell if the dreaded TR2 cyan issue returns.
Since they use the same Epson i3200 heads in both the XR and Epson, I do believe the ink is actually Epson manufactured ink for the XG. So it comes down to features, price, RIP, warranty.
Click to expand...
The Versaworks 7 Modules are largely subscription-based. To increase your Versaworks 7 job queues from 5 to... up to 50 I believe is a $10/month subscription fee. I understand paying for additional software features, and I also understand subscriptions for cloud-based services, etc. but charging $10/mo to have additional job queues in the software thats already installed on my computer and doesn't require anything from Roland other than flipping a swtich is absolute dogwater business slop. If it was a one-time charge I'd be 100% down, software development isn't free, and I'm willing to pay for extra features - just not recurring subscriptions for local features. I emailed Roland about this and the response I got was "well, the software is free, so this is what it is. Also, I noticed you don't have any Roland printers connected to your account, if you are looking to buy one we can sell you a Roland printer right now" - which is wild because not only do I personally own a VG-series printer (which is connected to my account), but also the shop I work for ALSO owns a VG printer that we are looking to upgrade. Honestly that experience really set me on a course to move away from Roland lol
That is really interesting info in regards to the inks. Epson-manufactured parts and inks being a selling point of Roland products is quite interesting hahaha. I think for us its largely coming down to serviceability. We have a local Roland distributor/techs and have been pretty solid to us. We'd hate to move away from them by switching printers, but also are tired of our experience with Roland. Considering all options.
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
VCE INDUSTRIES said:
Yeah we are leaning Onyx for that reason exactly - for cutter support. Roland teased add-on "modules" to Versaworks 7 including third-party cutter support, but have yet to deliver, and all the modules they have released are subscription-based crap.
I hadn't considered spot colors - how does Onyx handle setting up cut lines in the same print/cut job? We currently create essentially 2 duplicate files, one with the print data and then one that only has vector shapes to send to GoSign/Summa
Click to expand...
Very well. I'm sure you're doing the 2 file thing to avoid transparency issues with cutlines? I've never had that happen since we've switched to Onyx. We started off as a 100% Roland / Versaworks shop and have now eliminated Rolands and moved to a 100% Onyx workflow. We print to our Epson S60600, Mimaki UCJV, or Oce Arizona flatbed and then cut on roll or flatbed Summa cutters, all through Onyx. Works really well once you get the hang of Onyx.

We've been really happy with our Epson S60600 - love dual CMYK after running 7/8 color Rolands for years.
 
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