Roland XP640. 8 Color or Dual CMYK?"

[ksg]

Hi all,
I'm about to purchase a Roland XP640 but still can't decide on whether I should get it set up as 8 Color or Dual CMYK. A Dual CMYK will make this machine a rocket but will I be losing out much on the image quality side of things?
Also I've heard the Red ink fades faster which doesn't excite me, but the Light Black ink apparently prints a better grey without the green or magenta tinge to it. I'm a small shop so not doing massive production (yet) thought I like the idea of a fast printer but am not sure how much image quality I'll be missing out on, and is the slower 8 color speed bearable and worth it for the "extended color gammut"? Roland weren't able to show me a dual CMYK print comparison to their 8 color demo model unfortunately.
If you have had to make this decision (on any machine) I would love to hear your feedback and reasoning, thank you!

 

[balstestrat]

I would assume it's not impossible to switch the colour mode later but of course it's going to cost some to flush it.
You know just in case you regret it later on.

 

[MarkSnelling]

I sell these and I think the dual CMYK is great. You don't gain that much in terms of color range by going with the expanded colors....unless you have a business where hitting Home Depot orange or Coke red is an absolute must. Take the speed and enjoy the oddly low ink costs. If you are in the midwest, I'd love to put a price in front of you.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Light black won't actually fix a tinted grayscale image just by being present. You can get great looking grayscale on a CMYK printer that's properly calibrated. The light black really just makes it so, in the mid tones, it can print a higher saturation of ink to achieve the same gray instead of printing fewer or smaller black dots. So it reduces graininess in mid tones. Great if you are producing tons of black and white photos. A waste of ink and speed if you only do black and whites once in a while. The other colors are nice to have but not a necessity. As MarkSnelling said, if you're doing high precision pantone color matching, it might be worth it. Otherwise, CMYK will do pretty much everything you need it to.

 

[MarkSnelling]

Light black won't actually fix a tinted grayscale image just by being present. You can get great looking grayscale on a CMYK printer that's properly calibrated. The light black really just makes it so, in the mid tones, it can print a higher saturation of ink to achieve the same gray instead of printing fewer or smaller black dots. So it reduces graininess in mid tones. Great if you are producing tons of black and white photos. A waste of ink and speed if you only do black and whites once in a while. The other colors are nice to have but not a necessity. As MarkSnelling said, if you're doing high precision pantone color matching, it might be worth it. Otherwise, CMYK will do pretty much everything you need it to.

I've got a photographer who has a Roland with light black. UNREAL quality. Simply stunning. But I completely agree with you - not worth it for an occasional print here and there.

 

[Ted5310]

We have one of each. The Dual is great for get it in and out the door quickly. But we have a number of customers who are extremely picky about their logo color and we also do a lot of jewelry printing. And these are some of our larger customers. 8 color makes it a breeze. BTW, running the latest Onyx. So that helps

 

[Warmoth]

We have 3 Roland TrueVis printers setup for dual CMYK, and 1 with the added colors. If I could push a button, I would convert the latter to dual CMYK in a heartbeat (we got a quote to convert it to dual CMYK and it was nearly $2k from the then GSG earlier this year).

It is of course slower, but in many cases the added colors actually cause problems; photos of people almost always turn out overly orange, customer's logos can completely miss their target. The increased gamut can look nice in some situations, yes, but oftentimes I find myself avoiding that printer and the risk altogether.

 

[Joseph44708]

I'm running two xr640 printers with Flexi, one with OEM Inks and the other with Jet Best Inks. CMYK and LM, LC, LB. Beautiful printing on both.
Takes about six hours to print a 100' x 54" roll of vinyl.
I Was printing 500 rolls per year with these two printers with no major problems except the scan motors witch only last about 1500 hours before starting to scream and throw error codes.
My volume has grown so purchased a Canon Colorado UV printer which prints a 100' roll in under two hours and its ready to cut.
The Roland's are still printing.

 

[MarkSnelling]

Hi all,
I'm about to purchase a Roland XP640 but still can't decide on whether I should get it set up as 8 Color or Dual CMYK. A Dual CMYK will make this machine a rocket but will I be losing out much on the image quality side of things?
Also I've heard the Red ink fades faster which doesn't excite me, but the Light Black ink apparently prints a better grey without the green or magenta tinge to it. I'm a small shop so not doing massive production (yet) thought I like the idea of a fast printer but am not sure how much image quality I'll be missing out on, and is the slower 8 color speed bearable and worth it for the "extended color gammut"? Roland weren't able to show me a dual CMYK print comparison to their 8 color demo model unfortunately.
If you have had to make this decision (on any machine) I would love to hear your feedback and reasoning, thank you!

Good timing assuming you didn't already purchase the unit. It was just announced today the XP is $18,995 through December 29th. Saves you $2,000 and it includes the high volume dryer.

 

[ksg]

Thanks everyone soooo much! I think you've convinced me to go dual cmyk. I'm a new shop just looking to do general signage, so no major corporate colors to match or fine art prints. Im also concerned about the red ink fading as 3M won't do their warranty on images with the red ink. And it sounds like having an extended gammut on the very occasional job is not worth trading the extra speed for. And yes, I got the Roland special and free heater, lucky timing. Thanks again legends!

 

[ksg]

I sell these and I think the dual CMYK is great. You don't gain that much in terms of color range by going with the expanded colors....unless you have a business where hitting Home Depot orange or Coke red is an absolute must. Take the speed and enjoy the oddly low ink costs. If you are in the midwest, I'd love to put a price in front of you.

Thanks for the insight. You may have convinced me on the dual cmyk. Im in LA. I've done the deal, just needed to decide how to ink it. Thanks again!

 

[MarkSnelling]

Thanks for the insight. You may have convinced me on the dual cmyk. Im in LA. I've done the deal, just needed to decide how to ink it. Thanks again!

Get that discount! Good luck with the purchase!