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S70670 Recomendation

Snydo

New Member
We have a 30670 which is identical aside from a smaller heater and half the print-heads...the thing is a beast for that price point. It will print a full roll in a little over 3 hours in production mode, print quality is great, odorless, and easy to maintain.
 
I'd stay away from the S70670s!

Hello ProColorGraphics -

We currently have two S7070 printers in our shop and are in need/ and considering buying a 3rd printer. All I can say is that at this point it would take a miracle for us to even consider getting an S70670 again. Here's why:

We have two s70670 printers in our shop (both have the added dryer and one has the white and silver inks). We've had the worst experiences with the S70670 printers and I cannot stress enough to Stay away from the S70670s...

The other poster mentioned the S30670 which is a different beast and may be a good option but the s70670s have been plagued with flaws since they launched them about two years ago. Also the S70670s use a different ink and we've had numerous ink recalls (6 total) and had to have our printers serviced several times in the past two years (our first s70670 we've had for about 18 months and it has had 6 printheads replaced on it already - talk about a lot of down time due to repairs).

Currently we are working with our Epson vendor to have Epson replace our second S70670, because it constantly drips larges amounts of ink during printing (I'll post pictures tomorrow when I'm back at work). We have hundreds of samples where the prints were messed up because of ink drops and have sent them back to Epson several times plus sent pictures and they always say "I have no idea why it would do that - you are the only one experiencing that" but they never actually solve the problem. To date they have replaced the print heads twice, replaced the dampner assembly, the
carriage, and the capping station (at this point they say they don't have anything left to replace).

It's frustrating for us because we've been an Epson house for a while now - we have a photo fine art division and a sign and graphics division - all medium to large format printers (44" and up to 100" with flatbeds). We have multiple Epson aqueous SP9900s that we use to print photos, fine art papers, and canvas on. They work great for and I bet they would work well for proofing if you were an offset shop, but not for anything that you want to put outdoors for long periods of time.

We also have Epson Sp9880s for dye sub photo printing onto metal and some newer SP98990s for printing dye sub as well.

We also have/d Epson GS6000s and for the most part they were workhorses that printed really really well!

After getting our first S70670 we've had the ink recalls where we have contaminated inks that cause damage to the print heads. Even to this day we get flawed inks and it's a constant pain to make sure our inks are not on the recall list. It's annoying too because Epson doesn't really tell you about the flawed inks and when you call the support/service department they are very hush hush about it. Thankfully we have a great vendor who informed us of flawed inks and our Decision One tech (we are on a first name basis with all the Decision one techs' due to the constant problems with the S70s) gave us a list that shows all the recalled inks.

Like I mentioned earlier, we've had to have print heads replaced 6 times in one year on our 10 color machine (includes the white and metallic silver inks). Constant banding has been a problem (even with a prefect nozzle check and proper media calibration) also we have nozzles falling out on long runs (100+ ft. in length on 3M vinyls - REALLY expensive stuff), media doesn't feed
consistently in the S70s (especially on wall coverings like Abaco Beach or different canvas materials) when we print canvases for our fine art business we check the dimensions and for example a 24x36 will sometimes be up to 1" short on the feed dimension (36" dimension) and we've done the media calibrations several times - creating custom media settings in the printer per Epson's recommendations and it still doesn't solve the problem. Now we have our second s70 dripping different ink drips all over our prints all the time and it's been doing it since we first got the machine in March/April.

Also, when we received our first s70670 we attached the extra dryer unit and noticed that the dry fan spots (there are 5) were missing fans!! They didn't even have all the fans in the dryer (in all fairness I called Epson and sent a picture of the missing fan to them and they replaced the dryer unit right away).

The S70s are probably less common than the S30s or the S50s, but the number of problems we've had with both machines is unacceptable and leads me to believe that they simply don't have that machine designed properly.

Also when calling Epson support before the S70s they were the best support company out there - they'd overnight parts and get a Decision one tech to our shop the next day, however now it's always a song and dance with the support department about how they won't schedule a tech or us because they want us to try this or that first (even though we have tried all their suggestions a million times over before calling them). Also, now they require you to send them photos of the ink lot numbers that are in the machine before they will schedule a service call but they won't tell you WHY they need to get that information.

I've had my case "
escalated" several times to one of the service department mangers (Ricardo) but that has been no help!

I don't really know what machine's well look at to replace our S70670s - we are looking at a CET machine that is a hybrid 126" wide that will give us more printer capabilities - but I'm concerned about the image quality.

The only good thing I can say about the S70670s is that when they work - the print quality (1440x720 16 pass high quality from Onyx Thrive 11.1) can not be beat - which is why I'm so upset at Epson - they have the potential to offer an incredible printing machine - but it seems that the potential is just that - potential - and not a reality.

Other forum members have expressed dissatisfaction with the S70670s too, and their are probably some others out ther who have had different experiences and may love the S70670s. I can't say how your experience will/would be - but i feel obligated to warn you based on our experiences because if we could go back we wouldn't have bought the two S70670s...

Bottom line, our company use to be the biggest fans of Epson machines and now we're running away as fast possible. It's a direct result of the overall disappointment of the S70670s and the horrible support by the support/service department.
 

twmiller24

New Member
Run away. We have one and everybody involved regrets our having it. Including the techs.

DSGI did a good job summing up the problems, so I won't go through them again, but we use ours primarily for white printing because we can't trust it on any other jobs. Unbelievably bad printer, although Epson's support to us has been pretty good.
 

Chris1213

New Member
DSGI,

What a nightmare! Without being next to the machine, there are a couple things that might be worth a look. I know Epson techs have been to your facility, but they service dozens of different machines daily not only the S series. Basically they just plug and play from a general field service manual and the serv prog.

Ink Dripping: Can be a number of things. They've already replaced the damper / head / pump cap so I'll skip that.
  • the printhead / pump cap seal connection. The printhead is seated on the carriage assembly via a spring mechanism (used for CR adj, etc). If the basic seat of the head is too far forward/backward (even though CR/PF is calibrated) it can cause an imperfect connection to the pump cap. You can check this when the printhead is seated on 1/2 the pump cap feet during a power clean (since the printhead pulls ink from one pump cap foot, it will work its way down the channels during a power clean.)
    • Check that the pump cap feet are not out of alignment when printhead is seated on 1/2 the assembly during a power clean.
    • Check the printhead platen --> pump cap seal is completely parallel to each other when the printhead is fully capped.
  • General leak of the damper kit's rubber gasket (top of assy) or damper connection to printhead nipples. (Bottom assy). These should be obvious with a flashlight and a small extended arm mirror (with covers removed)
  • Dried solvent is cemented on the printhead and/or pump cap feet. This causes a non-airtight connection to the pump cap, and ink bleeds out onto the printhead platen during printing.
  • Deflected nozzle (partially clogged) on printhead. Nozzle is deflected in such a way that instead of ejecting the ink droplet onto the substrate, it is slowly building like a bubble on the printhead platen. Eventually this causes drops on the substrate.
  • Crack on corner of printhead - harder to see, but it occurs during a hard media head crash or crashing on the aluminum guide plates. Cracked head can exist without the machine throwing 1A39 errors, etc. I just remove the guide plates, those things are much more unforgiving than if the head crashes against paper/canvas.

Innacurate printed length / width:
The primary function of the feed step adjustment for custom media maximizes print quality of small, fine type and eliminates horizontal microweave banding. Once this value and media tension is calibrated - you'll need to also print a ruler for an overall compensation adjustment. This value is usually entered in the RIP under your custom media preset (Compensation Adjustment)

Maximizing printhead / pump cap life:
Frequent head maintenance (almost daily): using solvent cleaning solution and swabs, physically clean printhead perimeter and pump cap assemblies. Be sure not to soak the plastics on pump cap with cleaning solution or it begins to attack them - particularly the wiper blade rails. Just wipe up clean the ink and cleaning solution.


I'm not a Epson or D-1 employee, just someone who works with these machines on a daily basis. Hope it helps,

Bests,

-Chris
 

Robert M

New Member
Mutoh 1638

If you don't need the white and Silver have a look at the Mutoh 1638. It's a dual Epson head printer with speeds like the Sure color. If you do need the extra colors, the new Mimaki JV300 has white and silver available. Mutoh made the GS6000 for Epson, but Epson went to China to build the Sure color.
 
Update on S70670s!

Hello All -

I feel it's only fair to provide an update to our S70 printer issues. After fighting Epson and getting a really great Epson dealer (John Harrington with JVH Tech - in Bellevue, WA -- if you're in the PNW I can't recommend John and the team at JVH Tech enough - just an FYI it's a family company and they run out of their house so it's not a big company like a Grimco or a Fellers) involved Epson has finally corrected our issues with the ink dripping.

Since Epson has had so many problems with their inks (I think we are on our 6th or 7th ink recall in the past two years - each time different lot numbers) all the work has been done on Epson's dime (which is really important because on one printer we had 7 print heads replaced = $21,000.00 almost).

As for media feed and calibration Epson released a new firmware since my last post and that has made a world of difference in both microweave banding and feed advance.

We've purchased an HP l360 and are in the process of purchasing an HP Scitex FB500, the HP printers are very user friendly and do a great job, but when you compare the image quality from an Epson S70670 to an HP360 (for as much apples to apples as you can get since they are two different printers I used print modes of 720x1440 8 pass on the Epson S70670 and 600 DPI 12 pass on the HP latex 360) the Epson wins hands down.

I just did a large job for T-Mobile and the magenta color was perfect on the S70670, the grays were very clean, and the light black that was in the artwork had a perfect gradient. When comparing this to the HP latex the print wasn't even close. Could it have worked, yeah probably, but not when you compare it to a print that was faster off the S70670 and looks 100 times better.

Bottom line the S70670s we have are now at 100% and the print quality can't be beat or even come close in the under $30,000.00 price range. Epson truly makes the best imaging printers on the market.

However dealing with Epson on the maintenance and the constant problems we have with their ink recalls has been a huge waste of resources.

Will I buy another Epson Printer (they really need to work our their supply issues with the inks), maybe but I'm not 100% sure.

I hope this update helps people understand that my opinion is:

1) Epson's S70670s are getting better
2) Epson's S70670 has the best print quality for under $30,000.00 (or possibly for any price - just isn't very fast)
3) Epson support as a whole are d-bags
4) Until Epson solves the Ink issues they have the S70670s are going to suffer

Best of luck to everyone out there!
 

ProColorGraphics

New Member
Interesting. Thanks for the update.

I do put print quality as probably my top priority, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter. Your first post did make me go another direction. haha. I ended up with the L360, my 4th HP latex. I do really like it!! Now that they are finally starting to get things worked out, it is tempting to consider it again.
 
Interesting. Thanks for the update.

I do put print quality as probably my top priority, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter. Your first post did make me go another direction. haha. I ended up with the L360, my 4th HP latex. I do really like it!! Now that they are finally starting to get things worked out, it is tempting to consider it again.

@proColorGraphics - I hope you are happy with your HP L360 - they really are a great machine for the sign and graphics industry and I'd probably buy them if we only did sign work (because they are less expensive to buy, ink usage seems to be less per sq. ft. plus the ink costs less and the ink durability of an unlaminated print is far superior), however we do a large volume of Fine Art and Photo printing and we needed the best quality we can (we always apply protective over coatings to our Fine Art Prints so ink durability wasn't a factor on the eco-solvent inks) and from my extensive hours of testing you can't beat the Epson S70670s for color gamut and print quality in that under $30,000.00 price range (or maybe any price range for that matter - more expensive machines just get you larger widths or faster machines).

Another promising thing from Epson was that they have made upgrades to the machine and we are on Epson's list of customers who will be getting the upgrades to our S70670s to the new S70675s that they will be releasing in about 18 months. One of our vendors contacted us today to let us know - maybe I made a big enough stink about all the problems they have caused our company...

"Good news - you folks are on the list to get your current S70s upgraded essentially to the new 675 series features and improvements. No charge to you. There is no specific timetable to do this as it will based on tech workload, kits availability and such. You can look to hear form Epson when they are ready to come out to your place."

So it sounds like they will be using the same printer body for their next version of the printers that will have new features and improvements (unfortunately I hear they will be new inks so if you wanted to get a new machine now and a second one in like 18 months you'd have two different ink sets to buy - but that is all rumor mill so take that with a grain of salt).

I'm more optimistic that Epson is going to be making major improvements to their machines over the next 12 to 18 months, so If you have a need for a new printer in a year or so give Epson a look and post here again and I'll give you my feedback.

Best of luck!

DSGI
 
Update to Post

Hello All -

Epson's had a tech at our shop the last few days doing upgrades to ur S70670s to make them S70675s. Speaking with the tech I've found out that there is no real improvements to the S70675s - it's the same as the S70670s except the ink delivery system is better and less likely to clog (which has never been an issue for us - we have ink drips).

Also, after making my update about how the ink dripping had been fixed - we ended up having two weeks where the Epson S70670 was dripping ink all over out prints (and we were still doing daily carriage maintenance) - so that is why Epson sent out the tech to work on our machines this week (we had a case opened up about the ink drips - which has been on going and opened/closed for about 9 months now).

I can't help but feel it's Karma for giving Epson the benefit of the doubt and updating my post -- maybe I should have appreciated that the machine is working and kept my mouth shut!

Anyway, I'll update again if this "upgrade" does solve the problem or if we still battle with dripping inks.

DSGI
 

nirupakah

New Member
I have been going through the forum for about three hours to find some tips on what new printer to buy (and not to buy) and ran into this post which I read with much interest and also much understanding and decided to share my experience.
We have had an Epson SC S70610 (10 inks) for two years and three months now and in the October or so last year we have made Epson to replace our original printer with a new one because of so many problems we had had with it – very similar stuff DSGI wrote about: first the ink formulation changes, several head replacements (not so many though), I also think they (our dealer’s techs) did not set the printer up properly so the print quality was poor because of this, only later a guy from Germany had to come and correct this... They have not taken the original printer back immediately (they take it today) so we have had two printers on the floor at the same time, one “first generation”, the newer one “second generation”. Last summer we had the original printer upgraded – they changed roll holders, pressure rollers and some other parts… Since then the original printer has not had any issue! Funny. The new printer has been printing almost perfectly since it has been installed.
This was our first signage printer so I really had no comparison and could not tell if some of the problems were not quite normal and to be expected… Later when the problems came we could not believe how terrible Epson support was – we waited for parts for weeks! This really is very poorly managed from Epson!
I must agree with the statement about the potential the printers have (that is why I decided to buy one), the reality was a disappointment, especially in the beginning. In theory it has so much to offer in its class: extra large gamut thanks to the orange ink, white and silver ink, speed…
So now we need a back-up printer and I really am not sure if we should buy another Epson SC... mostly because of the terrible support, I am not worried that much about the printer issues today seeing how the “second generation” machine has had no issues so far. I must say I am not a HP latex fan I did not see then (when buying the first Epson) and still do not see now (when the new generation of HP latex printers is out) the benefits of an HP latex printer like L360, although again I am taking a look at it and evaluating it and comparing with other printers. Also I think that getting just a back-up and not getting also something new to offer is not a step in the right direction… so I have been looking to some UV printers as well. It is getting off topic now so I will end it here.
 

ProColorGraphics

New Member
Hello All -

Epson's had a tech at our shop the last few days doing upgrades to ur S70670s to make them S70675s. Speaking with the tech I've found out that there is no real improvements to the S70675s - it's the same as the S70670s except the ink delivery system is better and less likely to clog (which has never been an issue for us - we have ink drips).

Also, after making my update about how the ink dripping had been fixed - we ended up having two weeks where the Epson S70670 was dripping ink all over out prints (and we were still doing daily carriage maintenance) - so that is why Epson sent out the tech to work on our machines this week (we had a case opened up about the ink drips - which has been on going and opened/closed for about 9 months now).

I can't help but feel it's Karma for giving Epson the benefit of the doubt and updating my post -- maybe I should have appreciated that the machine is working and kept my mouth shut!

Anyway, I'll update again if this "upgrade" does solve the problem or if we still battle with dripping inks.

DSGI

Are you still happy with the updates on the Epson? I see it looks like the new ones are out now.
 
S70670 Updates

The day after the tech updated our S70670s to the new tech which makes it a S70675 (or at least that is what they told me) we had ink drips out of our machine worse then ever. Since then the machine has performed nicely - so yes I'm happy over all but I'm still upset/disappointment in the dealing with Epson and their lack of support/willingness to admit things were wrong and step up to fix them (which was surprising to me, because in the past their support had always been great).

I think the S70670 has it's bugs worked out and is probably the best printer out there under $30,000.00 - but there are some drawbacks to solvent compared to other technologies such as not being able to print fabric, and trying to print double sided banners doesn't work well, and the ink is very soft - I don't send anything out of the shop without a laminate of some sort.

Thanks!

DS-MATT
 

ProColorGraphics

New Member
The day after the tech updated our S70670s to the new tech which makes it a S70675 (or at least that is what they told me) we had ink drips out of our machine worse then ever. Since then the machine has performed nicely - so yes I'm happy over all but I'm still upset/disappointment in the dealing with Epson and their lack of support/willingness to admit things were wrong and step up to fix them (which was surprising to me, because in the past their support had always been great).

I think the S70670 has it's bugs worked out and is probably the best printer out there under $30,000.00 - but there are some drawbacks to solvent compared to other technologies such as not being able to print fabric, and trying to print double sided banners doesn't work well, and the ink is very soft - I don't send anything out of the shop without a laminate of some sort.

Thanks!

DS-MATT


Thanks for the reply!! Other than being slow, what do you think of the white and silver ink?
 

lerscom

New Member
Go for mimaki or roland, I have an epson GS 6000 (and im not very happy) when we were to upgrade the tech told me don´t go for the surecolor stick whit the gs 6000 you´ll thank me
 
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