Smallest Desktop Solvent/Latex Vinyl Printer?

[infamuz]

I do think you're going to run into issues only printing once or twice a week though. You WILL have to get your hands dirty at some point in the first year or two if that's all you're pumping through it...

Yeah, I know the pitfalls of it, we have a CJV30-130 which is used once or twice a week.. if we keep on top of cleans etc it behaves. Also got a CJV30-100 which is used a lot and we tend to run into the same issues across both machines just as frequently really.

We have an 8 colour Canon with the light grey/light cyan/light magenta etc, which we use purely for photographic imagery. This proposed new machine is going to be purely for short run smaller "less colour critical" decals and the likes

Really, if we could get something small enough to print vinyl at A4 I'd be over the moon. Shame nothing much exists at this scale.

 

[ikarasu]

If you have a few printers you use less than once a week... I don't think you should look into buying yet another printer that will be used once or twice a week.

How far away is this second location? Why not wait 2-3 days, build up the jobs, print them all at once rather than print one decal at a time? If the customer is in a rush, they can pay a rush fee which covers your wasted vinyl + travel to the second location. If they're not in a rush... Group of up and go deliver every 2-3 days. Or courier it...we ship stuff across town for $20 a box. Again .. if it's rush couriering it next day should still be way cheaper than buying another machine

 

[PortlandPrint]

Another downside of the bn20 is that it does not have as much heat to dry prints as the other Roland’s. I believe it only has print heat vs platen heat/dryer heat.

If you are planning to dome your prints you may run into issues since the inks will not be as cured. Not sure if what you are using will work or not out of the box. I did some trials years ago on my bn20 and prints dry to the touch bled and made soupy domes where the inks bled.

I would try testing that for sure too if you test out the bn20.

 

[infamuz]

Thanks - I was told the BN20 has a generic 95º heat so should suffice for smaller bits?

Also on the regular BN20 I’ve seen people using a secondary magenta and also a flush cartridge there in the 5th position. Would a flush cartridge be configured via the software so it doesn’t draw anything from it unless it’s in a cleaning cycle? Or is the cleaning solution done manually or using a different slot? Wondering how those with CMYKM setup do routine / idle cleaning if there’s no flush cartridge in it.

 

[PortlandPrint]

The older rolands do not have a flush cartridge. People sometimes keep a cleaning cartridge in white or metallica slot since they never use either ink and will eventually clog/waste ink in the normal cleaning cycles.

I think some of the newer machines may clean for you, but older ones have a rubber wiper and a felt wiper, that clean the head. And then weekly you manually clean the print head with cleaning solution / wipes. This is how the BN 20 is. (and the vs series which is what I own).