WARNING TO PRINT SHOPS – DO NOT BUY A ROLAND PRINTER

[rapidwraps01]

WARNING TO PRINT SHOPS – DO NOT BUY A ROLAND PRINTER
My experience has cost me thousands. Here’s what happened.

My name is Caleb Wilson, and I own a successful wrap shop in Southern California, Rapid Wraps. About a year ago, I purchased a Roland VG3-640 through Montroy Sign Supply. I was originally going to buy an Epson, but was convinced that the Roland VG was the top choice—especially for vibrant greens, which I would use commonly for a great customer of ours, Monster Energy.
Big mistake.
By the third wrap printed, I was already dealing with severe banding issues. Montroy's techs came out and temporarily fixed it, but the issue kept coming back. Then came the color inconsistencies, unreliable output, and the absolute nightmare that is VersaWorks, which takes 4–5x longer to RIP files compared to Onyx. For wrap shops that deal with multi-panel files, this completely kills productivity.
Montroy has been helpful, but Roland’s support has been horrendous. No urgency, no accountability, and no real fixes. After wasting thousands in materials and hours of labor, I stopped using the printer altogether and went back to my HP 560 latex machines, which have been rock solid.
Montroy eventually offered to swap the printer for the “Newest and Geatest” TrueVIS XP-640, a generous offer where they ate a $5K difference. I only paid for the new inks. I agreed to try again.
Same exact issues.

• Constant banding
• Even worse color inconsistency
• Nothing stayed calibrated
• Again, weeks of downtime, reprints, and lost trust with clients

A Roland tech came out, aligned the machine, and reprofiled colors—it printed great while he printed his own samples. As soon as I printed any wrap again, we were back to where we were before. My shop is climate-controlled, immaculately clean, and we follow every maintenance step by the book. We also shake the ink pouches daily as they are indicating this is necessary for consistent color. The problem isn't the environment. It's Roland’s equipment and lack of quality control.

I told Montroy I was done—they agreed to notify Roland and attempt a refund. Roland then sent out another tech who made more promises:

• New Onyx profiles to fix rip time issues
• A free external dryer because the prints weren't curing
• A free set of inks

That was 7 weeks ago. Still nothing. No dryer. No ink. No resolution. No communication.

I’m officially done.
Roland has been the worst company I’ve dealt with in 10+ years of business. They sold me a machine that underperforms, overpromises, and burns through materials and time with no support. I am posting this and have a brand new machine that is sitting here not being used because of all the issues they can't fix.

DO NOT BUY A ROLAND​

• Terrible color reliability
• Unfixable banding
• Miserable RIP workflow
• Horrible tech support
• Empty promises

Feel free to share or message me if you want more info. I’m posting this to help other shop owners avoid the same expensive mistake.

 

[CanuckSigns]

A tale as old as time, we were one of the first shops to adopt the new Tru-Vis printers when they were introduced about 8 years ago, we had the EXACT same issues as you, and roland treated us EXACTLY the same, our local dealer was great, but Roland just stopped communicating or caring after the simple fixes didn't work. We've been a Epson shop ever since, i will never have another Roland printer.

 

[rapidwraps01]

A tale as old as time, we were one of the first shops to adopt the new Tru-Vis printers when they were introduced about 8 years ago, we had the EXACT same issues as you, and roland treated us EXACTLY the same, our local dealer was great, but Roland just stopped communicating or caring after the simple fixes didn't work. We've been a Epson shop ever since, i will never have another Roland printer.

It amazes me that this is 8 years later, and supposed to be the best printer on the market from their sales reps. And what horrible customer service. I will be getting an Epson now.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Roland had a good reputation when they were making SP-300s that lasted 20 years and are still running to this day. Somewhere it went downhill and they started pumping out budget printers at full price. Might have something to do with them going the private equity route.

 

[CanuckSigns]

It amazes me that this is 8 years later, and supposed to be the best printer on the market from their sales reps. And what horrible customer service. I will be getting an Epson now.

I'm convinced they were just trying to run out the warrantee period on us, they were sending our tech out 1-2 times a week to get a fresh peck report, that was all they did, our local tech had a few ideas but roland refused to pay him to do them because they didn't believe it would fix the issues.

We had 3 roland printers previously, all of them were flawless, something about the switch over to tru vis just ruined them, they changed every system inside the machine (print heads, ink delivery system etc) all at once and the printers havnt been the same since, no longer a reliable workhorse, they are now designed to be replaced every few years.

 

[d fleming]

I have purchased one roland printer. Never again.

 

[rapidwraps01]

I'm convinced they were just trying to run out the warrantee period on us, they were sending our tech out 1-2 times a week to get a fresh peck report, that was all they did, our local tech had a few ideas but roland refused to pay him to do them because they didn't believe it would fix the issues.

We had 3 roland printers previously, all of them were flawless, something about the switch over to tru vis just ruined them, they changed every system inside the machine (print heads, ink delivery system etc) all at once and the printers havnt been the same since, no longer a reliable workhorse, they are now designed to be replaced every few years.

Ya that makes sense. I have had problems since day 1. Honestly I dont know how anyone uses these if they have these issues. My cousin has a shop in Arkansas, he bought their new latex printer, and experienced a ton of issues. The supplier returned it and he went with Epson.

 

[weyandsign]

If anyone wants to fix the super slow rip speed with VersaWorks, download the program called "process lasso". When VW is ripping, it launches another program called "RipPrintProcessor". Right click this program inside process lasso and set CPU affinity to ALWAYS use CORE 0 ONLY. (disable all other CPU cores). This will fix the slow rip speed. I'm not surprised that Roland and their techs "don't know this".

 

[White Haus]

Roland had a good reputation when they were making SP-300s that lasted 20 years and are still running to this day. Somewhere it went downhill and they started pumping out budget printers at full price. Might have something to do with them going the private equity route.

Yep. Our first two printers were Rolands, but I would never consider them again. The way they're going they'll probably push themselves out of the market within next 5 years.

I think I'll stick with Epson / Mimaki / Canon for now as they've all been far more reliable than Roland.

To the OP - sorry to hear about your troubles, that's never fun. We had different frustrating experiences with Roland years ago and never did get them resolved. No idea how their new "latest and greatest" (insert sarcasm) printers perform but I was pleasantly surprised going from Rolands to an Epson S60600.

 

[Gino]

Wow........ your first few posts and you have nothing but negativity. We've had 2 rolands and both are great pieces of equipment. The one we got in 2004 and it's still running strong and never had an issue like you indicated. Why is the grey off, but not the other colors ??

Now, I'm no tech or educated person on how to build or fix these things, but doesn't it make sense most of your colors are working, all the roland files worked, but your greys don't cut it ?? For some reason greys are had to get dialed in properly. I'm sure you did nothing wrong, but have you looked into all the possibilities ??

Could your signal be getting interrupted while sending files to print ?? You're climate controlled, so that shouldn't be an issue. Is it all off the same roll, mind you, not the same type, but the same roll ?? Are they all being run in the same direction on the printer ??

We had our most problems with our flatbed when running very light pastel type colors. No one could ever figure it out. Your grey in the picture is an area which could go either way. I think it's in your ripping program from whatever you're using then into vw. Some kinda glitch there. You're probably used to doing it one way and roland doesn't like it.

 

[StarSign]

My question is why no one noticed that before installation.

 

[LarryB]

I have a VG2-540 and a VG3-540 and have no issues at all. We did have issues a couple years ago with banding on the VG2 with blues but nothing else. We print wraps on the VG3 everyday and they turn out great. We run Versaworks with both printers.

 

[netsol]

If anyone wants to fix the super slow rip speed with VersaWorks, download the program called "process lasso". When VW is ripping, it launches another program called "RipPrintProcessor". Right click this program inside process lasso and set CPU affinity to ALWAYS use CORE 0 ONLY. (disable all other CPU cores). This will fix the slow rip speed. I'm not surprised that Roland and their techs "don't know this".

that sounds like it would do exactly the opposite

very few software companies deal properly with the complexities of hyperthreading and multiple cpu cores.
we have some ghastly slow dell optiplexes at a number of clients they are gen 12 I5's and according to device manager they have 20 cores
(8 "physical" and the others virtual for running vm's)

.i imagine your "use core zero only" means stop sending data to non existent cores, since they really can't process it

 

[rapidwraps01]

Wow........ your first few posts and you have nothing but negativity. We've had 2 rolands and both are great pieces of equipment. The one we got in 2004 and it's still running strong and never had an issue like you indicated. Why is the grey off, but not the other colors ??

Now, I'm no tech or educated person on how to build or fix these things, but doesn't it make sense most of your colors are working, all the roland files worked, but your greys don't cut it ?? For some reason greys are had to get dialed in properly. I'm sure you did nothing wrong, but have you looked into all the possibilities ??

Could your signal be getting interrupted while sending files to print ?? You're climate controlled, so that shouldn't be an issue. Is it all off the same roll, mind you, not the same type, but the same roll ?? Are they all being run in the same direction on the printer ??

We had our most problems with our flatbed when running very light pastel type colors. No one could ever figure it out. Your grey in the picture is an area which could go either way. I think it's in your ripping program from whatever you're using then into vw. Some kinda glitch there. You're probably used to doing it one way and roland doesn't like it.

Thanks for the response, Gino — and I appreciate you not assuming I’m just here to bash a brand. Like you, I’m not usually one to post stuff like this publicly, but after 8+ months of trying to get a working solution, I felt like I owed it to other shop owners to speak up.

The photo I posted was just one example — the banding happened in multiple colors, especially cyan and green. That first printer didn’t hold calibration, and even after they swapped it for the new VG3 (which included light black and improved the grays), the same issues continued. The new unit showed promise, but only when printing Roland DG Library colors — anything else came out inconsistent.

I've tried different RIPs, profiles, computers, and workflows. I’ve followed every maintenance step. My HP 560s run circles around it in reliability and print quality.

I do want to be clear that my dealer (Montroy) has actually been solid. They tried hard to make it right. But Roland’s lack of follow-through is what killed it — 7 weeks waiting on promised profiles, a dryer, ink... nothing delivered, and zero communication.

This post wasn’t meant to stir drama — just to warn others before they find themselves in the same situation. Happy to share more details with anyone who’s on the fence about buying one.

 

[dreko]

Will Roland refund your purchase? Or do you have a lawsuit to pursue?