Primal Decals

What printer is needed ?

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im wanting to get into printing on vinyl.Im not looking into doing large work something under 24" at the most. What do they start out at for prices and whats a good brand to go with that will do me good and not worry about major issues some cheap ones may have. Thank you.

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Cheapest I know of that will print on regular vinyl is the Roland BN20 and cheap is a relative term.

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but be aware that the BN20 is a slow printer, and it does not take standard sized media. it will have to be cut to fit, plus there are certain sizes it just wont take, like 12" for example.

 

This is coming from someone who owned one.

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Thanks Guys, When you say "it wont take 12"" Mac what do you mean? just that size or no bigger etc. Im ok with slow as long as it doesnt take 10 min for something like a 10x10 area decal. I hardly doubt i will ever go that big , but i did have a layered decal i did which was 12h"x22l" which probly should of been printed .so maybe i do need one to go a ok size. lol but im not sure

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I think all the desktop vinyl printers are slow. I saw where signwarehouse had their own version but if I remember it didn't use convenational ink. Think it might have been a resin of something.

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I didnt realize how much those dang printers run. holly crap.. Well i guess i wont be getting one just yet..ive already paid off my titan 2 in 2 months, so maybe i will get lucky ..bummer .Thanks

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Yep that's why I use guys like dakota. Let them have the headaches and I get an awesome finished product for my customers.

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I didnt realize how much those dang printers run. holly crap.. Well i guess i wont be getting one just yet..ive already paid off my titan 2 in 2 months, so maybe i will get lucky ..bummer .Thanks

 

Better to test the demand in your area by outsourcing at first.

If you see that producing in-house would be more beneficial,

then look into buying the equipment.  AND never depend on

ONE customer to "pay for it" with their orders....they can

disappear leaving you with expensive equipment.

 

Not to mention the upkeep/repairs/upgrading that comes

with owning that equipment.

 

Sue2

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Thanks Guys, When you say "it wont take 12"" Mac what do you mean? just that size or no bigger etc. Im ok with slow as long as it doesnt take 10 min for something like a 10x10 area decal. I hardly doubt i will ever go that big , but i did have a layered decal i did which was 12h"x22l" which probly should of been printed .so maybe i do need one to go a ok size. lol but im not sure

With any production printer, your outer most pinch rollers dictate where your printable area is. there are only certain zones where you can place then, but you can move and slide the roll placement before its fed into the printer to get virtually any position you want, giving you the freedom to place smaller, off-cut rolls into a larger machine. it doesnt happen too often, but its nice to have the option to do that if the need arises.

 

When you load the BN20's "easy feed" system, its actually anything but that. there is a feed bar, with two large endcaps, one of which is stationary, mounted to the bar. The other slides off the left end to load the roll of material. Then, you place the cap back on the bar, slide it into the core of the media, and place the whole media/rod assembly in the slot meant to hold the feed bar. At this point you have to slide the pinch rollers in, but you can't go past the edge of the material. The endcaps that you need for the media to feed properly, and the pinch rollers are designed together so that you can not slide the roller in past the edge of the material. This can get very aggravating when you order a 20" roll of material and they put it on a 20.5" core. It wont work because the printer thinks that your trying to put a roll in thats too big.

 

 

Here is a list of sizes that work, as you can imagine, green is good, red wont work.

5.9 - 6.7 inches

6.8 - 7.8

7.9 - 9.3

9.4 - 11.2

11.3 - 12.7

12.8 - 13.6

13.7 - 15.1

15.2 - 15.4

15.5 - 16.9

17.0 - 17.2

17.3 - 18.7

18.8 - 19.1

19.2 - 20.3

 

The first roll of media I bought, I had a 30" roll cut down to a 20" and a 10", not knowing about the "dead zones" needless to say I was little angry when I tried to load my 10" roll and the printer would not accept it.

 

I may have been off in my last statement in 12" wont fit, its been almost 2 years since I sold mine.

 

personally after owning this one, and upgrading to a VS-300, The BN20 was nothing but a headache.

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Anyone have the BN-20?  I can't afford the 300, but have turned away quite a bit of business because I cant print full color stickers.  I have a couple customers now wanting a few thousand stickers made so any help anyone can give me on the Roland BN-20 would be greatly appreciated.

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Anyone have the BN-20?  I can't afford the 300, but have turned away quite a bit of business because I cant print full color stickers.  I have a couple customers now wanting a few thousand stickers made so any help anyone can give me on the Roland BN-20 would be greatly appreciated.

I really think you need to visit a dealer to see this before plunging in and thinking printing 1000's is a grand idea - especially on a bn-20.   or at least visit someone in your area with the equipment and see what it is like.  educate yourself before the plunge - then if it still is a great idea go for it.   better educated will help you with your decision on the right unit for you.  it can be great for business or could become an expensive boat anchor if you chose the wrong one.   In 5.5 years when I start traveling more I will probably have to get out of the printing end of this - last year we came back from a week in Florida and had an electrical issue that occurred about 2 days before we got home - turned out fine with a few new items but came very close to being a $2000 issue had it happened a day or two before.  now every trip I have a couple of house/printer sitters/checkers to make sure things are fine at least every other day.

in stead of asking opinions and basing your decision on that actually go visit someone with a unit like you are looking at and even visit some trade shows (keeping in mind they are they to sell you the biggest for the biggest commission).

this has been a public service announcement - continue on

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I looked at this machine last year at the Arlington NBM Show, and liked it other than the size.  But I think I can live with the size, we just added a 4 color screen print system to the business (still haven't unpacked it yet)  think this addition will help take us to a new direction for sales.  Was just curious what other people had heard and knew about this machine.  I am trying to find a good used Roland 300 but at least with a new BN-20 I would have a warranty and some tech support.  Thanks all for the input.

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Well i took my design to a local shop(signorama) after checking prices first, and i showed them a sample decal i got from my customer that they had printed from onlinethe artwork was already done and ready for print etc. And i told this company i needed it to look like what i showed them . I had used the oracal color swatches to make sure they know the colors i needed, my monitor is color calibrated also. and the size of the decal with uv laminate was 12"Hx24L. they were gonna charge me 58.00. so when i picked up the decal a few days later .Out of 6 colors ,only 5 were correct and they said they would have to charge me another 85.00 for color correction and then another 58.00 for the cut..i wasnt happy about this and now i dont know what to do.im gonna be out some serious money on this install if i have to spend any more money. I didnt do the artwork design,The customer did,all im doing is installing it for them and some small lettering for them,,,i was gonna charge 100.00 bucks for the whole deal, but now i have this issue with the printing company.... Not sure what to do

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color matching can be a real bear - but reading this I seriously need to raise my prices by a ton if it was just print - guessing that price included the artwork recreation so not far off that way.  remember that once you have the equipment you will be the one trying to match the colors - price of the printer, inks, laminator ,supplies and waste on trial and error are your puppy.    curious though why you didn't create the artwork to save that money since you are in the business?

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Ill post the image, I havent messed with it in a few weeks , the customer luckily isnt in a rush and i told them the issue with color so i need to figure something out soon tho

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Color match scares the crap out of me. I prefer color approximation.

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530 image


 

The green was the only color that was messed up ,it was way to dark. and they wouldnt fix it. this is the final that i need to look like colors etc

 

 

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I use a wholesale printer on my big banners and other large stuff. I found the best thing for me was to order a banner printed with a color chart so I knew exactly what each color would look like on the finished product but even then I avoid having to promise exact matches.

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Approximation means we'll get it as close as we can but we don't guarantee an exact match. If they are that particular it usually just ends up costing me money like it's going to you. Look at my last post for an idea how to get your colors closer.

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whats funny is , i did a test print on my awesome printer but i cant do larger than 8x11 that i use for my photo work, and i also took it to a friends lab that does high high end prints and huge prints and his and mine both look identical to each other and what i exactly needed, so im not sure why signorama couldn't produce for me what we did for tests..

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Converting files from RGB to CMYK will frequently alter how

the colors print out.

 

Sue2

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And quite simply some places just don't take the time. Their printer probably matches their monitors and that's all they care about.

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 if 5 colors match and 1 doesnt then why wouldnt they all be good or all bad ? Doesnt make sense to me ... Thank you everyone.. i just need to find someone to print this

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