Printer/cutter or printer + cutter for small stickers?

[stevenjw 0]

Greetings, my wife and I will be printing personalized 3x4 stickers for children. We will be printing dozens or even hundreds of them every day. Every sticker is the same size but every sticker is different (they are personalized) and each sticker comes to us as a .pdf created in Illustrator. I went to our local Roland dealer and he gave me a demo using one of my .pdf files on a Versacamm. It printed nice and smooth, cut perfectly, came out great, and looked fast. But before I shell out up to $15K I wanted some thoughts from people that have a lot more experience in this stuff than myself. I am thinking this could be overkill if all we are doing is printing 3x4 stickers? This printer is huge and expensive. Though the BN-20 is smaller and an option, I have read in numerous places that it may print too slow for fast throughput applications such as my scenario. 

So I need to print these small stickers as fast and as easy as possible. Do you think that means I should definitely go with a printer/cutter combo such as Roland? I have read on other sites that it may be smarter to go with separate machines. But then I obviously would need to cut separately. And we are not reinventing the the wheel with these stickers. The designs are literally created by children using photos. With a separate cutter I am thinking I would have a huge sheet of vinyl with, say, 50 of the stickers on it. Now I need to send it through the cutter and they all need to cut perfectly or I have to start everything over. This seems like it would be too much overhead for what we are doing. 

Any thoughts? I don't want to make a high priced mistake. I want the fastest, most reliable solution to print 100's  of 3x4 stickers quickly with high quality. Thank you. 

[dcbevins 340]

The thing that comes to mind is to laminate or not to laminate.  There are those that would swear to always laminate.  Lamination does add durability especially for outdoor graphics.  But most eco-solvent and latex inks have a good deal of built in uv resistance and outdoor durability.  It might be say five years verses eight.  

Personally for stickers, I think lamination is over kill.  But if you did laminate, then it might, (and I say might,) be an easier workflow to have separate print cut machines.  With lamination and a print cut machine it means printing without cutting, unloading, laminating, reloading and cutting.  With separate machines it means print from one machine, laminate, cut on another.  This separate process lends itself to more flexibility in scheduling.  Either way if your doing lamination, what ever is the cutting machine better have great registration for contour cutting.

If you really don't have high volume, then all such printers are BAD to clog if not used frequently.  Here having one printer and one cutter might be a great thing if the printer is a latex printer.  These clog less when they sit idle for days on end.  I don't think you can do transfers with Latex, unless it's changed recently.  So eco-solvent would give you the option of transfer for garments, (also printed HTV,) were as Latex would not. 

The BN20 is going to be slower.  But I don't think that is a great consideration as you can run the thing almost continually if needed, (helps reduce clogs running it continually.)  If all your doing is stickers without lamination then it might be a fine choice.  But a larger machine opens  you up to expanded options like banners, posters, vehicle graphics and or wraps.  A larger machine can take a wider variety of media.  There really is a great deal of interesting media you can run through the larger machines.  If you really are swamped, a bigger machine can spit out more per run than a smaller one.

Another thing I am not sure about is if you need perf cutting.  Without it you will be hand trimming the stickers down to size.  I think most of the Roland machines, including the BN20, can perf cut.  But don't hold me too it.  It probably wears out blades more quickly.

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

with the roland you can get parts 8+ years down the road - many other brand (not sure on mimaki) you are lucky to get parts 2 years later.  I personally will probably be getting out of the printer end of it within 2 yrs -wife is retiring and we will be gone a month at a time and eco solvent printers do not like to sit idle even with the self cleanings several times a day, that coupled with all the printers out there now with people not paying for the upkeep (sub par prints are ok with them) and the high volume people using pallets of vinyl and aftermarket inks the margin has gotten so low it is not realistic for me to go latex and have a machine with low margins, parts not available down the road etc.  my higher margin work is with the plotter anyways