Equipment Review

[bobyettah]

I am new to wide format printing.
I am looking to purchase a Roland SP540V.
How does this compare with other brands?
Can any give their experiences with this unit?
Thanks

[Greg Lockrey]

That's quite a beggining printer. $13,000.00 - Solvent Base - used mostly for outdoor signage - 54" . One of the best brands on the market for it's purpose. I'm a fine art printer so I don't need one of these unless I want to get into making signs for busses, etc.

[Ted Harris]

Roland printers are wonderful machines. They are in a different class in every way than the Epson and Canon wide format printers usually discussed here. That means moer expensive, require more care to operate, more costly to maintain, etc. Do they produce beetter results, that is a subject of much debate. For starters they were originally made for the graphic arts as opposed to the photography market and as such use inksets that are not generally considered archival. I haven't checked but don't believe they use any archival inks, could be wrong on this though.

Several questions before going on though ... 1) what do you mean by wide format,how wide? 2) What are you going to use the machine for, what sort of prints? 3) Are you buying new or used and what is your budget?

[Gordon Moat]

At the paper industry trade show I attended last year, there was a Roland rep. His claim for the prints was three to four years outdoors in direct sunlight. In general, this is a common expectation for larger HP, Mutoh, Mimaki, Seiko-Epson, ColorSpan, or other wide printer makers. If you want to warranty an archival aspect of a print, then three years would be a safe guess; in all likelyhood the prints would last substantially longer.

This is not really an appropriate forum to find out more about very wide printers. Many fine art wide printers are using Epson or HP DesignJet, and a few the newer Canon printers, but rare to find someone here with wider printer experience. Some solvent and eco-solvent inks are nearly as tough as automotive paint (depending upon printer), so while the very wide printer companies might not use marketing terms like archival, it would not be unreasonable to expect the prints to be durable.

You can find a ton more information through an industry trade magazine called The Big Picture. They have many revues on the latest in wide printers, plus comparison of availabe ink types and their durabilities. Try to find someone running a wide printer that you might want to purchase, and find out issues about service, speed, and operating costs. Best of luck.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[Greg Lockrey]

And "The Big Picture" is free!

[chinpokojed]

Roland's printers can be used with non-solvent, water based, pigment inks for archival quality on-par with Epson / Canon / HP printers & inksets. Can't get into details about the inks we're using but I assure you, it can be done.

It certainly is an expensive, complicated place to start though.

[Ted Harris]

True about the dfferent inks, I have an associate that does this. Again very expensive, complicatd way to get into printing wide format and something I ure wouldn't recommend to someone who had no printing experience.