# Roland / Mimaki / Epson What is your preferred sublimation printer?



## user85 (Oct 22, 2015)

I am looking to purchase a JV300 Mimaki or a the New Epson F7170.

I am leaning towards the Epson, based on the quality I have seen.
I have heard mixed reviews on both brands performances.

I have worked with Rolands in the past, but I have been advised that these machines are more 'entry level'?

What printer are you currently using for dye sublimation? Are you happy with it?


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## sid (Oct 6, 2007)

Rolands an not "entry level" machines. What size are you looking for? More important what size and type of press are you planing to use.


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## user85 (Oct 22, 2015)

The machines I am looking at print 64" wide. I am currently setup with flatbed presses. I am looking to upgrade to a calendar/rotary press.


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## sid (Oct 6, 2007)

I would concentrate on either the Roland or the Mimaki


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## ZO6 KLR (Jan 8, 2013)

Any reason why Mutoh isn't on the list?

Reason being, I had couple of 44" Epsons and when it was time for me to upgrade, I found myself looking at all of the manufacturer's large format printers, including Epson. Based on Epson's crappy customer service (my experience) and the past experience of clogging and not being service friendly I excluded them. We wanted to work with Mimaki but when we received the test samples and just the way the requests were handled and processed, we knew we were not going with these guys. Seemed like the distributor just didn't care wether they sold a printer or not.

I was really on the fence about Roland. I talked with a few distributors and end users and there were mixed feelings about the printer. I used to have a large format Roland from our sign production days and I was generally happy with it but the support wasn't there, either.

We talked with our ink supplier (Digitally Driven) that is a distributor of Mutoh and ultimately went with the 1638WX. The print quality is excellent, the support that Daniel gives is above and beyond and not to mention that I have had zero print issues from day one. When I have an issue, I know Daniel will be there.

I guess to me customer service and support ranks number one on my list when looking at printers.


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## FatboyGraphics (Sep 20, 2009)

I would contact Daniel @ Digitally Driven and do what he says. He helped me a lot getting set up.


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## krown (Jul 21, 2011)

I would go with mimaki as there printer are faster, better color quality.


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## Press2Press (Oct 23, 2015)

Just one persons experience after many years in wide format. There is a lot to consider beyond the brand of printer and for us the brand is not the main consideration.

Great colors typically are not determined by the brand of printer. They come from the quality of ink and the profile. Same with the clogging issue - this is much more of an ink issue than a printer issue. High quality inks typically do not clog. 

Most important is to ask a lot of questions regarding service during and after warranty. From our experience in wide format, printer manufacturers do not warranty printers using dye sub ink. The company you buy not only the printer but as important the ink will be the company that warranty's the machine. If you buy the printer from company "a" and than turn around and use company "b" ink you just lost your warranty.

I would never buy a new printer from a distributor unless I was going to use their ink - at least through the warranty period.


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## ZO6 KLR (Jan 8, 2013)

Press2Press said:


> Same with the clogging issue - this is much more of an ink issue than a printer issue. High quality inks typically do not clog.



I agree with Press2Press' statement except for the quality ink / clogging issue.

We use Jteck exclusively and from the time we started with a new 9890, we had issues with clogging. I thought it was more of a ink batch issue but from the time we used the Epson which was about 2 years, we had to perform a flush every 2 to 3 hours, printing or not. Maybe it was a singular issue, I will never know.

But I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of his post. Brand is not much of an issue and customer service / support is what it's all about.

What I can say from my experience with Epson, Mutoh, Mimaki and Roland is that Epson seemed to give me the best print quality out of all of them. We run 8 colors on our Mutoh and we ran 8 on the Epson and I can say without a doubt the Epson led with flying colors. With that being said, the 1638 was one of the best investments made for our business. Oh, the customer support isn't bad either.


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## Press2Press (Oct 23, 2015)

I am not a technical printer guru but are not the heads used in the different brands virtually the same? We are also a Jtek fan and but use four color configuration.


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## ZO6 KLR (Jan 8, 2013)

Press, from what I have learned from various techs, Epson does in fact manufacture the heads in most of the large format printers. With that said, the Epson heads are a bit different in terms of quality. I can't remember exactly how the tech put it but he did say they are designed a little differently. Once I see him again I will have him elaborate a little more.


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## skdave (Apr 11, 2008)

Wow this thread is hard to follow from the start.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Press2Press said:


> Just one persons experience after many years in wide format. There is a lot to consider beyond the brand of printer and for us the brand is not the main consideration.
> 
> Great colors typically are not determined by the brand of printer. They come from the quality of ink and the profile. Same with the clogging issue - this is much more of an ink issue than a printer issue. High quality inks typically do not clog.
> 
> ...


Good post Mark (Riderz). When one puts in inks that the printer wasn't designed for hard to blame the printer. Folks forget we use these outside the original design intent.


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## ultraprintworks (Mar 2, 2015)

We use mutton currently and the thing is a beast. Next upgrade for us will be Mimaki to improve print time.


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## mimakichips (Jun 15, 2016)

krown said:


> I would go with mimaki as there printer are faster, better color quality.




I think the mimaki's quanlity is the best ,and it have stable chips solution in market.

Epson new 40600 no chip soluton at present. the price of original ink too expensive.


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## softballover (Nov 21, 2010)

we started with epsons 7600, 9800

then moved to the T5000,T7000

and now we are running the mimaki jv150-130

by far the mimaki is a better printer, the takeup is a true time saver.

and we received the two year warranty at no extra charge so it was a no brainer.

now that we have expanded into BMX,Hockey,Lacrosse,Softball,baseball,hoodies,shorts ect we will be purchasing another mimaki in the near future


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## inkjetparts (Apr 2, 2016)

The Mimaki JV300 is nice and you always have the option to use bulk ink system.


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## JMA44 (Sep 9, 2012)

Does Mimaki have their own ink/paper or are you able to use your choice ?


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## JMA44 (Sep 9, 2012)

softballover said:


> we started with epsons 7600, 9800
> 
> then moved to the T5000,T7000
> 
> ...



I was referring to this post


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## softballover (Nov 21, 2010)

we use Kiian ink and beaver paper


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## UCDISPLAY (Mar 19, 2016)

my set up is two mimaki JV300-160 to feed one rotary press. PM me if you want more detail of my set up.


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