Advise on a canvas printer

[Justin]

Not for the first time, I'm looking at getting a canvas printer. I'd been looking towards an HP Z2100 but have started looking more towards the Z6100 refurb'd.

Anyone have any experience of the Z6100 please?

Appreciate any advice. Primarily this is for canvas work but would be useful to print other stuff as well.

[Justin]

No one printing canvas? Lol.

Anyone any advice on Epson 9890? Had a 7890 but suffered the Sawgrass failure, airways liked the actual printer though. I can source this cheaper that a 9880 and it seems better.

I know HP will be much cheaper on inks but I don't really her the huge carts just yet.

[froggy]

I have a epson 9800 which I used to use for canvas work . The results were very good. I used Inktec inks rather than the OEM inks. I had the machine profiled to my media.

The newer machines have more options in terms of available inkset configurations it depends on the work you are producing I suppose. As a footnote I had the machine sat unplugged for 6 months. Started it up did a test print and only a couple of small misses on nozzle test!

Never produced canvas with sublimation ink, I think if you are doing any numbers with canvas stick to pigment ink setup. Too many extra production steps in what is already a labour intensive process.

Hope that helps a little

[Smart Mart]

Depends on how much you print, 6100 prints twice as fast as the 2100 due to it having double the amount of printheads, the printouts will be exactly the same but the carts for the 6100 are so much cheaper.A lot less to go wrong with the 2100-i had one & didn't have any issues but the ink costs swayed me to the 6100.The carts seem to last forever & i print about 150 A1 prints a week,great machine & i would go for it if you can get it at a good price,don't ge the compatable inks though (unless you use sam ink),they will bugger up the printheads.The inks will save you greatly if you are in it for the long haul.

[Justin]

Cheers for that. Struggling with the final decision, z2100 new with warranty is worth a lot due to my remote location. Z6100 is about £1k cheaper. I won't be printing huge numbers to start so thinking I could always upgrade from z2100 later.

Really like the idea of being able to create profiles and this makes the z2100 a great price.

Not ruled out the 9880 at same price as z6100 but others have these locally and would be good to go a different route.

So Sam ink or original only? What sort of price for both?

[Smart Mart]

Z2100 great machine,though you can't get sam inks for it,but i think you can get originals for £30-£50 130ml depending on what colour you want. The 9880 i think you have to to an ink swap on the blacks if you want to change media,canvas to photo paper for example & that uses a huge amount of ink,also if the printhead fails on the 9880 you have to replace the whole lot-hp just replace one at a time,the Hp wins by a mile-for me anyway. The sam inks are fine about £70 for 775 ml compared to £150 for Hp,though i buy hp expired ones for £80.You wont go wrong with a z2100,though obviously others will differ!

[kiprogers]

I've been buying out of date inks from America. They are a good £10-£20 cheaper to buy than from the uk and only take around a week to 10 days to arrive.
My z2100 44" has been amazing so far

[Justin]

Looks like it's the z2100 . Ordering next week hopefully.

Appreciate this isn't the cheapest option but shoukd with week for me.

[kiprogers]

You wont be disappointed

[Justin]

Interested to know what different media you put through the 2100? I'll mainly be doing canvas work but would like to utilise for other things.