Roland BN-20 or Alternative?

[Justin]

Thanks Justin but that's a beast and we only want to print out small stickers.

Lol, it is a big machine, we've been creating 30mm stickers through it, opens up a lot of other avenues though as well.

[Paul]

Then bn20 is your friend. You only want small stickers and space is limited then you can't have a speed.
Shocked that nobody mentioned about the print quality of bn20 yet. Is absolutely excellent and much better than some larger and more expensive to to rolands.

[UK Printed Mugs]

Update - I am going to test the water initially with pre-cut round Avery water-proof laser printed labels as these are the ones used for a decal I bought in Florida a couple of years ago and claim 3-5 years of outdoor life. BUT then I have found a dedicated label printed with cutter which looks pretty neat:
https://www.primera.com/lx610-ptcreatepro-bundle.html
At only £2k then this might be the way to go for the low run smaller labels we need to do.

[Justin]

Does this have a take up reel? Interested to see price of blank labels.

If you can justify the outlay for this with regular stickers it could be worth it but at £2k+shipping, VAT, charges etc. it's a big investment for a one trick pony?

edit: Just seen the prices of the lables, ouch. Does look like shipping included though.

[UK Printed Mugs]

Yes indeed, I guess I might be investing in something that won't pay back for a long time so probably need to do a proper business plan first. I did find a UK company selling the 610 who are going to run off some artwork we sent them so will report back with feedback after I get the samples.

[Justin]

It does look decent, would be checking speed as the cutter doesn't look too fast, depends how many you need to print I guess. It states 3000 a day which I don't feel is high and is probably quite optimistic. 3000 stickers on my Latex would take minutes lol.

If you get an jobs for 10l, 20k stickers it would be a long slog and would tie the machine up for a few days. Better suited to short run maybe.

[Justin]

If it helps as quick comparison, last vinyl we bought was Metamark MD-100 760mm x 100m @ £120.

[UK Printed Mugs]

I do think I'm looking for short runs - From 1 to 25 labels I am guessing in one go. Basically want to offer non-sublimated items (e.g. regular small tins) with artwork printed on top as well as decals. Our non-business clients, basically artists, order in small quantities so unlike a bottling plant needing hundreds of labels an hour we wouldn't push too many out.

[pw66]

Isn't that just for retail packaging labels? Can't see it being much use for bumper stickers etc.
Only uses pigment or dye ink so not much use for outdoors.
The tri colur ink cartridge would worry me. I used to have a Dell inkjet that used tri colour carts and as soon as one colour ran out it it had to be replaced.

[UK Printed Mugs]

All good feedback thanks as only a newbie in this area. Interestingly the Avery labels (haven't turned up yet) do claim outdoor life and waterproof using laser toner so with the avery and the samples from 610 I will put outside and check. I appreciate all this feedback and of course will provide info as I go down this path in case others are interested. Not worth investing in £000's if I cannot make it back of course