Large format inkjet printers

mrbios

mrbios

mrbios

Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2003
Posts
16,131
Location
Gloucestershire
I've put this in here as people in this industry are far more likely to have used or be able to recommend them than anywhere else in the forums...

Can anyone recommend any large good qaulity photo printing machines that can do A1, A2, A3 and A4?

It'll only be connected to an individual machine rather than networked and although we have up to £4-5k to play with we're hoping to keep £2k of that for some IPS monitors (this is for an Art/photography department in a school)
 
Architecture student here, have spent the past 6 years using printers at uni, in an architects practice, and shared (bought) student printers. We primarily print A1's for portfolio.

Basically... Get an HP. They're reliable, consumables are easy to come by, and I've always been impressed with the results. (All the printers at uni and work are HP).

My housemate has a designjet T610. Couldn't find it on HP's website so it might be on the way out, however it is a recent model so still worth trying to find one. It seems to have pretty reasonable running costs (bear in mind these things aren't cheap!) and colours are good. I think it's directed more towards colour graphics rather than photos.

Another friend has a Z series designjet. It's probably the Z2100. That also gives great results but seems to be more geared towards photos so might be a better bet for your use. Can't comment on the photo quality as we don't really produce that kind of work, however some people have put some work through on satin/gloss paper and it looks great.

So... I can recommend both of them:) The Z series will probably suit you best. Don't skimp on paper, If you buy decent 120+ gsm rolls the colours will pop a lot more. 80-90 gsm is fine for draft work but the colours normally come out dull and you're just wasting ink tbh.
 
Thank you very much stupot, I've just been looking at the Z2100 actually and i think the consumables are going to cost too much. 8 ink cartridges at £40-50 a pop is going to destroy the art departments budget :D

I'm now looking at the HP DesignJet 130r which is a fair bit cheaper for both the printer and the consumables, does this sound like it could fit the bill for our needs?
 
I don't think you'll necessarily find it any cheaper to go for the 130r in the long run... I think it's difficult to quantify the cost per print. You've got a good budget (2.5k) to get a solid entry level designjet, personally i'd want one which is tailored to the job you want it to do.

Another one of my friend had a 110r, I'm going to assume it's similar to the 130. They didn't look after it tbh and I don't think it works any more... I'd rather have a floor standing one:)

If you're worried about cartridges then I'd look at the t610 (or whatever HP have since replaced it by). I've used it a lot and it's pretty impressive. It takes four cartridges IIRC. I think my housemate got hos for £12-1300 or so. Gives a lot left over for cartridges.

Either way, I don't think you can look at the figures and work out the print cost. It would be best to control what people are printing, i.e. my housemate charges people extra if they're printing black A1 sheets with white text on them. It might look great on screen but never prints well and uses up a ton of ink.

Maybe worth picking up a couple of cheap A3's to supplement the large format. Printing A3/4 on a designjet is a lot more expensive, and you're wasting a lot of paper on the roll if you do that.

I have a couple of A3 injets -

HP B9180 - awesome photo quality. But... printheads have broken, and it takes 8x£25 cartridges so not exactly budget.

Epson stylus office B1100 - Ok quality, better for documents etc. Only four cartridges so much cheaper. Enjoys chewing up paper.

Would probably be better to have an A3 laser to supplement a designjet...


edit: bear in mind these printers are supported long beyond their lifespan...
 
Last edited:
Thanks Stupot, i think they're hoping to use a lot of the funds to buy a large quantity of spare inks and lots of photo paper ranging from A1-A3, i'll definitely recommend they avoid A3 and A4 prints off it as they have a colour laserjet for that crap :p

Regarding the 130r we were thinking of getting the stand and bin attachment for it, i can't find the t610 anywhere that has stock :(
 
I work as a digital arts and media technician, and am in charge of 4 Large format printers (24" and 44") and 6 Medium format printers (A2). If I was to buy another LF printer for myself or for work, it would be the Epson x900 series. Infact I have recently ordered a 9900 to replace our ageing 9600. The 9900 may be too expensive and overkill for what you need, but I would seriously consider the 7900. The inks go on for ages and the prints look great.

Don't forget to budget for paper and inks etc as well. if you want a really nice, standard paper I would recommend the Fuji Pearl roll paper we use. Fairly cheap, but gives really nice results and is pretty durable (certainly compared to a rag paper)

You may also want to consider getting a RIP instead of using the drivers to print. Can make life a lot easier and if set up correctly can also save you ink and paper. We use Colobyte Imageprint, which although it does have it's quirks, it is very easy to use. :)
 
Just looking at purchasing a Canon iPF8300 here. From the reading I've done around the subject people seem to be rating the most recent Canons as better overall compared to HP/Epson :)
 
It might be worth having a dig around on the talkphotography forums.

Oh and 'the other school', have a large format HP printer. Not sure what model. If you want to have a look I can put you in contact.
 
We have purchased a number of HP DesignJet 510's for our CAD departments at various offices. Fully networked with a stand they were coming in around £2k. Probably get them around the £1500 mark without the network bits.

They work well and whilst a little slow do exactly what we need for up to A0. We use colour laser's for anything up to A3.
 
Anyone have any opinions on this one:
http://www.epson.co.uk/Printers-and-All-In-Ones/Large-Format/Epson-Stylus-Pro-7700

? It only uses a standard 4 colours which makes me think the print quality won't be fantastic but as it can be had for nearly £1500 (ex vat) and you can get 700ml ink drums for them it looks ideal. Funny timing for this thread to be bumped actually....the money for it got approved recently and only yesterday they asked me to look into again :p
 
York said:
Just looking at purchasing a Canon iPF8300 here. From the reading I've done around the subject people seem to be rating the most recent Canons as better overall compared to HP/Epson :)
Click to expand...

The iPF8300 is an amazing printer for photo prints as it uses 12 colours and genuinely looks like photos from a lab but much much bigger :D
 
my dad had the epson 7600 pro, upgraded to the epson 9600 and does all his canvas printing with it so dont know what photo style prints look like as he uses a smaller printer for those. quality is good when you get the profiles correct, and he gets his ink at a fraction of the price epson sell them at. will ask him later on today what ink he uses and where he gets it from. you can pick up a second hand fully serviced one for around the 1500 mark.

hes bought his last few printers off a guy who buys and services them for resale somewhere down south. think he does px too if the printer is anygood.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom