Semi industrial printer for a4/3 prints and gift cards

pburrows145 · 15 Jun 2020 at 22:12

Hi everyone - this is my first post (here’s hoping someone can help).

My wife is about to re-launch her Etsy shop and previously we used Printed.com for a bulk of our orders which provided very nice deliverables.

However, she would now like to move into custom design and offer faster turn-around times and hence we need a major printer upgrade.

Can anyone recommend a good printer for the job? It must be able to:

• Print in full colour on a3/4 (single sided) - Paper and Card
• Print on cards (typically A6 size when folded)
• Provide edge to edge printing where required
• Be good value for money

Thanks in advance for any advice. I’ve scoured various forums and I am struggling to come up with the best plan.

Current budget is up to around £200... (though this may need adjusting...)

Thanks in advance
Paul

WJA96 · 29 Jun 2020 at 05:49

When you say ‘full colour’ do you mean photographs? That would usually mean dye sublimation printing or litho printing. Neither of which would be in your £200 budget. There are lots of print shops who will allow you to upload your own artwork and will post out the cards same-day.

Doing it yourself at home to a professional standard will be very expensive and would take years to cover the investment cost.

Avalon · 3 Jul 2020 at 14:42

WJA96 said:
When you say ‘full colour’ do you mean photographs? That would usually mean dye sublimation printing or litho printing. Neither of which would be in your £200 budget. There are lots of print shops who will allow you to upload your own artwork and will post out the cards same-day.

Doing it yourself at home to a professional standard will be very expensive and would take years to cover the investment cost.

Er... You don't use dye-sub (which is inkjet based) to print on paper/card as an end use, the paper is coated and just a carrier medium that you print on mirrored and then heat press it onto a polymer coated substrate or polyester/poly mix fabric. It's also horrifically expensive compared to pigment/dye based inks.

Quartz · 3 Jul 2020 at 15:57

pburrows145 said:
Current budget is up to around £200... (though this may need adjusting...)

She should factor in running costs. She might find that a (business!) relationship with a local print shop might be more appropriate.

Journey · 3 Jul 2020 at 16:02

pburrows145 said:
My wife is about to re-launch her Etsy shop

What is it that she is selling that requires printing?

I only ask as other have suggested a close relationship with a local printing firm may end up being the best option for quality, and good turn around time if you do a reasonable amount with them. I used to have a guy that items for me same day (mostly) and sometimes while I waited if it was urgent, I used to look after his PC's in return for a great rate.

WJA96 · 3 Jul 2020 at 16:21

Avalon said:
Er... You don't use dye-sub (which is inkjet based) to print on paper/card as an end use, the paper is coated and just a carrier medium that you print on mirrored and then heat press it onto a polymer coated substrate or polyester/poly mix fabric. It's also horrifically expensive compared to pigment/dye based inks.

Well, we have 3 small (A5 card sized) dye sub photo printers that we use to print onto a variety of substrates. Including paper. It’s about the only thing that gives us a true photo finish.

Avalon · 13 Jul 2020 at 16:57

WJA96 said:
Well, we have 3 small (A5 card sized) dye sub photo printers that we use to print onto a variety of substrates. Including paper. It’s about the only thing that gives us a true photo finish.

The thermal transfer ribbon type? That’s a variation on the process that doesn’t use ‘ink’, but a thermal head and ribbon, it’s normally only used for things like ID cards, though 20+ years ago Gerber? did try and market it as a large format option with the ‘Edge’ and Roland rebranded it as the P60/P600, but it was a commercial flop as soon as solvent became a thing and took over. It wasn’t aware it was still being used beyond photo ID card printing, but then again Oki decided to use wax a few years back, so life is full of surprises. Conventional sublimation is very different, the image printed onto a carrier sheet usually as a mirror image, then heat pressed onto a polyester substrate or a polymer coating on an object, it transfers over and virus it’s way into the polyester layer, think photo mugs or mouse mats/t-shirts or specially treated aluminium/plastics, it’s not a process that goes onto paper and stays on it.

WJA96 · 14 Jul 2020 at 07:18

They’re Konica-Minolta. It was a printing company that put us onto them. It’s about £3 to print an A5 sized photographic print onto card. We use them for personalised quotes. And obviously we all make our own birthday cards