Printer - (less sh*tty news)

The printer in this case, we were waiting on parts as they were back ordered. Even if we had payed a tech to repair, I don’t think it would get repaired any quicker.

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We had a printer not all that long ago that we tried to repair on our own but eventually called a tech out. I’m not 100% positive but I think it was close to a $150 call and they had us order a $200ish dollar part. When it came it exploded all over myself and @AlexRhodes and we took the entire thing and dropped it off on the free shelf.
While that was an extreme case it was an exercise in philosophy pocketbook and patience.

The part was on backorder. He did try to locate it locally before ordering it to lessen the wait.

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Indeed, I am consistent there. For some DMS members it’s woodshop. Others join for access to automotive. For me it’s access to a wide-format printer. That’s the primary reason I give DMS my money.

I’m sticking to my word, too, on helping out to get the printers online. There are some things I can’t control, though. No one would take kindly to my attempting the repair for the 24" myself. Nor do I think this group would be too happy with me for setting up the 64". (I’ve certainly been tempted to try it. I’d be glad to just that if I knew it wouldn’t create a small mushroom cloud over the space.)

I simply bought my own. $200, but I spent FAR more than that on ink, a maintenance cartridge, and printheads.

Yes. That’s why it’s so great to possibly have a shared resource soon. I have a great one in WI, but was really trying not to have to move it down or duplicate the expense here.

I saw y’all ordered photo paper for the new 65" printer, so I’m guessing repairs are imminent, since we surely wouldn’t order $$ paper for a machine we couldn’t fix. Did we order 65" plain paper for printing patterns and schematics as well? We still have the 36" plain paper left over from the plotter we got rid of and I’m hoping that can be used on this machine as well or it’s back to cutting it down into sheets for the 24" printer and going to Kinko’s for A0 prints. I moved all the large format paper format and specialty papers from CA into “Digital Frontiers?” when I moved out the Sanford & Son staging and gave the outsides of the printers a wipe down.

Framing? Please explain. With no open work surface how would one do framing in “Digital Frontiers?”

I was told (perhaps incorrectly) by Chuck from Vector that the big cutter in “Digital Frontiers?” is a glass cutter only. I would suggest we NOT cut glass in that room, but in the workshop as cutting glass creates small shards and those probably wouldn’t be great to have around the printers or any environment where people wouldn’t expect that particular hazard. There is a mat cutter in CA and it will cut mat at 45 or 90 degrees but you told me some time back it was being returned to it’s owner if I recall correctly.

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FYI: For those that want to pull the trigger and hire a tech - consider the costs.
$150 for a service call would be a steal. Most folks that are well trained and work for Canon,Epson etc are much more costly and then there are the parts…( not including ink, print heads, paper/canvas, and other paraphernalia that go into higher quality wide format printing)

Nicole: on the giant printer are you going to stick with your current print pricing as on the 24" printer? I ask because the costs associated with it are going to be higher than the 24" one…

I’m going to put words in Nicole’s mouth for now because she’s out for the week. At the CA committee meeting she said that we don’t really know how much to charge for full 64" wide printing. We don’t have a good handle on the true costs.

However, that printer is apparently capable of taking narrower media. We plan to determine IF we can charge the same pricing if people use the narrower media. And like everything else, if we find out that we have grossly under- or over- estimated the costs, we reserve the right to adjust the (still TBD) pricing.

Thanks Chris!

I expect it will take smaller media and possibly sheets (like mine does) but more ink tanks, etc is the killer in the cost game

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We admit that we don’t have a good pricing model for that printer, and don’t really know how to estimate the costs - particularly how much “mileage” we’ll get for the ink resources. Media is easier. Since you own similar printers, if you have specific thoughts we’d really like to hear them.

It looks like there may be an app for that:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epson-lfp-ink-cost-calculator/

I tricked it a bit by using France and Dollars - 1 square meter at highest resolution was $5.34.

Let’s call 1 square meter about 10 square feet. That would be 24" x 60" (2’ x 5’) or $0.534/square foot.

^^^^^Ink costs only.

Also, I read approximately 2cc/sf of ink.

So price the ink separately from the paper, and then also charge for the paper. Or figure it as a cost per linear foot for each paper.

I relied on data from the app for the calculations above. I concede that our mileage may vary, but it gives us a start.

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Hmmm … I follow your math, but I’m not confident the app is correct - unless the app is only ink. We know from prior experience that $2/linear foot is pretty close to the break-even point for printing on 2’ wide paper - or about $1/square foot.

I can’t get the app to come up for me with the link you gave.

I’m back.
The new epson is operational. Just waiting on @pandabob to come to weigh ink/print something/weigh again.

I didn’t order photo paper because we wanted to make sure that yellow ink head wouldn’t flare up with issues.

The printer can take any size media.

The plan is to mount the matcutter and sell the glass cutter off. I would never put a glass cutter up without thinking about the repercussions. It’s going to be a white room reserved for images. I don’t see the problem with putting a mattcutter on the wall so if someone wanted to cut a mat for an image it would be an all in one stop in a room that’s not made for wet media. It’s not perfect but it’s something. We’re working with what we have Bitta and trying to create as many resources as possible for members.

The $150 service tech was a called in favor from @Nick work. I know they cost more.

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How do commercial print shops distinguish pricing between architectural blueprints or engineering drawings which are mostly white from posters which are completely covered with ink?

Also, the link is an app designed to work from an iPhone or iPad.

No idea here. But the last time I had to copy plans, it’s was 75$ for a couple pages. (24x36)

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It’s based on print resolution in the app that I linked. I used the highest resolution (using the most ink) in the sketch I gave.

Also, though both wide format, a bigger shop might have two different types of machines creating two different pricing scenarios.

Hey Bill,
As someone that runs a commercial print shop let me try to elaborate on this. Large format printing is a hard beast to crack. What you will often find is that print shops will run their machines at different quality levels, like resolution or in some cases amount of ink applied. But, for large format they tend to quote pricing at 100% coverage. So clients that want to claim a discount for using less ink are often not afforded that.

In the DMS we have (and probably will here) set pricing so tightly to the cost of just the materials without any consideration for the time needed to maintain or service the machines, that I would suggest we not try to trick the system up with multiple pricing schemes. Multiple pricing schemes will surely run into confusion which will lead to more hurt feeling than the meager savings are to bring happy feelings.

My 2 cents

So best resolution on the most expensive paper.

Can we price per square foot or should we assume everything is printed on 64" and continue with pricing per linear foot?

My printer has a built in accounting software - as I use different papers, canvases etc it calculates the cost per square inch.

Does the 64" printer actually work?

Other costs you/ the annex need to consider is not just just the cost of paper and ink, but the cost of print heads and if it requires a maintenance cartridge. Ink and print media can vary widely depending on the source. Nozzle cleanings, calibration prints etc should be taken into the cost accounting as well.

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