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Martin Boekers
03-02-2010, 6:24 PM
How was ARA? Did anyone go?

What was new and exciting? what about Acryliprint?

Tell us, Tell us!


Thanks!

Marty

Mark Plotkin
03-03-2010, 8:01 PM
Martin,

I did attend and thought the show was good. For those looking for a laser all the companies were there and ready to run samples and show off their machines. I did find it interesting after five years with the laser that the samples they show off are not things that really sell very well. I have never engraved a photo on wood that came out as good as the samples on display, professional photos and all the right settings make a huge difference. I have two big clients I was shopping for, one does corporate gifts and one has a very high end gift shop. I found many items that will be of interest to both of them. I-Mark was the standout company/display for me.

I had a chance to talk to the owner of Laserbits. We talked about this forum and other topics. I have had good success with their products and customer service even when I've had problems and it was nice to see the entire line.

This was my first time at the ARA show and I am glad I attended. I will make more money with the knowledge that I gained and found new suppliers and saw more of what current suppliers have to offer.

Hope this helps!

Martin Boekers
03-03-2010, 8:18 PM
Mark,

Thanks for the input! I was hoping this thread would bring quite a few responses. Either not many Creekers went or they are holding out:cool:

I-Mark does have some nice things. If this shop ever slows down for a bit
I want to explore their pen and pencil line. I'm not really happy with the standard ones most offer. I-Mark has a nice selection and is VERY competative on blanks.

I wished I could have made it, but couldn't get away this year. It would have saved me much time to talk with vendors live than running my research through the internet.

This year already is shaping up to be a big year for the shop, unless something unexpected happens.

I guess it will be NBM at Indy this summer.

Marty

matt heinzel
03-04-2010, 8:05 AM
The president of our company went. He checked out Acryliprint and their machine was being sold for around 15,000, plus you need to use their blanks so it is a big start up cost. There was another company there called The Magic Touch. They do basically the same thing, but they sell you different types of paper that you can run on your laser printer. Then you just transfer them using a heat press. You can transfer to most anything including, wood, glass, and acrylic. He brought back samples of both and they are pretty close in quality. The paper is around $100 for 50 sheets depending on what it will be used for. If you already have a heat press and a laser printer it would be a good starting point. I guess if you market right you could sell a bunch and then maybe the investment for Acryliprint would be ok.

Mike Null
03-04-2010, 8:07 AM
Marty

I attended the show, my first, and was told by a number of suppliers that it was a very good show for them.

Laser prices dropped like a rock. I wish I needed a new Trotec but ULS and Epilog show specials were also red hot. (50 watt machines under $20,000)

I had the pleasure of meeting Peck Sidara and watching his demo of a fiber optic machine. I wish one of those was in my future.

I met with Roy Brewer and met Jeanette for the first time. Roy was working three booths, Epilog, Xenetech and Acryliprint.

Tania Duper wrote a very good report on this equipment (Acryliprint) in another thread.

I had dinner with Tom and Arlene Bernard (Lazerbuzz) and listened to some fascinating stories of the success of some of his customers.

People were excited about products from Claytex which is a bronze resin which engraves bronze. MagicTouch introduced a new paper (avail. May) which will adhere to acrylic and produces a look similar to Acriliprint but not quite the quality. Still very good though.

IPI had a new brushed brass, brushed aluminum reverse engravable plastic which I expect to do very well. (makes color filling a breeze)


More later.

Gene Hobbs
03-04-2010, 8:44 AM
I have The Magic Touch system. I would not recomend it for anyone. I think that was one of the worst buys I have bought for my business (Well except the Accuris from Signwarehouse. But you can do a search on that). all I heard before I bought it was how much better it was than sublimation, (Wrong). I have a $500.00 laser printer sitting in my shop looking nice but thats it. Their paper is way over priced and does not work the way they say. Yes you use a heat press but you have to be very careful because it will sctatch off very easy. The cost of the paper alone makes screen printing still the cheaper way to go. If anyone has a different experience with it, I would like to know.

Mike Null
03-04-2010, 8:48 AM
Gene

I've used the MagicTouch system exclusively for nearly 10 years. I am extremely pleased with the results on most materials. It is not suitable for such things as tiles as it is too fragile but for plaques, name tags, t-shirts etc. it has been great and I consider it to be less expensive than dye sublimation.

I attempted to move your post and my response to the sign forum but was unable to do so. It would have been more appropriate there.

Gene Hobbs
03-04-2010, 9:29 AM
Mike do you apply something over it like a clear. to keep it from sctatching off. I wouldn't mind using it if I could get it to stay. As far as t-shirts I have a box of that paper, but everytime I try to run a sheet it gets caught up in the fuser and causes a paper jam. Any help would be great


Thanks Gene

matt heinzel
03-04-2010, 9:30 AM
The sample we got at the trade show uses white paper. It is on the back of the acrylic not sure how it would scratch off. I'm confused by what you mean.

Gene Hobbs
03-04-2010, 9:42 AM
Matt I'm not sure about that type paper. I use the CPM6.4 transfer paper for hard surface (metal, tile) Once applied looks nice but very easy to scratch off, kind of like a Crayon. Mabey its just me not doing something right.

Alexander Stein
03-04-2010, 10:31 AM
I also attended for my first time this year and I was pleased to see so much under the same roof. I was only there on wed. Though looking at the samples the companies were displaying I thought they could do better. Photos on wood really don't look that great when the grain of the wood is so apparent. To me it distracts the photo. And everyone else was running samples of wood. Cutting and raster.... The coolest thing I saw was the fiber mark from epilog, and the job program from Trotec. . .

Mike Null
03-04-2010, 10:47 AM
Gene

I would advise against doing tiles, mugs and any ceramics with that particular paper. I suggest you call Adam at MagicTouch about tech support. I believe your paper settings need to be changed for t-shirts. Try the cpm settings and see if that helps.

My printer is an old Panasonic 8415 oil fuser model that actually has the MagicTouch driver.

Martin Boekers
03-04-2010, 10:54 AM
I use Magic Touch and am happy with the results.

I do use it on tiles with good success. I only use it for tile that are display not say as a coaster. I've done well with it.

I have a box of textile paper, but haven't had much success with it. The transfer looks ok but it fades after the first washing.

I bought some metal from them as a back up to dye sub, but haven't been able to get it to transfer properly, this may take a bit of time to get temp, pressure and time down.

Since toners may vary from printer to printer that may be why some of us have different expieriences with different materials.

I have had success to a point, of transfering to acrylic with it. Problems were a slight drop out of transfer on an edge. Maybe a different pad would help? After I transfered it to acrylic I then used a white sheet with adhesive in the front, then positioned it on the back over the transfer, this gave it a solid photographic look as opposed to the transparency. These I bought from JDS, they are the backing sheets that come with the marbled acrylic plates.

As Mike said the quality is no where near the quality of a photo, but a laser print is no where near it either. It is what it is. These do have use, but more on a promotional end than an award end.

I will say this paper has solved some problems arising with certain requests and have raise sales.

Most of us aready have a laser printer in shop for daily business use, typically that wouldn't be a new expense. The same with a heat press, many do sublimation already and have a press. Te issues I have with sublimation is high cost, limited materials, color management and fading.
so the cost for me was paper about $.60 a sheet with my main use is tiles I get at HD $.15, toner maybe $.10, and a sheet I get 2 up on $.60
I get 2 tiles for $1.10 total. Dye Sub is no where near that price, then if I'm doing images you have waste getting it to look like the photograph color and density wise.

Like I said before different users have differnt expieriences not only with transfers, but lasering certain substrates. This is just another tool not an overall solution.


Marty

AL Ursich
03-04-2010, 2:26 PM
Mike do you apply something over it like a clear. to keep it from sctatching off. I wouldn't mind using it if I could get it to stay. As far as t-shirts I have a box of that paper, but everytime I try to run a sheet it gets caught up in the fuser and causes a paper jam. Any help would be great


Thanks Gene

As for the paper jam, I got some Glow In the Dark Paper the other day. It talked about fuser problems and they say by changing paper types to plain paper it can solve fuser problems "Sometimes".... Worth a try.


I used it for a few things on wood and liked the result. On Tile, switched back to Sublimation. I do strange stuff....:D

AL

Tania Duper
03-05-2010, 6:05 AM
One of the most impressive things I saw at the ARA show was a continuous ink jet system that was being used by the AcryliPrint people. SuperJet USA wasn't there, but their ink system was being used for their Canon 8-color ink jet printer in their booth.

Here's their main site:
http://www.superjetusa.com/shop/

Here's the unit for the Canon Pro9000 8-color system:
http://www.superjetusa.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=283

Maybe, for some of you expert print shops, this is old news. But for those (like me) who aren't happy paying $1000/gallon for ink, check out SuperJet USA.

Roy Brewer
03-05-2010, 10:30 PM
...continuous ink jet system that was being used by the AcryliPrint people. SuperJet USA wasn't there, but their ink system was being used for their Canon 8-color ink jet printer in their booth.Tania,

We're hardly expert at inkjet printing, but being an AcryliPrint distributor, we took the queue from AIF and we also use the SuperJet volume ink system. We've found that in certain colors this has more "pop" than the *much* more expensive Cannon inks!

Ross Moshinsky
03-05-2010, 11:16 PM
In my humble opinion, I see no market for this product. It's no cheaper than laser engraving. It requires as much work. It looks cheaper and will probably fetch a lower cost as a result. I'll stick with laser engraving acrylic awards. It has a standard appearance that people see and understand it's value. It has a good aesthetic value as well that indicates it being an award, and not a toy. To me when I see thinks like the Acryliprint, I see something that looks like it should be sold in Walmart.

My HP 4550 sublimation setup is used for several reasons, but nothing outside it's capabilities at this point. I use it for trophy plates as a cheaper solution than flexibrass, diamond drag, or the awful stamping(which is what we used to use). I use it for budget plaques. I use it for adding color logos on plaques. That's it. It's paid for itself 20x by using it in this regard. I tried t-shirts, tiles, white aluminum, and a few other options and all have been mediocre or worse. Now if a client wants something with color, we outsource or stir them towards something we already can offer. More often than not, we can convince them to a more "standard" appearance or use "accessory parts" to get the look they desire.

If I wanted to do more with ink/color, I would only step towards direct to substrate printing as that is the future. It looks great, is cheap to run, and is fast. Right now, there are no cost effective solutions that I know if, but in 5 years, I think it will be the item to buy.

Rodne Gold
03-05-2010, 11:51 PM
I was using bulk ink on my Epson 1290 Based direct to substrate Busjet printer - the bulk ink system was the major problem with that setup.
However we have used bulk in on our roland for a long time without issues , its hugely cheaper than the 440ml carts we used to buy and its as good if not better.
I too think that full colour acrylic is somewhat garish , but then I also think that column type trophies are cheap and nasty , thing is , I sell em in my trophy business cos if I had to sell only what I think is elegant , my business would be in trouble. Whatever makes me money and makes the customer happy...
Im not sure why this system is so expensive , we print regularily on our large format printer on various substrates and use water clear mounting film to adhere the print to glss and thick acrylic with no bubble issues etc - you cannot see the mounting film at all.

Mike Null
03-06-2010, 7:09 AM
I see great opportunities for this application in the point of sale field. Like Rodney, I am not enamored with the idea for plaques or awards but design will influence that and certainly tasteful design can make these attractive for many applications.

Martin Boekers
03-06-2010, 9:05 PM
The trade show and commercial photo industry has been using an optical double sided adhesive for years. The material itself isn't cheap and it does have a learning curve to get it down bubble and dust free. Also you need a roll laminator for larger pieces. It would help on smaller pieces but it can be done on those with just a sqweegee. Prints appear to be more vibrant when adheared to acrylic then just mounted. In the 1970's it was popular in the art world to mount prints this way. There was a more complicated patented process than the adhesive, which may be similar to the one that AIF is using. History does tend to repeat itself as new uses surface.

I can see a much stronger market in signage than awards.

I have a bulk system on my Epson 1400 dye sub it's a mess with the tubes getting tangled.If anyone has resolve those issues please pass them on!

Thanks,

Marty

AL Ursich
09-14-2010, 2:56 PM
I have a bulk system on my Epson 1400 dye sub it's a mess with the tubes getting tangled.If anyone has resolve those issues please pass them on!

Thanks,

Marty

Here is my trick to fix the CIS Hose problems I have had. A HOT Soldering Iron and removed some plastic.... Much better.... You can see the marks on the hose from the slapping into the plastic. I did it to all 3 of my R1800's. No quality problems, still a sturdy machine.

AL