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We have had a Gerber Solara Ion X for about 8 months now. I am looking for other owners of this machine to see if we are the only ones having these problems or if its more widespread.
In a nutshell, the machine has been serviced on average 2 times per month. The range of problems are: ink starvation, encoder strip problem, x & y axis motors, complete change out of carriage unit with new heads and new inks....etc.
Our most recent problem has been that ever since Gerber changed out the inks on our flatbed we cannot print on alot of materials we once were able to. Mainly any substrate that has a metal surface (di-bond, alumilite, aluminum) it looks bandy and pin holes in the print.
We are running 40-45 humidity and 70-75 F per Gerber recommondations.
We have been operating digital printers for over 10 years now and I realize there is a learning curve, but this is ridiculous.
Is anybody else having these issues or do we just have a lemon?
Any input or stories would be benificial.
Thanks in Advance
Yes, we have had just as many problems as you it seems. It is very difficult to print on Aluminum sign products. Our machine has now been down for 2 weeks, mostly due to poor shipping of parts and repair problems.
Has everybody received the latest news about Gerber's discontinuation of flatbed printers?? They're no longer going to service Solara Ion's!! and a minumum of 5 year ink supply... I've only had this for 1year & a half.... It won't even be paid for by the time that they cancel inks & service... I'm not a very happy camper... If anyone wants to talk about this, I would appreciate some input. We need to get together and do something about this, they need to take them back or refund or trade or something... this is not right. Our printer had been having many problems in the beginning, but now it is working alright, although we have been getting customer reports on the ink fading on outdoor signs. please feel free to email me gary@yorksigns.com or you can call our shop 207-474-9331 we are in Maine. Something needs to happen, class action suit or re-imbursement... anything.........- Gary York - York Signs
We have had our ION X for 6 months. Our problem is that the cleaning and purge process is killing productivity. Our prints can be great or poor. All the issue you mention. Ours get better if we spend the 2 hours purging ink until we get good nozzle out prints! Please also call me. 858.344.3400.
From what our service guy has said, we are one of the few companies that hasn't had major problems with the ion and this is mainly due to the fact that we have an employee who's only job is to run this machine and is extremely consistant with the maintenance. Even so, we still have had a service tech on site every month. Although we have been relatively happy, we are shocked at the price they have put on the extended warrranty - $9000.00 / year. This rediculously high price for an extended warranty clearly shows their own lack of confidence in their product.
I currently work at a company that purchased an Ion about 4 months ago. I am the only one that operates the machine and I have had very few problem with it, in fact, I think it is a great printer and usually produces great results. I experienced some poor print results at first, but through trial and error, I discovered that the trick is in setting the proper setting when ripping. You cannot go by the substrate settings in the Onyx program, if you do, you will get the pin holes and banding in the prints that you described. You also will not get true rich colors. The setting I use in Onyx for mostly all prints is 340dpi, 8 pass unidirectional, and set on acrylic substate, even if I am printing on coroplast, aluminum, or polymetal.
As long as the material is properly cleaned with alcohol, I usually get good results with this setting. If I feel the color is too light, I will just sent the print again and doulble print it.
As for the maintenance, I only do the head cleaning once per day, usually just before I am ready to print the first job of the day. I will clean the heads again mid-day if I have a lot of constant printing to that day. As for the 40 hour clean, I only do that when the printer tells me it is time to do it, not once a week as I was told to do in my training. I usually only run a nozzel test after the printer has no ran for a couple of days, To do so after each head clean is a waste of time and ink.
I have experienced a few problems with the machine. It misreads the current ink levels often, requiring one to reset it to the levels of ink actually in the pouches, and there is some minor ink leakage from the ink drawers. But overall, I have had very few problems with the machine. Sounds like your machine just had a lot of bugs in it.
We have a Solara Ion X and are extremely disappointed with the machine. 1 month after the Guaranty expired (which by the way is 1 year) the head stop working and we have been given a repair quote of 2.500,00 Euros. The machine does not read most materials well and the wastage with bad printing is a nightmare.
We would not recommend anybody buying one of these machines.
Gerber used to be a reliable make but at the moment there are many others doing the same with a lot better performance.
Pity that the entities that have done reports on these machines were not 100% accurate with their tests. We read most reports after the machine was launched and thought they were reliable. My ADVISE IS DON'T.
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