Help me!!! Information overload!!!!!

Ok, I'm in the market for a wide format inkjet printer, I want to be able to print signage, posters, fine art but I would also like to possibly print on stuff like static cling and vinyl for banners. I have about $1000 and I will most likely purchase from craigslist as there are many listed there, can someone PLEASE recommend a printer that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to purchase and another arm and leg to refill?

Thank You!

 

Is $500 a good price for the HP Designjet 750C Plotter?

 

wow, no information overload on this post! lol

 

I don't think the 750C is sufficient for anything fine art at this point in time. For signage and posters I'm still using mine since I don't do enough of that type of thing to justify the Z3100 that I have my eye on.

Pros of the 750C:

Keeps running while I've had 4 desktop epson printers that have come and gone (nozzles) in that time. Because of the old-school design of the 750C where the head is on the print cartridge, it keeps going. I have had to replace the carriage belt once, but I've been running mine since 1999 I believe though right now I only run about 300' through it a year.

The ink isn't too expensive compared with current 8-12 color pigment printers. With the 750C you're only printing in CMYK and the actual amount of ink is less than if you're filling areas with light cyan, light magenta, light grey (because you're using less of the full color pigments.) And the old dye based ink can be had fairly inexpensively now in comparison as you can usually find it for well less than retail.

And the driver still works with xp and vista 32-bit at least - not sure about windows 7 yet or if there is a way to print to it from 64-bit yet.

Cons:
The resolution simply isn't very good compared to modern printers. 300 dpi doesn't resolve the detail that current inkjets do, not to mention 4 colors isn't very smooth compared to the 8 or 12 color inkjets of today. Up close, the prints look a bit old school as you can see the individual dots which make up the print whereas we now expect them to be a bit finer. On the wall as a poster, not an issue. But when someone looks up close, it won't stack up.

The dye based ink does fade, so if you hang something on the wall for a year you'll see a color shift. Over time yellows disappear and reds become magenta (after maybe 6 months in some sunlight you start to see some color shift.)

When you run out of ink during a print, the print is ruined unlike todays printers where you can change on the go.

It's no speed demon in best quality mode.


I'm not sure whether $500 is a good price or not -- it's hard to get anything for $500 now a days. I paid thousands for the 750C Plus a decade ago. But it's no match for a $5500 HPZ. Where does that leave it, or you... it depends on whether you can make money with it. It's not quite good enough or fast enough for me to make a lot of money with, but for me it still fills a limited need to provide limited posters for select customers who I do other work for (24x36 and 36x48 posters as well as 3'x10' and 3'x12' banners) There's not much profit in these jobs if any at all for me when I consider waste and time. And if I was running posters daily, I'd upgrade to something with twice the resolution.

 

Thank you for the reply and info... This printer is a Design Jet 750c plus btw, I just realized that.

 

Mine is a 750c plus too. Before it I had a 350c which was a really basic version of the same (same color cartridges) but a different black; the 750c plus introduced the 600 dpi black resolution which was a big thing back then. At the time the differences between them were great - the 750c plus would process a 36 x 48 sheet about twice as fast for me. It's a real testament to their design that this printer is still printing after a decade for me; I admire it's simple clean design and things like if you have a head that develops an issue, a $30 cartridge and you have a brand new print head. But these were also closer to the beginning of the mass- inkjet printer era than to the current time. They were one generation after straight cad-plotters and honestly I think their quality surprised everyone. But the physical limitations - 300 dpi color resolution for raster printing and ink that fades - are the limitations. We've seen a lot of progress in resolution in the last 10 years and ink permanence in the last 5 years. If I were looking now, I think I'd look for the next generation to bring at least 600 dpi raster printing. At least something like the 3500 on a budget or the 1050. (note I haven't used these, just aware of them at the time back when I was doing more large format prints, but not sure how they hold the test of time.) See http://www.cesplot.com/ for an example of pricing for these hp designjets as refurbished with a 90-Day Guarantee. I'd really like to have an hp z series, but then the cost of permanence and really nice resolution is a higher cost per square foot.