www.spandex.com are the uk distributors for the Gerber but it is old technology and there are quite a few on the open market but you would have to be careful you got one in good nick (warranty is expensive) if you want to use it a lot you would be better with a edge II as it is much faster a nd does better graphics

Or better off getting a Versacamm / Cadet at half the price, I personally wouldn't entertain an edge now these are on these beauties are on the market, OK the inkjets can't do spots, but who cares, these new generation machines are far superior. I was never ever impressed with the edge output anyway

I have an edge 1 and have no problems, bought it secondhand, but already had Gerber software and plotters. I print mainly spot colours and make good money with it. Don't see the point in getting in a Pi$$ing match against Versacamm or whatever else. Sure there are newer products on the market, you have to look at your own market and what you want to do. There are a huge range of things you can do with an Edge you can't do or print on with other printers.

Edge 2 is a little faster but speed has never been an issue for me nor is dpi with spot colours.

I printed 20m of 3 spot colour decals today and charged over £1000, pretty good for "outdated" technology. How many specialist forums are there for printer xy & z.

I think its misleading to say its outdated, as long as it has a market and a popular user base and is well proven and supplied, it can't be outdated, and I've yet to see inkjets outlast Edge prints....but I'm biased off course

They pop up from time to time on a well known auction site which we can no longer mention.

Gerber themselves are offering good deals on Edge 1 plotter and software for around what a Versacamm costs or were I believe.

I hope its OK to mention "edge talk" which is not competing with this site, there you can ask all sorts of questions and get good qulaified help from Edge users globally.

I made the right choice in getting the Gerber Edge, it suits my needs, I am amazed at the quality, I have had the edge for less than 2 weeks and I have already used it every day for making number plates, decals, safety signs, etc, the edge has a small printing width and might be a pain if you wanted to print graphics for a 40' trailer!!!

Simon

no problem what so ever mate
4edgetalk is a great forum dedicated to these machines.

I went for a demo yesterday at B&P came away safe in the knowledge that the cadet was the machine for me. Called in on one of the customers i supply with decals and there is a trend for metallic decals and other spot colours. And if i can print white on clear i can have a large regular order for decals. Came home really pleased with the day, good demo of an excellent machine, friendly people and a customer that is expanding an already large regular order! Sat in the workshop last night and suddenly thought S**T the cadet wont print white! Now The cadet will do all our other work with ease, but not our largest customers work. The Gerber will do it all, and as all our stuff is small work then i am going to have to re-think and go with the Gerber. Just a bit concerned as to the cost per meter to run the Gerber though, after all we need to stay competative.

I charge about £50 startup with every Edge job and then about £20 per meter per colour for decal work, up here it seems to work fine....I'm sure people will always dump prices to be "competitive". I bought it to speed up jobs I airbrushed on vinyl, got fed up with Deka Signair and Createx drying so quickly in the airbrushes, offer the decals to those customers I have made signs or done vehicles for, here was an example of a one spot colour print, that was panelled, used 10m of vinyl and sold for over £500,




I'm sure you'll have fun with whatever you buy, in my shop I'd rather a machine worked less but made good money , than mass producing with very small margins.

am i not right in saying that one of the bigger suppliers has just, or is just about to introduce a white "ink"?

"if" this is the case i am sure the rest will jump on the band wagon..

ill have a wee look and see if i can see it in one of my recent sign mags.
maybe someone else will be able to shine some more light on this.

It’s a bit of a myth that the cost of Edge output is so much higher than solvent inkjet output. It’s in the same ‘Ball Park’ – depending on the image being printed.
You can now buy high quality ribbons (durable, chemically resistant etc.) for around £35 per roll = £2.50 per square metre – maybe less if you are a volume user.
If you are printing a one colour image 29cm wide by 3m long, using the whole width of the ribbon – Edge output is probably cheaper than inkjet output. If you’re printing a 4 colour image only 5cm wide by 3m long – the inkjet output is cheaper.

Hi Robert,
I seem to remember someone mentioned a possible intro of a "white" ink cant remember where i read it though!
As for the "metal" effect spot colours, I realise that i could print onto metal effect vinyl using the Cadet to achieve the same results as a Gerber spot colour but the trouble is that most of our work is printed on clear vinyl.

Dave

Cost to print per sq meter FULL coverage on an inkjet is around 4 -5 quid at WORST!!!
Single colour with 10% coverage (which is a LOT) is about 40 pence.
There is NO ways a thermal is ANYWHERE near that , even with aftermarket ribbons. I run both type of machines so speak from experience.
White inks at the moment are confined to UV curable machines and there are plenty issues with those apart from the fact that they cost an arm and a leg.
Im not sure why folk cant think a inkjet cant print spots? We can emulate ANY pantone colour .
To me it makes no difference what anyone buys , I can just tell you I make a ton more money and FAR higher profits with my inkjet than with my thermals and the inkjet has VASTLY increased my customer base and range of products I offer and the benefits of THAT are not even quantifiable but CLEARLY evident.
I suppose if you have a VERY specific application , like white on clear , you have no option but to go thermal , but the opportunities presented by alternative print technolgies that can use a vastly increased range of materials have to be foregone.

Just so people understand Rodney, because posts or topics like this can become misleading, Rob is talking Edge, I believe your thermal machines are Roland? Correct me if I'm wrong.

I was always under the impression Roland thermals were more expensive than Edge, I personally wouldn't compare a Roland thermal printer with an Edge don't think you can compare.

Like I said earlier no pint in getting into pi$$ing contest, but Dave asked about an Edge, if somebody's choice of what they buy is swayed by a few "general" comments it maybe the wrong investment.

I know a signmaker here that has 3 very expensive inkjet machines in the back of his shop collecting dust, become obsolete before they even reached their life expectancy, superceded by more, or better claims of this that and the other, the Edge is small but been around many years now, and still basically sold as it was from the start with a few improvements, that says alot in my book. Granted it no good for large posters in 4 colours or vehicle wraps etc, but for enhancing vehicle livery, and decals, and for proven outdoor durability it great.

Up here we wash and wash vehicle with chemicals all winter to get rid of salt and other unsavoury grime and now in the summer its 24 sunny and Edge work seems to stand up well for printed media.

Go to the different supplier talk about what you want to do and see what fits your pocket and your market.

Hiya Henry , yep the ribbons are 1/2 the price per sq ft of the Rolands. I really WANTED an edge and had the Local agents here do some samples and demo a refurbed Edge to replace my Roland , but they couldn't get the crisp text I needed when printing metallics and the gold was sort of dithered. Their suggestion was that I continue to soldier on with what I have.

Whichever way the gent goes ( the initial poster actually enquired about inkjet printing too in another thread - I think it was artwork requirements) he faces issues and limitations , The PC60 is flaky , prone to blowing heads and banding is an issue as is cost of ribbons and sometimes misregistration of cuts and it cant do bigger graphics reliably. On the Edges side there are other issues like sprocket fed media availability and price , ribbon changing , proprietory software and limited width. Of the two thermal's the Edge is undoubtedly better as a production machine.
Inkjets arent as durable , solvents attack media , banding is a problem at the highest speeds , prints arent dry immediately , and for harsh environments lams are a must.
We all work around these and try to make the best of what we have or at least make money. I can say is that my inkjet has done far more for my business and is way more capable than my thermals in respect of decals , signage etc but if it wasnt for my thermals , a lot of products I have developed wouldn't have been possible - but then again , as far as I am concerned , a small laser used creatively would be a FAR better investment than a printer.

Hi all well that caused a lively debate!! Thank you to every one that contributed with their "own" opinions.

The story so far is this. At the moment we basically use only cut vinyl from our Roland camm 1 for all our signs and decals.

We have tried screen printing some decals with good results but not a good adea as we work from home and dont like the idea of lots of "nasty" chemicals around the workshop.

We want a digital printer for decal production, So i enquired about the PC60 as an entry level printer. General opinion was that high production costs and some issues with banding make this a not so good choice.

I ask about the Versa Camm, excellent machine but no spot colours for what we do these are a necessary (we are printing onto clear vinyl) and eco solvent not seen to be as good as "real" solvent.

Suggest i look at Uniform Cadet, booked a demo even took my cheque book with me, met some great guys who were very helpfull and showed me what the cadet could do. Thought to myself that yes, this is the machine for me, it can do everything i want and more and the running costs are resonable but still no spot colours but i could get round that. Even asked about combined deal with a laminator as well!

Called in to see my biggest customer on the way home, (i supply both his shops with my decals) seems that the trend is for metallic decals with gold and chrome spot colours and this is what he wants from now on! as well as the standard ones we have screened for him in the past (clear vinyl white text with a black outline our stock of them is fast running out) and lots of them.

Looked at the Gerber Edge 3 years ago did exactly what we wanted but out of our price range then and probably still is, Got in touch with supplierand low and behold they are doing a special on it and the price i in line with the Versa and the Cadet machines.

Now we do not do large scale signs and at the end of the day a large format printer such as the Cadet or the Versa although very good machines would i suspect not be used to there full potential and as we have no plans to break into the large format side of things i have now discounted them.

We have booked a demo with the Gerber machine for next Friday so will see how it performs with our designs. Production costs, although dearer than inkjet and solvent printers is still what we expected and will not affect prices of our end product. PC60 is out of the question in this area as its expensive to run.

I would just like to say to everyone that has replied to my couple of postings THANKYOU! The help and advice you have given freely has been most helpfull.

Very nice Henry, those really do look very nice, my experience of edge printed stuff was not good, but after seeing the pic of yours I blame the guy who was printing with it, all his stuff was totally rubbish, he seemed impressed with his printing, I thought it was rubbish. Maybe the machine isn't a fault, just needs someone professional who can operate it.

Let it be known I withdraw my statement on the edge!

cheers