posted
I've had lots failures similar to Neil's experiences with Gerber foils on ScotchCal 220 which was cause enough for me to open my mind up to third party products.
Some of the prints that failed prematurely were all on vehicles while the same graphics mounted on my storefront are doing just fine after 3+ years.
First I tried spray on clear products which I found really broke our workflow, so I ordered in some FrogSkin from ZeroNine which is an overprint foil like Abrasion Guard but with UV protection features. That product failed in work properly in test printing from two different rolls. I next tried DuraCoat UV Guard and have had no problems with it at all. I'm in my fourth 100 year roll and if it does what it says it will do ..... extend the durability by about 50% .... then I'm happy.
They convinced me to also do a comparison of their process foils to both GSP and ZeroNine. I now use DuraCoat process color foils.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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Your experience (and Neil's) lies in stark contrast to that of the majority of GerberColor / EDGE READY users.
In Canada, I have NEVER spoken with a customer who reports the "numerous" failures that you (or Neil) seem to have encountered. I've never heard of another, either...and I've spoken to many, many EDGE owners over the years.
If product failures were the norm, how could Gerber brand consumables possibly continue to be the leading choice among EDGE owners worldwide? No amount of brand equity or 'PR' could buoy a product that failed with the kind of frequency you describe.
We take customer satisfaction with our products, service and support VERY seriously...as we do our reputation in the marketplace and that of Gerber brands. If there were some widespread problem with product quality, wouldn't it stand to reason for us to be the first to acknowledge the problem and correct it immediately?
For example, on the RARE occasion that a batch GerberColour (or EDGE READY) product becomes suspect, a whole process is engaged to isolate inventory of the suspect batch, to identify any customers that have been affected and to ensure their continued satisfaction with Gerber product.
Your experience - though unfortunate - is simply not representative...and as I'm sure you can appreciate, I wouldn't want anyone looking in on this discussion to think otherwise.
-------------------- Jon Aston MARKETING PARTNERS "Strategy, Marketing and Business Development" Tel 705-719-9209 Posts: 1724 | From: Barrie, ON, CANADA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I echo Jon's comments Gerber takes notice of problems. On the rare occasion that I used Duracoat folis in the past and had repeated problems, they blamed the vinyl the machine and even flat out old me to not use one of their products because it plain wasn't good at all.
-------------------- Bob Rochon Creative Signworks Millbury, MA 508-865-7330
"Life is Like an Echo, what you put out, comes back to you." Posts: 5149 | From: Millbury, Mass. U.S. | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Jon, I'm in south Florida where sun fade is a much greater problem than in Canada or Massachusetts. And I don't want to get into a Gerber bashing session here. You should be careful what you ask for though, because if I related even half the grief I've had with Gerber's support, I would probably blow away several hundred potential buyers of their products.
I will tell you that my experience with Gerber's support of primary problem solving with the Edge and associated equipment, as well as associated materials, has been dismal at best in the almost five years that I have owned an Edge. This to the extent that I have learned dozens of workarounds and extra measures to get my work out and at a quality level I can feel good about. About half of the advertised materials based benefits and other features which caused me to choose an Edge in the first place won't work or require extra efforts to make them work because the equipment doesn't run to a reasonable tolerance.
And yes, I had my distributor and Gerber Service involved. The machine went back to the factory and was sent back after two weeks with the flat out statement that the machine runs within normal and acceptable tolerances. (It shifts up to + or - 3/100th's of an inch between colors using GSP foils on 220 film.) Try and run a prime coat or Spectratone with that sort of registration.
It is also reasonable to question, specific to durability of Edge prints, that GSP foils perform better than anyone else's. There is also no question in my mind that where durability is a concern, either from sun fade, abrasion, or chemicals, that extra measures should be taken.
Learning color printing is just about the most difficult learning curve I have ever gone through. It was made doubly difficult by hardware and software flaws, untrue claims and advertising, and ineffective service and support.
Jon, the simple truth is that Gerber is a vertically integrated supplier employing a strategy of proprietary technology and products and with a huge stake in selling supplies. Their policy over the last 20 years has been to do everything they can to get their system owners to buy everything they use from Gerber. This has often taken the form of untrue claims, unethical tactics, and scare tactics.
There is very little reason why one would perceive claims made by them or their distributors as being anything other than self-serving.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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Your experience is your experience. Nothing in my post above implies otherwise.
The fact is that for every Fred Weiss, there are HUNDREDS of Bob Rochons. I'm sorry if that adds to your anger and frustration...but it is fact.
Now re-read your post...
For "not wanting to get into Gerber bashing", you did quite a job Fred.
You might want to consider removing certain language from your comments. I suspect that -- in retrospect -- you might concede that your better judgement was overcome in the heat of the moment.
-------------------- Jon Aston MARKETING PARTNERS "Strategy, Marketing and Business Development" Tel 705-719-9209 Posts: 1724 | From: Barrie, ON, CANADA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Jon .... with genuine respect .... I've reread your post and mine. Trust me, I was a model of restraint. I feel no need to edit my post. I'm sure you are, in your mind, speaking truthfully, but you are not in a position to state generalities about the satisfaction of Gerber Edge owners outside of your own immediate customers, who are a small minority of the total.
The success of aftermarket suppliers for both films and foils contradicts your claim. The standard Gerber company line is to cast suspicion and doubt that these products are up to snuff and, on several occasions, they have gone so far as to threaten the voiding of equipment warranties if an owner uses any such products.
If you want a list of specifics, I'll be happy to supply them to you privately and make, perhaps, a believer out of you too.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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Seeing as you have been on both sides of the fence a bit, please tell me who supports you when you have a substantial failure in a print job?
I tried that before, Duracoat left me out to dry, Gerber on the other hand took care of me extremely well.
Now keep in mind that I am open minded to other possibilities, like Signlab E6 as a replacement software, but again how far will even signlab go to support me in a failure. Gerber on the other hand goes all the way for all the products you use are theirs.
I'm not attacking you just inquiring how you deal with this situation for this is the main one that tholds me true to gerber.
A matched system with little downtown, and if there is a compnay that takes responsibility in replacing the materials and rectifying the problem.
-------------------- Bob Rochon Creative Signworks Millbury, MA 508-865-7330
"Life is Like an Echo, what you put out, comes back to you." Posts: 5149 | From: Millbury, Mass. U.S. | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Actually, Fred, your assumptions are incorrect.
I am actually in quite a good position to judge the satisfaction of Gerber EDGE owners...
ND GRAPHICS is a national organization with nine stocking locations across Canada
We're part of Spandex -- GSP's largest distributor worldwide and now Gerber owned.
Gerber brand aftermarket supplies continue to command (by far) the largest share of the Gerber EDGE market worldwide. Once again...how could this be possible if the products didn't work or regularly failed to meet customer expectations?
Spandex (sometimes to GSP's chagrin) operates quite independently from GSP. If we had quality problems with GerberColor and EDGE READY as serious as your experience might imply, we would quite certainly and quite swiftly find a different product line to bring to market. We market ONLY Gerber brands by choice.
The "standard Gerber company line" can be found here -- which you will find doesn't really match your interperetation...at all.
Isn't it possible that your (frankly) inaccurate perception of Gerber's policies, strategies and tactics might be confused with those of your Gerber dealer's (or perhaps even simply one over-zealous SalesRep...it happens)?
I'm an open minded man, Fred. Send me your specifics and I will gladly have a look (with interest).
-------------------- Jon Aston MARKETING PARTNERS "Strategy, Marketing and Business Development" Tel 705-719-9209 Posts: 1724 | From: Barrie, ON, CANADA | Registered: Sep 2000
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Good record keeping is a MUST, in my opinion, regardless of what manufacturing process a business employs. It doesn't take alot of extra time to record batch numbers on your work orders...but it does take discipline.
Just wondering- how many of you edgeheads do this? Gene
posted
Bob, you're correct in that I wear more than one hat. And there are lots of things that have happened over 20 years of interacting with Gerber that shade my comments .... some good some bad.
I will try to stick to the immediate issues here.
We purchased our Edge LE in late 1998 while living in Washington State. This was just prior to the release of the Edge II and the drop in price of our model. The purchase was made from the Florida distributor with whom we had dealt for about 12 years. Simply put, his price was $3,500 lower than the lowest bid we received from the various GSP dealers in the Northwest.
In order, however, to have local support, we struck a deal with a GSP dealer to provide us an integrated network of PC workstations and an NT server. We accepted their recommendations to spend an extra $1000 for a MIP Plot Station on the server which brought us up to three Gerber dongles, keyed alike on the local area network.
We also agreed to purchase all our supplies for the Edge from them in return for their local support for our system.
Whe we started having problems with color to color print registration, the dealer provided a loaner and we returned the Edge to the factory for warranty repair. The loaner, by the way, ran perfectly. Two weeks later, our Edge arrived back. The test file we provided was unopened and the only feedback with it was that "the machine ran within tolerances". The dealer picked up his loaner and we were on our own.
The misregistration using all GSP materials was a measurable + or - .03" which is sufficient to cause overlaps to open up, primers and basecoats to be visible, and generally precludes the printing of many types of work that should be easy for an Edge system.
The upshot was that neither Gerber or the GSP dealer were able to correct the problem and I was left dangling in the breeze unable to accept numerous jobs that would have added to the business I expected to be able to do with the system.
What we did to deal with it Bob, was to learn to set up jobs, whenever possible, to allow for the lack of accuracy our system would afford us and to throw away a high percentage of misprints for jobs that were tougher to run.
The next problem we encountered was "print stoppages" in the middle of a job with no way to restart the job. We had a continuing job through a display builder to supply Ralph Lauren decals. Its a fairly simple job using Spectratone PMS color matches. There are four print passes in all.
The print stoppage would occur just into the fourth color pass about one out of three times we would run the job. This wasted about 8 feet of 220 ScotchCal, 25 feet of foil, and about 30 minutes of machine and operator time. The GSP dealer came out, tried a few things, looked at the ruined print runs, scratched his head and said he would have to get Gerber Tech Support involved. They had lots of things to try but no answers either.
At that point I found that the local dealer's service department was no longer willing to return my calls. In a call to the manager of the dealership, he said: "You purchased a low-end system and you should stop expecting so much from it".
I had, by the way, lived up to my end of the bargain we had struck and his statement was totally unjustified.
How did I fix it Bob? I got on a plane and went to an ISA show and visited the Gerber booth. There after several encounters I happened upon a junior Gerber service type and explained the problem to him.
His immediate response was that the problem had been reported all over the place and that I should move the Edge to my primary workstation rather than to have it shared through the MIP equipped server. His explanation was that there were software and interface issues which weren't resolved that would cause the "wrong dongle" to be seen and the job would stop printing.
I immediately tried his suggestion and we have had no further problems with print stoppage.
The $1000 Plot Station dongle, now useless, would not be accepted back for a refund and is now a daily reminder that even authorized dealers and manufacturers tech support can easily provide inaccurate information or fail to disclose known problems and cannot be counted on to at least rectify their mistakes.
A third issue arose after our return to Florida where we discovered one morning that our primary workstation wouldn't power up. We had at this point begun a much more acceptable relationship with a new distributor who maintains a full time tech support department and supplies us with loaners in the event of a breakdown. Our old distributor in Florida had been reduced to a supplies only status and could no longer support our equipment and software needs.
The powering up problem, we soon discovered, was related to our Edge and we could correct it by either turning off the Edge or disconnecting the printer cable. We also discovered that the workstation would not fully shut down if the Edge wasn't first turned off.
We called our distributor who immediately sent us a loaner Edge. In the meantime, Gerber Service also sent us several replacement mother boards. Things were as they should be with the support this time.
So we started swapping out various components. The printer cable, the boards, a new comm card in the workstation. The problem remained. We next plugged in the loaner Edge and it did the same thing. The final test was to plug the loaner Edge into a different workstation.
You guessed it .... it did the same thing. Conclusion agreed to by us, our new distributor and GSP Support .... All the PC's sold to us by the old distributor were identical so each would have the same problem. We had just never noticed it before. The only solution was to replace the network of computers or just live with it.
I find no fault with anyone in this last situation except the incompetent former distributor in Washington.
But yes Bob, these are some examples of how I deal with things that go wrong. I learned years ago that I had to take care of my own tools when others won't stand behind their products. Gerber is well aware of the problems I've related with the Edge and should have fixed it or replaced it long ago.
When I have a print failure, I stand behind it. And I give much more realistic estimates of durability to my clients than all the vendors specs would suggest. I also automatically include UV Guard overprint now to all vehicle graphics and other graphics that will see 24/7 sun exposure and offer it as an upgrade to borderline situations just as I might offer a choice of vinyl grades in the same situations. Most customers are quite willing to spend the extra money for the extra protection.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Gene Uselman: Jon said:
Good record keeping is a MUST, in my opinion, regardless of what manufacturing process a business employs. It doesn't take alot of extra time to record batch numbers on your work orders...but it does take discipline.
Just wondering- how many of you edgeheads do this? Gene
Gene, we utilize the Job Description box in each individual job saved. We always note, since Gerber does not support non-Gerber materials in their palettes, whenever a film or foil is other than the assigned material.
So tracking down those particulars requires us to locate the saved job and open it. We do not have time to document information like this on paper and rely on job files archived to CD-ROM for handling this.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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Everyone seems to be talking about liquid clearcoating,.. would laminating films, cold or hot, work as well or better? If so what film would work best?
-------------------- Mike O'Neill
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. - Arthur C. Clarke
posted
Fred; to get away from Gerber bashing, let's open up the scope a little wider here. Is the EDGE the only 'printer' you have in your shop? Do you deal with inkjets, solvent printers, other RIP programs, other design programs?
Surely you cannot point a finger only at Gerber---one must admit that support industry wide for various products and equipment can be spotty at best in many cases. And not to get defensive here, BUT--your business is unique, as are many other 'EDGEshops' out there. Developing 'workarounds' as you call them may not be so much a shortcoming on a given suppliers/manufacturers point as it is developing a 'workflow' to get a certain piece of equipment to do what you specifically need it to do. I've dealt with customers who simply won't let me help them, as they feel it would give away their secret--it is possible to hold your cards TOO CLOSE to your chest.
I've dealt with many MANY printer manufacturers, RIP providers, and material suppliers over the years---guess what? NONE OF THEM ARE INFALLIBLE. Doesn't matter what someone tells you about printing on something, it ain't always gonna work. Does this make it right----NO. But I think we're all deep enough into this business to realize that if you can get it right 95% of the time, then you're doin' okay....
That said however, if you have had problems that have been ignored or not addressed properly, then that's not a good reflection on GSP. I know that we as a Gerber distributor try to get things remedied even if the customer may be wrong or the root of the problem...
MIKE; with regards to laminates, films do offer great consistency. But, applying of films can be a pain for an unpracticed hand. Many things will affect the lam laydown, from pressure to dirt in the print. Film lams also do not help with edge pick-up of decals etc. 3M makes a great Edge-Sealer product for that problem in used on most commercial airliners, etc.
posted
Ted, we're a vinyl graphics shop with a strong focus on Edge printing.
I'm sure other manufacturers have their shortcomings as well, but that does not excuse the brush off received from Gerber regarding the registration issues that have plagued this system since its purchase.
Nor does it excuse the withholding of information regarding a known, widespread bug which ended up costing me well into four figures of lost materials and production time.
Gerber's actions in these two instances were highly detrimental to me and, IMHO, unexcusable and indefensible.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
No problem laying films Fred, 3 laminators in shop;
I was wondering which film would be best for UV protection on a Thermal Print, since we're not doing thermal printing 'yet'. Cutting the clear slightly larger than the print would make an effective edge seal would be do-able but would require an extra step. Print>contour cut decal>weed>laminate>contour cut laminate
-------------------- Mike O'Neill
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. - Arthur C. Clarke
posted
Mike, Gerber makes a UV Guard laminate that has a very good performance rating. Your approach will work but would be a lot less attractive than the following:
Print>Laminate>Bleed Cut>Weed
There will be some issues with providing a larger than normal bleed due to distortion you'll get by laminating and then cutting, but not a huge amount. Depending on your laminator and cutter setup, you will also likely need to waste 12" to 18" of vinyl and laminate to do this as well.
Using the DuraCoat UV Guard overprint isn't as effective as lamination in terms of added durability, but it's a lot less of an interruption to the workflow.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
What on average, in dollars is the average shop buying in foils in a years time, on average. Because if a shop is buying a small amount of materials, then they probably would'nt have too many issues with fading.
-------------------- "Keep Positive"
SIGNS1st. Neil Butler Paradise, NF Posts: 6277 | From: St. John's NF Canada | Registered: Mar 1999
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