I have a ColorCamm myself. It's the original PNC5000 and not one of the newer pro series. I've read hundreds of horror stories about these machines. I chalk them all up to operator error and laziness. The ColorCamm isnt for everyone - its not foolproof, it doesnt work very fast, and its not as cheap to operate as a Edge, but it can be had for 1/20th of the cost....

Whether you have and Edge, ColorCamm, Fargo or whatever - I think you'll agree that its not what the machine can do, its what you do with it.

A few weeks ago I had to do some switch plate faces. The tolerance .05mm. The Colorcamm held it. I dont know if you could get an Edge to print that and then have the cutter be as dead on.

One other thing people tend to overlook is the Edge is 180dpi where the worst Colorcamms are 360dpi, and the best are 1200dpi. Thats a BUNCH if you need it, but lets face it - if you're doing sign work, 60dpi is sometimes enough...

If I had it all to do over again, I'd buy a good 48 inch plotter and farm out the digital stuff - at least till I had the market built up to pay for the machine. In 7 years of owning this machine, its been used as a pure plotter 98% of the time.

If you can afford $35k for a Gerber System, go for it. In my mind I have to ask the question though... if you have $35k laying around, what the hell are you doing wanting to be in the sign business??? Sounds like you did pretty well somewhere else!

The Edge2 is the 'king' right now, with the ColorCamm and Durachrome being more fringe market machines. They also bracket the price spectrum...

I think everyone would agree that a Edge2 and a Odyssey would be the rolls-royce of a sign shop right now.

Figure out who you're going to SELL your wares to, before you buy anything. Whether you've got a digital printer or a box of Crayolas, if no one is buying your work, it doesnt matter what you're making it with.

------------------
Robb Lowe
Hub City Graphics
Spartanburg, SC

• Signs
• Screenprinting
• Embroidery
• Computer Systems & Consulting

The Edge 2 runs at either 300x300 or 600x300dpi. As fast as 11.8"x60" per minute.
I ran off thirty-two 12"x18" DEP decals yesterday. Burgundy reverse printed over metallic gold. 51' of vinyl and foil. $98 in materials. Sold for $336. Completed in 1 hour.

Spending 35k on the system is silly. Leasing it with a $1 buyout is not. If you can't generate at least $700/month ($35/day) in profit from the EDGE to cover the lease you probaly shouldn't be in the sign business.

Yes, the Odyssey seems like the RR of cutters. I can't wait to get one! And the Durachrome looks awesome too. Something I'll be looking into in a couple of years.

------------------
Bob Burns
Bob Burns Signs

Rob,
The ColorCamm - any of them - is probably the most expensive thermal printer on the market. No, I've not been into Dave Grundy's rum cache. I'm being serious. I've owned both machines. I can tell you from experience that the Edge is much cheaper to own. How? I'm glad you asked.

What is the purpose of any equipment that you buy for your shop? Well, in my case its to make money and make my job easier to do.

Lets take a look at production. What is your time and/or your shop's time worth - $30, $40, $60 an hour. Mine is $70 per hour. I look at the thermal printers as employees. What is their time worth? This is an important question. It takes the ColorCamm 20 hours to print 150 feet of vinyl. It takes the Edge-2 as little as 38 minutes.

Then there is the costs of consumables. Lets say that you just bought a thermal printer. Now you need to buy some ribbons/foil so you can at least print one 50yd. roll of vinyl. Naturally, you will want the basic colors - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black. If you bought a ColorCamm, you will need to cough up about $1200. If you bought an Edge or Edge-2, you would need to cough up about $450.

In the last 4 days, I've run 8 50yd. rolls of vinyl through my Edge (its been a slow week). And if I remember right, I think we used about 12 rolls of foil (spot color jobs). I shelled out about $1200 for the foil. If I had done the same job with the ColorCamm, I would have had to shell out about $4500. A difference of $3300. In seven months, the money I saved using the Edge foils would have bought me a complete Edge system - Edge-2, Envision 375 plotter, and Omega software.

Now, lets look at what it would cost to do a job. In the Step-by-Step page here in Letterville are pictures of a set of magnetics I created ( http://www.letterhead.com/steps/glenn_taylor2/index.html ). Just looking at the cost of printing only, what would it cost to generate that job? For simplicity, lets assume that we intend to do the truck doors only. The panels are to be 12" tall and 24" wide. If you used the ColorCamm, it would cost you about $32 in foils. If you used the Edge, it would cost you about $10.56 in foils. Just in foils alone, you would earn an additional $21.44 in profit if you used the Edge. Next, what would it cost you in "time"? Remember, time is money - your money. Lets assume your shop rate is $60 an hour (or a dollar a minute). If you used the ColorCamm, it would take about 128 minutes or $128 of shop time to print the job out. If you used the Edge-2, it would take about about 5 minutes (that includes your time to manually change the foil cartridges)or $5 of your shop time. Assuming that I charged the same price for the job whether I used the ColorCamm or the Edge, I would have made a killing in profit with the Edge.

Now, you contend that the ColorCamm can be had for 1/20th the cost of an Edge. My question is "Even so, after crunching the numbers, why would you still want one?"

quote:

---

if you have $35k laying around, what the hell are you doing wanting to be in the sign business???

---

Answer: So I can convert it into a whole lot more money in a very short amount of time.

By the way, I have the Edge-2, enVision 375, and the Odyssey plotter. You do not want to use the Odyssey to cut your Edge prints. Trust me on that one.

------------------
Warning: A well designed sign may cause fatigue due to increased business.
http://members.tripod.com/taylor_graphics

Personal > walldog@nc.rr.com
Business > creativesigns@bbnp.com

Glenn is correct..he WASN'T into my stash!

The Profits from one customer of mine has already covered the total cost of the equipment lease in less than 1 year of doing work for them.

Another major headache is the printing head. My print head was shot in about a year. I chose not to even fix the damn thing. Every time I pressed "Print", I would hold my breath to see if it was going to screw up halfway through the print. And Roland could care less about what problems you have.

I don't think it's operator error, either, being so many people have had the same problems over and over.

So now I have an expensive (and slower) plotter. What a great deal. Anyone want to buy a fantastic PC-60?

Just a "heads" up about DPI and printing a crystal clear print with your equipment.

I still own the Edge1 (not the Edge Classic, not the Edge2)

I can print an 11.8 x 36 inch image of a beer bottle crystal clear. Up Close its crystal clear. I have not tried to print it bigger, but I don't think it will gain considerable grainy features for the viewing distance.

To print a crystal clear print, you have to start with a digital image of very high quality. My Olympus 3000 3.3 megapixel digital camera (paid $900 for it and now its on sale for $550 ) will take such a high resolution picture that prints out on the Edge1 with exceptional fine resolution.
Even my trusty HP ScanJet 4C scanner can not produce this high of quality image.

In fact, instead of scanning art work into the computer now, I have experimented with just photographing the art work with the digital camera, bypassing the scanner altogether.

So, if you think that the EDGE2 is going to print a better quality image than the EDGE1,
the answer is: "maybe not." Its the quality of the original image BEFORE it is brought into composer, and if that image is not in the 9 billion byte range, it won't print crystal clear.

Just FYI

Again, high quality

------------------
Louis A. Lazarus
Milt's Sign Service, Inc.
20 So. Linden Ave. #5B
650-588-0490
fontking1a@aol.com

------------------
Bob Burns
Bob Burns Signs

I see what you're saying, but I dont totally agree with it. First off you say "the colorcamm is the most expensive thermal printer on the market''. That's a double edged sword - while the CC is the most expensive in way of consumables, it is by far the cheapest to initially purchase. I agree totally that in a vacuum the Edge2 is the best bang for the buck - but thats a LOT of bucks to bang.

The CC is a self contained, one click solution where as the E2 is a printer only, needing a dedicated sprocket plotter to bring it to max potential.

I dont agree with your print-time-is-money theory, since the whole point of a print/cut setup is to free you to do other things while it does its job. Unless I am in the 1-hour-sign-business or I'm cranking out tons of prints a day, this doesnt mean much to me. It is not an employee, although I can see your 'what X does for me per the hour I pay it/him/her". It's a machine, same as your car or computer or drill press. It works when you want it to, not when it wants to! (usually )

The CC is a capable machine when used in its spectrum of capabilties. That spectrum is not as wide as the E2's to be sure.

Your testimonial on what you would save in seven months would pay for the whole E2 system is proof enough.. and I'm all ready to jump on the E2 bandwagon except for one thing.....

I dont want to know who your customers are, I want to know what business they are in, what products you're doing for them, how you sold the package to them, and how you go about sustaining that sort of work day in and day out 12 months a year. Wilson, NC isnt a major metropolis, but you're pretty close to a large college town.... is that the trick? How does one go about selling 400yds of vinyl per day or week and not be in the wholesale vinyl business?

For me, the CC isnt the perfect printer/signmaker, its just the best all around, swiss army knife with a slightly dull blade - machine. It cuts great, prints well and doesnt require any extra software to drive it. It may not print cost effective 8x11's but thats not what it was made to do.

Yes, I do stand by my remark that a CC can be had for 1/20th of a Edge. If you can find me a Edge (any flavor) for $1500 used, I'll take it. I'd even take a full E2 system (E2, E375 plotter and full Omega suite) for $10k.

===================================

now, about getting decent prints with a ColorCamm...

To make the 5000 (and probably the rest of the family) print well, you need a clean (not surgical, just not in a dust bunny farm) room, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a hair dryer, a towel, and a can of compressed air or blowgun.

The machine also needs smooth and freely rocking platen (the rubber strip the print head floats over), and a clean and intact foam roller on the print head itself. A good 110v helps too. Use a UPS if neccesary.

Print preperation - check that little foam roller to the bottom right of the print mechanism. ANY dust or debris will ruin your print. Use app tape to lift any debris from it..THIS is your actual printing mechanism, NOT the heatplate. Give the whole thing a light blast of air, and load in the ribbon.

Wipe the vinyl down with alcohol, and load it. It's also a good idea to make your own line-up marks, as Roland is terribly off usually. I've tracked 12 feet with no problem once i made my own marks (I used a thick vinyl to make my 'marks', so I can 'bang' the loaded vinyl into it for sight free speedloading).

If its cold in the office or you want to hedge your print bet, heat the vinyl up a bit with your hair dryer.

Go back to the PC, click print and go back to the ColorCamm. Take a peek over the vinyl in such a way to see any debris, dust etc that might be sitting on the vinyl. Give it a shot of compressed air to clear it off.

If you have a mission critical print, I've even sat with it as it printed and physically wiped the vinyl between prints with a alcohol prepped tack rag.

I've dropped my failure rate from 1 in 5 to 1 in 250 using these techniques. As always, your mileage may vary.

I know this sounds like a lot of extra work to the Edge owners, but for me it was a way to maximize an investment I had already made. Plus, I take a lot of pleasure in making an outcast of a machine perform to its potential, where others could not. (Comes from a lifetime of racing and inventing stuff I guess!)

------------------
Robb Lowe
Hub City Graphics
Spartanburg, SC

• Signs
• Screenprinting
• Embroidery
• Computer Systems & Consulting

Robb,
If you don't mind, I'm going to go over your comments point by point. I'm not trying to argue with you. As a former ColorCamm owner, I think its important to clear up some common misconceptions.

1)

quote:

---

The CC is a self contained, one click solution where as the E2 is a printer only, needing a dedicated sprocket plotter to bring it to max potential.

---

You're right, it is a self-contained system. And that's the problem - you can print or cut, but not at the same time. Nor can you be setting up another job at the same time. How much money you make can be restricted by how fast you can turn the job. With the ColorCamm system, you can set up a file, print & cut - but you can only do one or the other, but not all of them at the same time. The Edge "system" is basically three parts - the Edge, the plotter, and the computer (software). With the Edge system, I can be printing one job, cutting another, and preparing another job all at the same time. You can't do that with the ColorCamm.

The leads to "time is money".

quote:

---

I dont agree with your print-time-is-money theory, since the whole point of a print/cut setup is to free you to do other things while it does its job. Unless I am in the 1-hour-sign-business or I'm cranking out tons of prints a day, this doesnt mean much to me. It is not an employee, although I can see your 'what X does for me per the hour I pay it/him/her". It's a machine, same as your car or computer or drill press. It works when you want it to, not when it wants to! (usually )

---

Time is money. It has always been that way. That said, here are some figures to consider....

The average shop has its doors open 240 days per year, 8+ hours per each business day. Most electronic equipment is depreciated over a 3 year period. The breakdowns are as follows...

ColorCamm > $11.39 per day (ColorCamm + Corel Draw)
Edge 1 > $40.28 per day (Edge 1 + enVision 375 plotter + Omega software)
Edge 2 > $50.70 per day (Edge 2 + enVision 375 plotter + Omega software)

To the average person, $50 per day sounds like a lot of money. If you can afford to pay someone $6.38 an hour, you can afford an Edge system.

Now, the next question is "How much do you have to produce in order to pay for the equipment?" Well, assuming that your target is to make a minimum of 25% net profit, we need to crunch some numbers.

To do a 12"x12" full-color print with the Colorcamm you will need to consider $9.00 for foil, 32 minutes of time, and 77cents for the cost of the machine for the time used; for the Edge-1 you will need to consider $2.34, 3 minutes, and 27cents respectively; for the Edge-2 you will need to consider $2.34, 1 minute, and 11cents respectively.
Colorcamm Print ........ $25.77
Edge-1 ................. $ 4.11
Edge-2 ................. $ 2.95

Now, we all know you make your money by how fast you can turn it and by the volume you can generate. What kind of volume do you think you can get from your market when you have to sell your print for $32.22 (25% simple markup) and I can sell the same print for $23.66 and have a 800% markup? As a competitor, I can easily undercut your price below your costs and still make one heck of a profit. And if my prices are below your costs, how expensive does your ColorCamm become then?

quote:

---

The CC is a capable machine when used in its spectrum of capabilties. That spectrum is not as wide as the E2's to be sure.

---

You're right. The ColorCamm's capabilities are more limited than the Edge's. This means that you can't expand your market. Expanding your market is the only way to insulate yourself from an increasingly competitive market and avoid having a roller coaster ride.

quote:

---

I dont want to know who your customers are, I want to know what business they are in, what products you're doing for them, how you sold the package to them, and how you go about sustaining that sort of work day in and day out 12 months a year. Wilson, NC isnt a major metropolis, but you're pretty close to a large college town.... is that the trick? How does one go about selling 400yds of vinyl per day or week and not be in the wholesale vinyl business?

---

The answer is in "corporate" work. That is where the money is. And, the closest "college town" is 45 miles away. The primary source of business is in short-run decals - warning, danger, and so on. Next is service decals. Many manufacturers have been paying large sums of money to screen printers to make out-of-production marketing decals for their equipment. Often, they only need a handful of a particular decal and screen printing them can be very, very expensive. Yet, with the Edge, you can make them much more cheaply without sacrificing profit. The other plus is that you can turn the job in just a matter of a few days. Most screen printers would need a couple weeks. Then there comes the stuff that you have always done - banners, magnetics, and so on. Lets say you are going to produce two magnetic signs in full-color for your client. When you use your ColorCamm, you computer, printer, and cutter are all going to be tied up for 2 hours and 8 minutes. With my Edge system, if the Edge is running, I still have access to my plotter and my computer to do other jobs. Plus, the job is done in minutes, not hours, which allows me to get my work done sooner and give me more time to go fishing and relax.

quote:

---

I've tracked 12 feet with no problem once i made my own marks (I used a thick vinyl to make my 'marks', so I can 'bang' the loaded vinyl into it for sight free speedloading).

---

I can run 150 without ever breaking a sweat and I never have to watch the tracking.

quote:

---

If its cold in the office or you want to hedge your print bet, heat the vinyl up a bit with your hair dryer.

---

You never have to do that with the Edge. Time being money, what does it cost you to have to warm up the vinyl?

quote:

---

If you have a mission critical print, I've even sat with it as it printed and physically wiped the vinyl between prints with a alcohol prepped tack rag.

---

Same question.

quote:

---

I've dropped my failure rate from 1 in 5 to 1 in 250 using these techniques. As always, your mileage may vary.

---

Failure rate? What's that? (just pick'n on ya )

Robb, I want to make money. From your own words, it sounds like a lot of extra time and care has to be spent with the ColorCamm. Again, time being money, how much does your ColorCamm really cost you?

As I have always said, "It doesn't matter how much the equipment costs, but rather how much money you can make with it."

Robb, I think I understand your contention about the cost of the equipment. With the ColorCamm, yes....you do have less of an up-front investment. But, from my own experience, I have found that to be faulty thinking if your purpose is to offer digital printing as a way to increase profits.

If you don't have a large enough market to justify the costs of owning an Edge system, I can understand it. But, I think that when you crunch the numbers, I believe you will find it cheaper and more profitable for you to farm your digital printing needs to a wholesaler rather than owning a ColorCamm even if the ColorCamm were given to you for free.

Seeing as how we are two guys who's names end in double consanants, we should merge shops and call it "Spindoctor Signs and Duhzyns". We could banter till the wee wee hours trying to over explain our own take on the same subjects!

Im still very curious about your digital markets / marketing. "corporate'' is far too vague, I'd like to hear " example A : construction co, orders 12 site signs in full color 6 times per year. Example B : corp. HQ for automotive upholstery ordered 44 his-n-hers toilet seat covers in tie dye." etc. Teach me to fish, and I'll buy the boat...

Both the CC and Edge family of printers are viable profit centers. I'm thouroughly impressed with your justification for buying the Edge. Since you're making so much money with it, maybe you'd lend a brother signtist $35k ?

------------------
Robb Lowe
Hub City Graphics
Spartanburg, SC

• Signs
• Screenprinting
• Embroidery
• Computer Systems & Consulting

We owned the little nightmare for about 11 months. We bought the best buyer protection plan when we bought the machine. Our plan stated that when we had a problem, Roland would have us a replacement machine in our store within 48 hours. Roland was absolutely good to their word......all six times! They replaced that machine six times in 11 months. Every time, it was the print head.

Ours is a shop that stays on the cutting edge of technology. We don't buy every gadget that comes along, but if after some healthy research, it appears a piece of equipment will either make or save us money, we buy it. After we buy it, we train, train,
train to use the machine properly and profitably.

After the 11 months Roland allowed me to sell the machine with the warranty. I did
not loose a significant amount of money.

I have no beef with Roland. I have a Roland PNC 1210 that has cut miles of vinyl and cad-cut materials without fail.

I don't know if Roland has ever solved the problem or not. A fellow who's opinion I respect, told me that getting rid of the PC-60 was a good move. He says that the paper dust and residue created when cutting, will never allow the print head to last. I don't know that. I can only give you my own personal experience. If you have one of these machines and it's working for you, that's great! I'm glad for you. Roland is a great company.

When I re-invest in this type of equipment, in the future, it will be the Edge.

Dan

By "corporate", I mean manufacturers. They could be making air compressors and farm equipment. It really doesn't matter. They all need OSHA stickers of some sort. The fact is that manufacturers are everywhere. All you have to do is contact them. You'd be surprised by the positive response you'd get if you could do the jobs within a week.

The fact that you offer screen printing as I do should give you an advantage and incentive. Trust me, once you've had an Edge, you'll never want to go back.

* * * * * * *

Dan,
Here's the problem with the ColorCamm printhead as I see it.....

The printhead is only about .4" wide. This means that to print a 12"x12" area, it must travel about 384 linear inches (the Edge only has to travel 12"). This puts a lot of wear on the printhead. In a sense, for every 6 sq. ft. of vinyl the ColorCamm prints is the equivalent of the Edge printing 150 sq. ft. I ran into the same problem as you. That is why I ended up getting a second one as a back up when the other was in getting the head replaced. It was frustrating. The ColorCamm was in its own "clean room". I used their ribbons and their recommended vinyl. I did everything as instructed. What really irritated me were the streaks. I'd be printing a full color job, get to the last color or two and I'd get a streak. I'd have to start all over again. And since the ColorCamm printed so slowly, I'd lose hours of valuable production time and fail to me the expected completion time.

------------------
Warning: A well designed sign may cause fatigue due to increased business.
http://members.tripod.com/taylor_graphics

Personal > walldog@nc.rr.com
Business > creativesigns@bbnp.com

I leased my Edge1 a few months before Glenn Taylor did. I posted some pictures on this BB what neat things it could do. This was about 5 years ago. Glenn made the comment at that time :"I have got to get one of those machines"!

Well, he did. And then he fell into making stickers for a big farm equipment dealer, and then some of those employees moved on and kept going to Glenn for their work...I think thats sort of the jest of the story.

Anyway, I never got this kind of work, but my Edge1 did ( and does) stay busy enough to have saved us from bankruptcy. There are now 30 sign shops in my area to compete with.
Because I was one of 3 shops with the Edge, the other sign shops sub contracted their digital printing out to me.

Glenn has stated his side of the issue very accurately. I've crunched the numbers as well, many many times over the last 5 years and he is correct.

I just want to know where Glenn gets all the time to figure this stuff out! Probably from all the time he saved doing Edge work instead of Roland CC work.

------------------
Mark Barnhill
Vinyl Creations
Antioch TN.
mark@vinylcreations.net

[This message has been edited by Mark Barnhill (edited August 12, 2001).]