[rusty]

Looking For Better Film Positive Printer

I've been using an R1800 with FastRIP for my positives for a while. I'm sick of the clogged print heads, and I'm looking for my options for a non-inkjet positive printer.

I've seen a lot of recommendations from the Xante ScreenWriter 4, but just noticed that it's been discontinued. Is the FilmMaker 4 it's replacement? Or are there still some ScreenWriters to be found? Would it be wise to buy a discontinued model? And I've heard about the warping from the heat of the laser printer. Is this really a problem?

What other options are there besides inkjets? And any idea of the price range would be helpful.

Thanks for the help,
Rusty

 

[alan802]

We were in the same situation about six months back and were considering dropping 10K on an oyo imagesetter. We tried every possible fix from tech support for the printer, film, ink and software. We even bought a new printer thinking that would fix our issues. Same results until the rip change. We use onefilm waterproof film from davis international, r1800 w/ fastink and accurip and so far it has been bulletproof.

 

[rusty]

We were in the same situation about six months back and were considering dropping 10K on an oyo imagesetter. We tried every possible fix from tech support for the printer, film, ink and software. We even bought a new printer thinking that would fix our issues. Same results until the rip change. We use onefilm waterproof film from davis international, r1800 w/ fastink and accurip and so far it has been bulletproof.

I don't understand. Why would a different RIP cause my printheads to stop clogging?

 

[alan802]

It really doesn't make sense on paper but the very last print we did with fastrip had banding and was not dense enough to burn a screen. The first print with accurip (without doing a head cleaning) was dense with no banding. I didn't want to spend any more time on hold trying to fix the problem so we just shrugged our shoulders and moved on. Our artist was able to customize the settings with the new rip that we couldn't do with the old one. That is the only variable that changed besides the actual programs.