Experience with Mimaki JV-4 large format printer

We get frequent complaints from Roland owners about horizontal banding defects (mostly during 1999-2003, not as much recently). Two Epson 10000 owners have complained of banding on early models, indeed our own Epson 7500 has fits of banding on occasion.

But the Mimaki JV4 has adjustments so you can basically dial precision feeding for each specific media so you don't get banding any more. Since it uses the same piezo printheads as Epson, Roland, and Mutoh it is not immune to piezo banding lines, but we do not get as many people commenting on this problem with Mimaki. Their printers are designed and manufactured in their own Mimaki plant.

Then there is the production speed. Epson's speed is largely in their advertising hype. Their actual printers are rather slow. Mimaki uses twin sets of printheads, dual 6-color systems so you can print with twice the umph of an Epson 10000.

Or, you can have one set of six inks in pigment, and the other set of six inks simultaneously loaded with dye inks. This way you can print outdoor ads one day and indoor POP signs the other day.

There is no Epson that can do this. With an Epson 10000 and all other recent Epson´s you are permanently stuck with one ink. Either dye, or pigmented. Furthermore you are stuck with proprietary ink. No choice.

With the Mimaki you can pour all kinds of ink into its system. That way you can select the best for your needs. So you can use dye-sub ink, textile ink, or almost any after-market ink.

A Mimaki printer is a professional unit suitable for a professional photographer, photo lab, museum, art gallery, fine art giclee studio or for a sign shop that does tradeshow graphics but also wants to do higher quality giclee on the side. If you are an individual, then this is a class of printer which will set you apart from entry-level print shops.

The Mimaki JV-4 is especially good for doing dye transfer printing. There is no 24" version; this is a true wide format printer for serious production; 54" is the basic version. You can opt for a 62 or 73 inch Mimaki as well.

This Mimaki printer accepts thick watercolor media up to 7 mm thick. Definitely can't feed anything like that through any Hewlett-Packard printer. We even printed on foamcore. The Mimaki can print on thicker material than the Epson and Mutoh and I believe thicker than the Roland too. FLAAR has a Mimaki JV4 at Bowling Green State University and we are very content with it. However we have retired it, since it is easier to print giclee with standard giclee printers (Canon, Epson, and HP). We cover giclee on our separate site, www.FineArtGicleePrinters.org.

If you already have an Accuplot, I-Jet, Sign Warehouse PrismJet or comparable printer you ought to consider updating to a Mimaki JV4. If you prefer to use solvent ink, then the appropriate printer would be the JV3 or the newer Mimaki JV5. The JV5 is also available with water-based inks. We cover water-based ink printers on our separate site, www.wide-format-printers.org.

Contact for learning more about the Mimaki JV4 and other printers is Global Imaging Inc. Their website is Globalimaginginc.com