Printer Review: Roland VersaArt RS-640 Wide-Format Inkjet Printer

Tom Vasin needed to find another way of doing things at his sign shop. Despite the recent economic slide, his sales were actually growing but he was spending quite bit money outsourcing print jobs to another shop in the area. "It came to point where we did the math and we were spending about $40,000 a year to have another digital print shop print a lot of our work. We quickly came to the conclusion that we needed to bring our digital printing in house. Not only to save money but also to have more control over the jobs we were running," said Tom Vasin, owner of Vasin Sign Solutions, Inc.

The five-year-old, Irvine, CA-based Vasin Sign Solutions specializes in commercial, architectural, and event signage. "We do a lot of work in event signage, many of our clients are repeat customers. We than began our quest to find an economical and easy to use unit that would help grow our event signage business," Vasin added.

After an extensive amount of research, they purchased the Roland VersaArt RS-640 64-inch eco-solvent inkjet printer. "Roland's headquarters is right down the street from us so we had a chance to go there and see the printer up close. We liked the quality of the samples the printer produced as well as the price of the machine. The VersaArt RS-640 is ideal for the production of large indoor and outdoor CMYK graphics, as well as soft signage and fabric applications. It perfectly fit our business model," he said.

Designed for productivity, the 64-inch VersaArt RS-640 prints 136.7 sqft/hr in standard print mode and 230 sqft/hr in billboard mode.

Vasin said his VersaArt was delivered on the first day the product was available in October. The printer was delivered in the morning and they were running jobs on it that afternoon.

"It arrived just in time for the Tony Hawk Foundation's annual Activision Presents Stand Up For Skateparks event, which this year raised over $1-million to bring free, quality skateparks to low-income communities. We had about 90 signs lined up ready to print the day it was installed. Prepress Supply, who we purchased the printer from, installed the printer and laminator and trained us on the VersaWorks RIP software. The VersaWorks RIP software is pretty much foolproof."

For the event, Vasin produced more than 90 signs in a week on the VersaArt. "We kept a close eye on the first few prints to be sure they were printing okay," he said. "Once we saw the quality and accuracy of the output, we were able to leave the VersaArt printing while we attended to other things in the shop. The banners and signs came out sharp and crisp, with virtually no banding. The VersaArt really came through in the clutch for us," he remarked.

The VersaArt RS-640 employs Roland Intelligent Pass Control technology, which optimizes masking patterns and dot placement at the edge of each pass. With Roland Intelligent Pass Control, consecutive passes are overlapped and feathered so they literally become one continuous image. As a result, finished prints reflect unmatched image quality overall with smoother gradations and dense, flawless solid colors in every print mode.

"The VersaArt's quality and performance are outstanding. It has already paid for itself. Our VersaArt is now just printing money for us," he added with a smile.

Roland VersaArt RS-640 Wide-Format Inkjet Printer At A Glance

• 64-inch eco-solvent inkjet printers
• Roland Intelligent Pass Control technology
• Maximum print speed of 230 sqft/hr (RS-640)
• ECO-SOL MAX inks in four colors (CMYK)
• Choice of 440 ml or 220 ml ink cartridges

For more info, go to www.rolanddga.com or www.vasininc.com