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Fuji dry-labs: Expected lifetime


Mikoko

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Hi everybody!

I have a question in general, cause I´m a newbie in the area of dry-labs ...

Has anyone an idea, what the expected lifetime of the Fuji DL600 (or at least DL415 / DL450) is?

I´d like to get an idea of how many prints (e.g. 4x6''-prints) I can realize until I have to replace the maschine...

I´ll be very grateful for your experience!!!

Thanx in advance-

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I purchased a DL430 in April 2010. In 13 months I had a print count of 183,000.  Lately I have been experiencing banding on prints that Fuji are still trying to rectify. As its my main source of income , i cannot afford to have the quality of my prints give my business a bad name. I have therefore decided to take the plunge and purchase a wet lab where you can have more control over the finished product , in so far as they are a tried and tested product. When I commenced in the trade , the dry lab was the only option available to me financially , and has served me well and given me a base to work from. I fear that there is not enough known about the dry labs to gauge their lifespan and your hands are pretty much tied with regards to print costs verses wet labs. I am lucky that my competition comes from stand alone dye sub kiosks , but there is always the fear that if a wet lab was installed locally where I am , it would be very hard to compete with. This is also one of the reasons  I have decided to change to a wet lab. At least if there is one already operating it might deter competitors from opening up.

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  • 1 month later...

Mark ,

I had the print head replaced on my DL430 at 249,000 prints under service contract. I have since traded the dry lab for a  Frontier 570 and there is no comparison between the two. As I said previously I could'nt afford a wet Lab when I commenced 18 months ago , the only regret i have is that I did'nt buy a second hand Wet Lab to get me going.

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I have heard the print heads can become a problem at any stage (not just after a certain number of prints). I heard of one machine will extremely low volume (turned off in the low season) which faulted.

Interesting to see guys going back to wet - when all of us on wet are considering dry  :-/

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hiya all I use a wet lab, dlab 1 to be precise, but am not considering dry................  yet. The bit I donot understand is why they only use 3 inks when an epson has 12 or more? Plus we still process lots of film and the dlab makes this easy

nick

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I have heard the print heads can become a problem at any stage (not just after a certain number of prints). I heard of one machine will extremely low volume (turned off in the low season) which faulted.

Interesting to see guys going back to wet - when all of us on wet are considering dry  :-/

To be honest light use is the worst thing for these machines. The head holds the ink in the head by surface tension, then as the piezo pulses it spits the ink onto the paper (very basic explanation) You will get more problems with ink drying in the nozzles with little use. If leaving a machine for an extended period you should drain the ink and refill with  cleaning fluid (An ink substrate without the pigment) You loose a lot of ink doing this but its cheaper than replacing the head. Remember the other problem is the paper absorbs moisture. This is responsible for more heads than anything else.

The paper if rolled out on a flat surface will have wavy edges, the head passes over the paper with VERY little room to spare. if the paper has curly edges the head its the paper often damaging the head plate. Keep your paper in air tight boxes provided and always replace into the bag. Its a dam sight easier doing it in the light, We have had to do it with normal paper for years.

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I've worked on Fuji DLs for many years and I would not recommend them to anyone. The printhead is expected to last 600,000 to 1,000,000 prints. I have seen heads replaced as low as 100,000 prints. That being said, canon has a new production dry lab printer out that looks much better. They know that the heads will go bad so they made them MUCH easier to replace and from what I've been hearing a lot cheaper too. I dont have the link at the moment, but it should be worth checking out.

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