Recommend a large format (24"+) printer

October 5, 2022 4:53 AM

My search skills are weak, and finding mostly (a) garbage listcicles and (b) ones that focus on 13" printers; I need something that prints on 24" rolls and can cut to length. Personal experience is a pretty big part of the recommendation, which I'm not getting from the TECH GORBZ' TOP 10 PRINTERS 2022 search results.
posted by Shepherd to Technology (12 answers total)

Epson make a lot of large format printers. I've owned a few of their large sheet (A3+) photo printers, which also take rolls. Haven't used Canons, but I'm told they have a similar kind of range.

I don't mind the Epsons, but large format printers generally are pretty specialised and very expensive to run unless you can recoup costs by selling prints. They also need to be used a fair bit to stay working properly. Many photographers get their printing done by a commercial service because it will often be more economical. I prefer the control of doing it myself, but it has drawbacks.
posted by mewsic at 5:19 AM on October 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

Seconding mewsic... I have an Epson P900 which is a 17" printer that can have an optional roll feeder. From there you're looking at the P7xxx series printers that are 2-3x in price. The T2170 looks like it's a 24" printer but that may not have the quality you're looking for (4 ink cartridges vs 10... for high quality photo printing, you're going to do a lot better with a 10 ink cartridge printer). I haven't used this particular printer but I am happy with my P900.

This ought to give you specific models you could find reviews for...
https://epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Large-Format/c/w140
posted by kokaku at 5:47 AM on October 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

I used to have to deal with the HP T120 a lot. Looks like it's been replaced with the T200. You can print to it as long as you can install the software, and even then, Windows 10 driver worked pretty well without having to do the software install. Give it a static IP address on your network for fewer hassles of having to do the network search for it.
posted by deezil at 6:07 AM on October 5, 2022

I'll recommend HP as that's what I used in my large-format printing days.

More importantly, operating these machines is a job, not something to buy off-hand and leave idle and use occasionally. There's a lot of skill required in handling large media so you don't fuck it up, managing colour properly, keeping the printer reasonably active so the ink doesn't stagnate, reserving space for the machine, the media, the supplies, managing humidity and temperature, etc, etc.

You don't mention what you want to use the printer for, which makes recommending specific lines difficult.

Just a note that if you're only printing intermittently, hiring out your printing to a professional service is a lot cheaper over the long run than you yourself buying the printer, learning how to use it, keeping the right media and ink in stock, dealing with misprints and errors, etc, etc, etc. It takes time, maybe time you want to use creating the stuff you want to print, you know?

Anyway, if you're not going to keep the machine busy, it doesn't make sense to own one.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:17 AM on October 5, 2022 [4 favorites]

I can't speak for TECH GORBZ' but some of the other sites might publish these as 'plotter' reviews. Or might be better searched for that way, however titled.

TechRadar, for example.

Annoyingly a lot of this kind of stuff has gone to YouTube, which means it takes longer to figure out which 'reviews' are just regurgitated product listings with text to speech narration.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:06 AM on October 5, 2022

We have a Canon TA-30 at work that I like a lot, but it's a 36" printer. Their TA-20 is 24", however, and is less expensive.
posted by indexy at 7:07 AM on October 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Highly and emphatically seconding seanmpuckett's advice. Unless you're printing at a large volume, I don't see a large-format printer making much economical sense, either from a first cost perspective or in terms of upkeep and maintenance. It's quite likely that even if you do get your own printer, you'll likely be contacting a local reprographics store for supplies and paper anyway, so you might as well talk about their rates while you're at it. Immediately pre-pandemic, local repro stores near me (in Michigan) were starting a business model where you would get a plotter/printer in your space as a subscription service kind of thing, which might be a middle ground that makes sense if you're printing a lot but not enough to fully justify owning one. I've worked in architectural offices over the last 25+ years, and the only printers we ever had in the office were either Oce or HP, with varying degrees of temperamentality and ease of use.

We have a Canon TA-30 at work that I like a lot, but it's a 36" printer. Their TA-20 is 24", however, and is less expensive.

Just clarifying that you can load any roll paper that will fit into a printer and it will work. A 36" printer can handle anything up to 36" (roll media typically comes in 24", 30", and 36"), but the cost may not be worth it if you're rarely printing that big.
posted by LionIndex at 7:37 AM on October 5, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks for all the considerate answers to date. The use cases here tend to be sporadic but urgent -- we have a lot of need for temporary but large one-off signs ("Conference today!" "Go upstairs for Event X"). Sometimes we just have a few days to turn these over, and/or information that changes up to a day before.

There's also a back of the envelope project to produce large-format photos (posters, essentially) and frame them, but cycle through them annually so we can have rolling photos from research, labs, etc. continually changing around our units. We also have two STEM education units that work with schools and specialty audiences who like this conceptually, but I haven't actually broken down use cases with them.

I was envisioning a kind of large-format / plotter (thank you) printer + foamcore board + spray glue and roller workstation, so we could produce event signage on fairly short notice rather than having to coordinate with a printer, who normally needs several business days of time to turn things around, and is industry-reasonable but doesn't feel cheap. Ditto for the kind of "rotating poster" idea.

I'm re-evaluating my position on this now -- we definitely would not see daily use, but weekly, and with sporadic periods of heavy use when other units like our youth STEM education unit is ramping up for lots of classroom visits, summer camps, etc.
posted by Shepherd at 8:20 AM on October 5, 2022

I use an HP Designjet T520, which is a 36", weekly. It's been going strong for about 2 years. It prints a thing that has to be accurate to within +/- 0.002" and it hits that tolerance a good 80% of the time.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 8:21 AM on October 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

With your described use-case, you can get away with a small signage grade machine; you don't need a 12 colour photo/proofing machine. Quickly looking through HP's DesignJet site, you may well be able to satisfy your needs with a 4 colour tabletop model such as something in the T200 series which come in near $1K. Do not be scared off by the shorter-term lifetime of "dye-based" prints because in your use case your output doesn't have to last framed under harsh light for hundreds of years. It just has to be presentable, and dye-based ink is absolutely that, and typically much cheaper and less prone to clogging than archival pigments.

A desktop machine takes up much, much less space than a floor-mounted system; you'll be able to put the device and all of its supplies on a dedicated small printing credenza, possibly with wheels to roll it around if necessary.

Good fortune in your printing adventure.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:42 AM on October 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

I also have an HP T520 at work, which fits your criteria. I've had it for a few years and have had no problems. I don't use it a ton (once a year I print 25 24" x 36" things on satin photo paper on a roll, and then occasionally throughout the year I print lower quality stuff on cheaper paper), but I have yet to have issues with heads clogging or anything like that.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:54 AM on October 5, 2022

It really depends on what your use case is going to be. There are many different print technologies, each with their different strengths and weaknesses.

Outdoor signage? Solvent or eco-solvent based inks. Most durable, and also smelliest. Generally require external ventilation. Signs printed on vinyl scrim will last for years.

Mostly technical drawings / CAD, with the occasional sign? HP is fine, anything from their DesignJet line. HP is generally the most expensive to operate.

Mostly graphics / posters / fine art repro? Canon 12-color, or perhaps Epson. (I used to run a digital print shop, we had Canon, Epson, and HP wide format for various tasks, and by far I preferred the color gamut and overall appearance of the Canons.)

Paper selection is also important. 20 or 24lb plotter bond is fine for... plotter prints. Lightweight line art and some text. If you're getting into signage and posters with large fills, you're going to want to go to a photobase paper, 250gsm or 300gsm semigloss coated. The coating will not only make everything "pop" a little more, but it's designed to take heavy ink loads, and so the paper won't over-saturate and blister/wrinkle like lighter-weight papers will. Canon's 12-color LUCIA ink set is also suitable for temporary outdoor signage; while the inks are aqueous (water-based), they are pigmented and so are much more water-resistant (though by no means waterproof) vs dye-baed inks. We printed plenty of banners, pop-ups, etc. for outdoor festivals on vinyl, polyester, other synthetic materials, and they lasted the weekend through light showers, just fine.

One thing you'll notice about the Canon printers, and to a lesser degree, certain Epsons, is that initially the inks seem incredibly expensive. But the ink tanks are HUGE. 700 or 300-ish ml. Price them out as cost-per ml, though, and they are actually incredibly cheap to run. Most of the printers also have a function in their web interface that lets you see how many total ml of ink were consumed for each print, so this plus your media (paper, vinyl, etc) costs will let you work out what your total cost-per-print is.

Another thing to be aware of with ink tank type printers, especially Canons is they have large "sub-tanks" internal to the printer. The ink gets transferred from the ink cartridge to the sub tank, and from there to the print head. This allows the printer to keep the ink delivery system full and pressurized, and allows for uninterrupted, on-the-fly ink refills while a job is running. So, especially when initially setting up the printer, you'll unbox it and load all the cartridges, it chugs away filling the ink, and suddenly all the ink tanks show nearly empty. This is fine. It's not wasted, it just means the removable ink tanks are nearly empty, because all that ink has been dumped into the printer's internal tanks, ready to be used.
posted by xedrik at 7:47 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]