Estimating the Ink Costs on a given wide format machine?

[tngcas]

I've been tasked with researching wide-format printers. Our shop is entirely digital and we have a click charge on everything we print with right now.
I'm having trouble estimating the average cost of prints on machines that don't have a click charge.

I imagine that the operating cost of the machine is significantly more important than the cost of the machine itself initially but I'm having trouble finding the information on what an average cost per print might be on nearly every machine I've tried to research.

Is there a key bit of information I'm missing when looking at these machines that would give me a way to compare apples-to-apples the estimated production cost.

Thanks!

 

[pippip]

Have a look through signs101.com

Epson have a cost calculating tool called Epson LFP which helps.

We have an Epson SC40600. In Ireland 700ml of ink is €100 approx. On signs101 I saw someone who estimated an 8 x 4ft banner with high coverage used 35ml of ink and few others confirming similar.

 

[jwheeler]

I'm having trouble finding the information on what an average cost per print might be on nearly every machine I've tried to research.

Is there a key bit of information I'm missing when looking at these machines that would give me a way to compare apples-to-apples the estimated production cost.

The manufacturers will tell you avg costs per sq foot for their ink. It may not always be clearly published on their website, but you can contact a sales rep for the info. Keep in mind, this will only be an average, and they will probably be using images with lighter coverage to make their costs come out lower.

Once you get a machine, most wide format printers have an accounting tool built into the software. Typically, you need to set it up by inputting what you're paying for inks, and what size inks you're using. Then you input the costs of your media. After you produce a print, you can go into this section and it will tell you how much it cost per sq ft.

 

[ReproElectroProspero]

To address this, I performed some fun excel calculations, since our machine has no cost accounting software.

I took 10 posters, 5 with heavy coverage and 5 with light coverage, and printed them. I looked at each print's details in the software to find out the amount of ink used. Added all that up, and averaged it out. So I knew at that point that the average poster of X size would use Y amount of ink. I then did the same with the rolls of paper we keep in stock. If a roll of paper costs X, and 1 posters used Y amount of the roll, I can find out how much paper cost is attributed to each poster. So now that I knew my average mL of ink per linear inch, and my average paper use per poster, I can calculate an average cost with [AvgInkUsePerLinearInch]*[InkPricePer-mL] + [AvgPaperUseLinearInch]*[AvgPaperCostPerLinearInch] =[AveragePrintCostPerLinearInch].

I kept the calculations in excel for two reasons. First, is that I needed to do this with each of my media types, which vary wildly in price. Second, after running more actual production jobs, I could keep pulling data about ink usage and linear inch usage, and updating my excel file for a more accurate average. After 500 paid customer jobs, I ran the numbers again, and was glad to see it was still rather close to my initial estimate of cost. It actually ended up going down because I run a lot more low coverage things than heavy coverage.

 

[tngcas]

To address this, I performed some fun excel calculations, since our machine has no cost accounting software.

I took 10 posters, 5 with heavy coverage and 5 with light coverage, and printed them. I looked at each print's details in the software to find out the amount of ink used. Added all that up, and averaged it out. So I knew at that point that the average poster of X size would use Y amount of ink. I then did the same with the rolls of paper we keep in stock. If a roll of paper costs X, and 1 posters used Y amount of the roll, I can find out how much paper cost is attributed to each poster. So now that I knew my average mL of ink per linear inch, and my average paper use per poster, I can calculate an average cost with [AvgInkUsePerLinearInch]*[InkPricePer-mL] + [AvgPaperUseLinearInch]*[AvgPaperCostPerLinearInch] =[AveragePrintCostPerLinearInch].

I kept the calculations in excel for two reasons. First, is that I needed to do this with each of my media types, which vary wildly in price. Second, after running more actual production jobs, I could keep pulling data about ink usage and linear inch usage, and updating my excel file for a more accurate average. After 500 paid customer jobs, I ran the numbers again, and was glad to see it was still rather close to my initial estimate of cost. It actually ended up going down because I run a lot more low coverage things than heavy coverage.

This is exactly how my brain works. The ideal thing would be to be able to run all these numbers first and buy the machine that cost the least to run. Of course, then you have quality issues to consider too.

I’ve been spoiled by having only click charges to deal with

 

[tngcas]

Have a look through signs101.com

Epson have a cost calculating tool called Epson LFP which helps.

We have an Epson SC40600. In Ireland 700ml of ink is €100 approx. On signs101 I saw someone who estimated an 8 x 4ft banner with high coverage used 35ml of ink and few others confirming similar.

Thanks! This is a great resource!

 

[pippip]

Do you know from all the similar wide format purchasing threads I've seen online ink costs rarely factor into it, especially folks purchasing for the first time. I know you need to know costs for quoting on jobs but as far as a factor of what machine to buy I don't think it's worth getting caught up on.

If you feel you'll be running it all day every day then there are comparisons between the brands that can handle third party inks over others and aftermarket bulk feed systems.

Just saying I wouldn't class its importance as similar to comparing click charges with digital presses.

 

[Correct Color]

Every top-line full-function RIP manufacturer has somewhere within it a capability to measure and report ink consumption.

So you have that available to you provided you use a top-line RIP (ONYX, Caldera, Fiery, etc.) to run whatever printer(s) you buy.

Some don't have a choice not to use a RIP, some do; you didn't really specify what type of machine you're after, save that it be wide format.

I will say this though: I've got hundreds of very successful large-format printing companies as clients, and not one of them uses this feature. In fact, I know the ink-use reporting feature exists in all these RIP's, but in 15 years I have never set one up to use it. If anyone asked me to I'd have to go read up on how to do it.

The single, greatest factor in determining 'production cost' in large format printing is a basket of color management, print process control, and workflow. The goal is to make the best possible print: First print; every printer; every media; every time.

You do that and you will make money. You chase color and constantly print patches to test for color and take three tries to get it right on every job, and it doesn't matter how well you've defined your costs... You won't make money.

The downfall of most people getting into large format printing is that they try to make it up as they go along, or think they can get all the answers they need on the Internet.


Mike Adams
Correct Color