About to buy an M&R Chameleon or a Sidewinder - Have a few Questions First

[sonicweaponprinting]

Thanks for chiming in Alan, always great to hear from someone first hand who's used both. Holy crap is this a tough decision

[Binkspot]

I have seen up close and personal one indexer system for a manual. It was nice but cost prohibitive to produce and as far as I know the idea was scrapped. Something I have been toying with myself.

The flash on my Sidewinder is a true auto, when the pallets are rotated the flash automatically swivels over the pallet then back out of the way after a preset time.

Like Alen said I personally think the cost is a bit much but in the grand scheme of things worth every penny. If you spend an hour jerking around trying to register a three color job for 24 pieces you basically are loosing money on the job. Do this a couple times a week and shortly the cost of the system will be seem petty.

[sonicweaponprinting]

I'd like to thank everyone for all of their great feedback and how considerate it has been. It's hard to find this detailed info without asking those who already own or have experience on them, without getting a sales pitch, or wrustling some feathers of owners who own each of these brands I've been so heavily analyzing (M&R, Vastex, Antec) ... Refreshing to get that kind of stuff from here.

I am thinking most likely M&R is my way to go, it seems everyone has a pretty strong opinion that although Vastex makes a solid press, if I plan to ever go auto, makes more sense to already own the associated boards and reg system thats proven across manual and auto w/ the M&R system.

Now to save up that extra $$ to be able to try and get all these wanted features from the outset, new and working well, instead of upgrading after machines begun to take on wear or jobs that may shift callibration, I'd like to have airlocks and sideclamps up front instead of down the road.

[Croft]

I'd like to thank everyone for all of their great feedback and how considerate it has been. It's hard to find this detailed info without asking those who already own or have experience on them, without getting a sales pitch, or wrustling some feathers of owners who own each of these brands I've been so heavily analyzing (M&R, Vastex, Antec) ... Refreshing to get that kind of stuff from here.

I am thinking most likely M&R is my way to go, it seems everyone has a pretty strong opinion that although Vastex makes a solid press, if I plan to ever go auto, makes more sense to already own the associated boards and reg system thats proven across manual and auto w/ the M&R system.

Now to save up that extra $$ to be able to try and get all these wanted features from the outset, new and working well, instead of upgrading after machines begun to take on wear or jobs that may shift callibration, I'd like to have airlocks and sideclamps up front instead of down the road.

Save the money get the options up front extra arms and platens after the fact cost a lot, For example adding air clamps to a 6 head chameleon is north of $3000.00 plus shipping your time to install etc..

[sonicweaponprinting]

Thanks man, this being the first thing in my life I have ever purchased new, we will be splurging on the sideclamps and airlocks, and we sont even really feel any buyers remorse yet as every printer weve told so far has said best decision we could make and we would never look back. Plus resale value holds so well on these m&r presses Ive got no worries!

[RICK STEFANICK]

an auto indexer would rule, hah, have never seen one of those on a manual. Could be awesome for someone to build a base like the auto flashes that rotate and spin into place that you just slide any top of a mobile flash unit into and configure for balancing, etc... instead of having to buy a proprietary flash thats just super expsensive because it does a 90 degree rotation w/ a servo .. good idea though.

after also realizing a try-lock costs $2500, i'm kinda leaning back towards vastex, not because of quality or anything, but getting more for my money ... I mean, Vastex's VRS is around $975, yes, they don't have airlocks (this may be the decider, and tri-lock apparently only works best w/ the airlocks) ... so it's a tough call still. $2500 for trilock is kinda absurd, its 2 right angles!

ok. the shear craftmanship of the tri- lock is superior. the registration pallet is very nice. you have another piece that goes on the glass of you exposure unit and it works. no comparison to the vastex. i think that point should motivate you MORE toward m/r. you have it backwards. your getting much more for your money with m/r.  besides trilock technology your getting a press with much better pallets, micros. all that adds up to faster production, faster set-up. i would say thats more for your money..

[sonicweaponprinting]

an auto indexer would rule, hah, have never seen one of those on a manual. Could be awesome for someone to build a base like the auto flashes that rotate and spin into place that you just slide any top of a mobile flash unit into and configure for balancing, etc... instead of having to buy a proprietary flash thats just super expsensive because it does a 90 degree rotation w/ a servo .. good idea though.

after also realizing a try-lock costs $2500, i'm kinda leaning back towards vastex, not because of quality or anything, but getting more for my money ... I mean, Vastex's VRS is around $975, yes, they don't have airlocks (this may be the decider, and tri-lock apparently only works best w/ the airlocks) ... so it's a tough call still. $2500 for trilock is kinda absurd, its 2 right angles!

ok. the shear craftmanship of the tri- lock is superior. the registration pallet is very nice. you have another piece that goes on the glass of you exposure unit and it works. no comparison to the vastex. i think that point should motivate you MORE toward m/r. you have it backwards. your getting much more for your money with m/r.  besides trilock technology your getting a press with much better pallets, micros. all that adds up to faster production, faster set-up. i would say thats more for your money..

no doubt!

We purchased our Sidewinder 6/6 w/ sideclamps and airlocks today. Going to be about 7 weeks on the lead time for the delivery but holy crap are we excited! All of your input was greatly appreciated and weighed heavily on our final decision. It came down to all the reasons you all pointed out already, solid construction, solid customer service, pallet design modularity (going from a manual to an auto down the road AND the fact that theres a higher chance to find better deals on M&R press accessories than the Vastex equipment since there are not as many Vastex in the field as M&R), the micro design, it has sideclamps, it has airlocks, it can be used w/ the tri-lock system (superior to the vastex, and able to be used on manual, and the auto once we reach that bridge), it is made in the USA, if a small part has an issue I can get it in the USA from Grainger most likely if not directly from M&R, who uses parts made in the USA, this may not be able to be said about Anatol, Vastex, or Antec) oh, and the end of the year deal they were running on manual presses giving away free sideclamps! (had to pay full price for airlocks though).

All in all, we can't really find any negatives, our next move is upgrading our dryer now, and that will most likely end up being a 30" Belt (24" element) - Vastex DB-30 (120V) to run in the basement for now. Can't wait for this press to arrive, time to start doing some cleaning and re-arranging the shop layout, which I love doing!

[tonypep]

I try not to weigh in on these things but Sonic, well.................ya did good there

[RICK STEFANICK]

I try not to weigh in on these things but Sonic, well.................ya did good there

yep. now buy a real dryer also. i heard m/r has a few that will match your press.believe me a miss matched shop of equipment can be distracting.  seriously,a m/r fusion will be a great fit.

[Croft]

For the triloc I would just start using the new press and keep an eye the sales boards  Digitsmith etc. , I picked up basically a new one for  $1000 and really like it. have been using it more and more.

[sonicweaponprinting]

I try not to weigh in on these things but Sonic, well.................ya did good there

yep. now buy a real dryer also. i heard m/r has a few that will match your press.believe me a miss matched shop of equipment can be distracting.  seriously,a m/r fusion will be a great fit.

I agree. To clarify, i work out of my home basement currently. Its more about my restrictions of my power being 120 unless I dont know othwerwise and there arent many 120v dryers out there in my 2-3K budget. M&r dryer will be what i get eventually and probably gas but like i said, options are pretty limited, and m&r doesnt make 120v dryers (they told me its unsafe to run a 120 dryer out of my house w a flash at same time) so yeah, im still in research phase of that option.