paulh

Hi Paul, apologies for the delay, I saw the email notification appear in my inbox and then forgot all about it, as TC doesn't flag these things for me when I log in.

Anyhoo - I use a Xerox Phaser 6510 - and I honestly cannot recommend it at all.  I bought it on a whim because I wanted a colour laser - I used to be able to sneak into the office late at night and use their high quality printers, but alas those days are long gone.  I foolishly thought all colour lasers were equal, however they are not.

That's not to say it's a bad home or small office printer - in fact it's great, setup was simple enough and it does exactly what it says on the tin.  Sadly, it does not (officially) print on vinyl.  In fact it's hidden away somewhere in the specs, which I neglected to check before I bought it - not compatible with vinyl media.

It will print black or greyscale well enough, although sometimes it takes 2 or 3 goes to get a print without any lines or artefacts, especially if I print bigger blockier sections (which I tend to do, especially when sticking over colours).  The black toner seems reasonably robust - most of my designs are black or grey and they haven't flaked or scratched off in use yet.

Colour, OTOH, is a different story.  Printing onto clear vinyl seems better than onto white, although the colour match is often very poor compared to printing the same design onto white paper (even if stuck onto a white background).  The toner can scrape off if you get into a battle with a barrier or another car, but that's fairly standard, especially if you race on tarmac, which is where I got most of my damage from.

The white vinyl I have is awful (same brand as the clear vinyl).  The colour match is atrocious, and if I print a large block section it will look like it's had some vintage or urban camo filter effect applied, so bad is the variation in colour from one spot to the next.  Also the toner doesn't want to stick to the vinyl very well, it can even flake off as I try to close-trim around the design with scissors or a knife.  Applying some automotive lacquer does help with this and also protects it once fitted, but it's a painful step that laser owners are supposed to be able to bypass (laser toner is supposedly waterproof, inkjet ink needs lacquer before fitting if you want to run in the rain).

Also the white vinyl is way more prone to peeling off inside the printer and causing all manner of paper jammage.  The clear vinyl usually reports a paper jam after it ejects, forcing me to open and close the back of the printer to clear it, which is annoying as the printer is installed against the wall and it isn't easy to get to the back.

I have tried printing on white glossy sticky paper, but it's not much better than printing on white vinyl, and the paper leaves little fibres around the cut lines even if I use a sharp knife to cut it, so it looks real cheap when fitted.  Also it isn't waterproof.

And no - it doesn't print white.  This really is the holy grail, if you can find it - home and office lasers, in general, don't do white - you need a more specific commercial printer for that.  I did find a company online who would supply white toner in a black toner cartridge - basically you load in the cartridge, run a print of black to lay down the white toner, then replace with the proper black cartridge (or switch to a different printer) and re-print the black and colour parts.

I get around this by designing my liveries so the printed stuff goes over lighter sections (white, silver, yellow and orange work well if you're using black or dark grey designs), then I use commercially-available sponsor stickers for the darker sections of the body.  I recently tried a purple fade gradient colour decal over a fluorescent pink paint, but the purple looked a bit washed out and lost.  I probably should have printed it much darker and allowed the fluorescence to brighten the ink from underneath.  These are the kinds of things you can think about if you find yourself limited by what your printer can do.

Now that I've written all this out, I have a feeling I wrote it out already recently - so apologies if you already asked this in a thread somewhere and I replied.  I tend to forget things.

Best of luck finding a printer - my advice is to check the specs thoroughly before you buy, specifically for checking if it will print onto sticky vinyl sheet, and even if the manufacturer recommends or supplies their own vinyl that is designed to work with it.