Anyone print on adhesive vinyl?

[JoeM]

My HP Designjet 800PS is in need of repairs which are making it difficult to print now. A belt looks to be shedding and particles fall on the media causing some of the ink to not be applied.

Rather than pay for the servicing and parts I'm thinking about purchasing a new 24" plotter. Right now I need it to print on adhesive vinyl for some product skins I need to mockup. The design fits on letter sized paper so I don't need a wide bed.

I've seen some vinyl cutters under $2K which would be an added bonus as we hand cut the vinyl now. Does anyone know of a plotter that can print and cut vinyl? If not, then a 24" plotter that can print on adhesive vinyl. I've read that the Canon plotters are not dependable.

TIA

[ztirffritz]

Not to hijack the thread, but how does that work? It looks like the 800PS is a just a standard printers. Does it require special ink? Where do you purchase the vinyl stock? I'm just curious because I have access to an HP DJ 500 (24") plotter at work but it is basically just a glorified Ink Jet Printer. It works well, but I've never thought of printing on vinyl with it.

[bobinmurphy]

I was curious too when I read the post so I went searching and came up with this:
http://www.texascraft.com

[JoeM]

HP sells their own matt vinyl for their plotters. It has a low stick adhesive for mounting. It works pretty well for banners and signs that don't require long life. I've actually used it to create booth banners in the past for 10x10s. They also have a tyvek media that you can punch with grommets for hanging banners. Again for short life signage mostly.

[ztirffritz]

I went reading too. It seems that there are other printers that use a special ink that doesn't fade as much in the sun or fluorescent lights. I was just curious because we sometimes have need of doing this for projects in our plant and we outsource it to local printers, but they charge almost as much as the roll of vinyl appears to cost. We could probably do it ourselves and save a few bucks.