I believe the idea is the gel would either come in a clear sheet with colored squares to cut out or precut and done.Printing the cut pattern on the gel (customer specified)?
I believe the idea is the gel would either come in a clear sheet with colored squares to cut out or precut and done.Printing the cut pattern on the gel (customer specified)?
Talked to @Joel N about it today at LDI. You could send them a list of the 18 colors you want and the order and they could print it as a single sheet of plastic. Cool. Huh?How well does this process work for scroller rolls? Would make for fewer seams, since many of them could be printed together, instead of taped.
@Michael K @Amiers @Joel N Thus you could have extra frames of the same color within the same scroller string for built in spares of colors you use a lot and which fade sooner. For that matter, you could print two or three, or more, of the same color in a row and only scroll them along until the burnt portion is out of the field. That ought to maximize your use.Talked to @Joel N about it today at LDI. You could send them a list of the 18 colors you want and the order and they could print it as a single sheet of plastic. Cool. Huh?
@porkchop @Joel N Brett; Think of receiving your 8 sided colors pre-cut for your Ianaro 6" 1Kw Polaris and 2Kw Bambino fresnels instead of having to take square cuts and knock the corners off to fit in the 8 sided frames.I went by the booth today and I was impressed. The ability to have gel show up labeled with what fixture it goes in and to have 8 foot continuous gel strings that I don't have to assemble myself are big advantages in my eyes. Some of the custom color and colored breakups also sound interesting for me.
Two questions that I still have:
- Does it come cut? Smaller boxes are cheaper to ship, but labor to cut adds expense. Not sure it's good for a theater with interns or volunteers, but when I was touring if I could get my follow spot gel sent to me pre-cut into rounds to go in the boomerang I probably could have justified a reasonably higher price.
- Is the diffusion in the initial pass consistent or controllable? A trick I used often was to focus to a hard edge and then drop in diffusion instead of running the barrel to soften things up. Having a diffused finishing option for the printed gel could accomplish color and softness all in one sheet.
@porkchop I believe at the minimum they could print the gel rounded to the perfect size, making it super easy to cut the printed circle out from the clear surrounding area, but I'll follow up on the precut questions with Joel tomorrow at the show.
Colored round on clear would have made me happy enough. Still know exactly how many cuts I'm getting no matter who I trust with the scissors.
- Is the diffusion in the initial pass consistent or controllable? A trick I used often was to focus to a hard edge and then drop in diffusion instead of running the barrel to soften things up. Having a diffused finishing option for the printed gel could accomplish color and softness all in one sheet.
GaffTaper,@Joel N I forgot to follow up with you on this question Joel. Are you thinking about pre-cutting the gels, perforations, or just a full sheet with the clear gaps between printed areas like the demo sheet you had? Or is this another one of those questions for down the road?
If the price is right, the convenience of getting a stack of pre-cut, pre-labeled gel, the exact amount you need is a pretty awesome idea.
@Joel N
If the price is right, the convenience of getting a stack of pre-cut, pre-labeled gel, the exact amount you need is a pretty awesome idea.
I would think that a secondary machine, basically a vinyl cutting sign machine, with a bit of programming could use the same datafile as the printing machine to easily cut the sheets to order.GaffTaper,
I would guess any secondary operations like perf or full cuts would be extra cost. The labeling is easy since it does not necessarily take another operation.
Joel
@Joel N Have you anything further to post on your progress / plans / thoughts? Basically any updates?GaffTaper,
I would guess any secondary operations like perf or full cuts would be extra cost. The labeling is easy since it does not necessarily take another operation.
Joel
@Joel N Have you anything further to post on your progress / plans / thoughts? Basically any updates?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
We don't have a 24" x 24" printer. If we did, that is definitely about what it would cost. We are not dealing with "off the shelf" large format printers. They are not good enough for what we use them for. They can't do the resolution we need.Your current 24" x 24" printer is *20k*? You're getting taken for a ride, based on my current knowledge of the largeformat inkjet market, by a factor of at least 2, possibly as high as 3.
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