Effective Life of Machines -Phil Keenan - Veurve Colour
This is a repost by permission from Phil Keenan - Veurve Colour originally in the Roland Digital Printer Support Group, but it has good info for any printer.
It's rather pertinent that a post comes up this week with a member looking to replace an aging printer right as I've found some reference images for a customer that was asking also. So here is some info on that...
For just about every machine on the planet there is a graph that represents its effective life. The 'Bathtub Curve' gains its name from the shape that the graph makes when you take into account different types of potential failure over time. We have Early Failures which usually fall inside the warranty period and taper off, a steady background of 'normal' failures, and then failures due to wear and tear which really ramp up as time goes by.
How long each of these periods are depends on the specific engineering/technology and its limitations, but the theory is still much the same. In terms of reliable commercial inkjet printers like most of the Roland R2R family then the useful life sits between 8-10 years. After this point you are putting your livelihood in the hands of Lady Luck.
Roland will normally carry most critical parts beyond 8 years, so for a printing business it makes sense to budget for this timeframe when planning for their next capital purchase. At this point write down the value of the printer to zero. In reality by then the printer should have returned you many times its value in profit, so let it go cheaply to the next person as they have a much higher risk from their purchase than did you. Anyone purchasing at this time needs to understand that they are buying a gambling machine. Some will win, some will not. If you've gone 8 years and not made a multiple of at least 5 times the value of the printer back then you have to assess if you want to keep owning one or outsource and let someone else deal with the costs of ownership.
I've attached an image of the bathtub curve (thanks to an unconfirmed LinkedIn source). I've also attached a photo of the manufacturing date sticker you will find on your Roland printer. The format is YYYYMMDD. We are in 2025, and if your printer has a number starting with anything lower than 2017 then you are already past the best life and really should start considering the next machine. It can be a good time to keep the old reliable for a little while during your transition phase.
The diagram Above is of unknown origin.
