Digital BW, The Print

I can say that the cause of banding/clogging/overspray is not always obvious
at all. At my day job we had an 1160 that developed a serious magenta
overspray problem. Luckily we had a second unit, & on a whim, I switched the
inking systems. Amazingly, the overspray problem moved to the 2nd machine.
Normally this would be blamed on a bad print head, but obviously this had
something to do with the cart/inking system.

As to the blanket condemnation of Taiwan etc. - we also have laser engraving
machines, of which we have purchased  three since 1994. The first two were
from two US manufacturers costing about $22K ea. The third we purchased two
years ago for $18K - made in Taiwan. It has more features, a larger
engraving table, a higher quality finish, easier access, a more compact
footprint, better quality & faster output, is showing less wear on the
motion system, and has had less than 10% of the downtime we experienced with
the US products...
-BK