Hardware - Industrial Print

Durst introduced two advanced production digital printers at SGIA Expo in the Las Vegas Convention Center: the fully automated Rho 1312 with unprecedented media handling, and the Rhotex HS for soft signage applications at the highest productivity levels.

“We manufacture our new printers to address, and also to influence, the most significant trends and developments in production digital printing,” said Brent Moncrief, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Durst U.S. “We’re very pleased to demonstrate the capabilities of the Rho 1312 and Rhotex HS at SGIA and explain how they make significant improvements to any production printing operation.”

Rho 1312

The 98-inch (250 cm) Rho 1312, which prints up to 620 m²/hr, offers improved image quality and a higher gloss finish, increased reliability during printing, and unparalleled media handling flexibility, particularly with difficult and heat-sensitive media. Durst's Quadro Array print head technology, applying very small droplets of only 12 picolitres, enables a very high printing speed without compromising image quality.

The 1312 also incorporates “Gradual Flow Printing” – media transportation advances such as a stronger vacuum, a wider transport belt and improved media registration – which provides higher reliability during printing and a better performance with difficult media, including corrugated. The overall result is smoother tones over large areas and a high gloss finish, even at the highest speeds.

Rhotex HS

The Rhotex HS achieves production speeds of more than 400 m²/hr, making it the fastest digital soft signage printer on the market. Its image resolution of 1,200 dpi produces unrivaled print quality. The Rhotex HS is equipped with Durst´s patented QuadroZ Print Head Technology, which is also utilized in the Durst Kappa series of high-performance digital printers developed for the clothing and home textiles sector.

The print width of the130-inch (330 cm) Rhotex HS and its use of eco-friendly, water-based dispersion inks – which are odorless and free of volatile organic compounds (VOC) – mean it is suitable for a range of soft-signage applications such as banners, displays, wall decorations, signage, parasols, flags, backdrops and outdoor advertisements. The productivity of the Rhotex HS enables the user to quickly and efficiently react to customer requirements and to achieve profitable production independent of print run size.

Agfa Graphics announced the worldwide launch of the new Anapurna M2500i with optional automated board feeder (ABF) at SGIA.  The Anapurna M2500i is the most recent i-series introduction, offering printing systems with higher productivity and quality.

The Anapurna M2500i is a 98-inch (2.5 m) wide, 6-colour plus white UV-inkjet printing system with an automated board feeder (ABF) designed for sign shops, digital printers, photo labs and graphic screen printers. The M2500i is ideal for indoor, outdoor and niche applications such as art reproductions, mouse pads, DVDs, wood, architectural and interior decorations, lenticular displays and more.

“We are committed to helping print service providers use technology to offer their customers the widest range of print products they possibly can. We are determined to develop the technology that can help PSPs take concepts to reality in the most efficient and cost-effective ways possible,” said Willy Van Dromme, Director of Marketing Inkjet Systems, Agfa Graphics.

The system features robust engineering for sustained higher workloads. The Anapurna M2500i offers increased print throughput while also achieving a high level of print quality. It prints on rigid and flexible media including boards/sheets, roll-to-roll and roll-to-sheet. Multiple boards or borderless printing increases productivity even more. The system’s automated board feeder also increases productivity by allowing for volume printing of small board sizes (up to five boards can be printed in parallel).

The Anapurna M2500i features six Konica-Minolta KM 1024i Grayscale print heads for colour and two KM 1024i heads for white. It prints at a maximum resolution of 1,440 x 720 dpi and has a maximum speed of 1,238 ft2/hr (115m2/hr).

 

Perfect Colours will now supply InkTec’s popular, fine-art quality Jetrix flat-bed printers in the UK following an agreement between the two companies. Effective immediately, the British reseller’s portfolio will include all machines in the robust Korean-made range, which feature a variety of production-orientated innovations, from edge-to-edge and intelligent layer printing to roll options and anti-crash head systems.

The Jetrix range is positioned to help sign and graphics print houses transition into flat-bed work and develop from there to high-speed production, but even at entry level there is no compromise on quality. From the compact 1.2 x 1.2m KX3 to the flagship 2.5 x 3.06m KX7, each machine in the range offers a six picolitre drop size and the ability to print onto a practically unlimited selection of materials, up to 100mm thick, at photographic quality. These facets allow owners to extend into lucrative value-adding areas of work, including fine art, point-of-sale and outdoor advertising.

Perfect Colours’s mission is to add value for purchasers in line with its reputation in the UK market – as explains Jon Telling, sales director: “Many wide-format companies have held back from capital investment over the last few years, choosing instead to wait for advanced technologies that can help bring them into new production areas.

“The Jetrix range represents exactly that, and Perfect Colours’s support-led approach means that customers can be assured they’ll see return on investment in little to no time. We’re proud to have been appointed to the InkTec channel and look forward to explaining the virtues of this exciting range to customers.”

Ben Woodruff, sales manager for Jetrix UK, comments: “We have known of Perfect Colours for some time and have admired the way they’ve grown their business and their product range over the last few years. The Jetrix series of UV-curable printers will fit perfectly within that portfolio.

“Perfect Colours has a strong consolidated marketing strategy and, in conjunction with their highly-trained and customer-focused sales team, I believe the company will help us grow the developing Jetrix install base in the UK, and help us maintain our current position as Europe’s fastest growing brand of UV-curable flat-beds."

The InkTec Jetrix 2030FRK, Jetrix KX3, KX5, KX5-R, KX6, KX6-R, KX7 and KX7-R provide fully-featured and reliable options for wide-format flat-bed production at competitive prices. The 2030FRK is a high-throughput workhorse reaching speeds of 55sq m/hr, allowing businesses to meet demanding turnaround needs without dropping quality, while the KX range brings, in a variety of combinations, the benefits of white ink and varnish for new creative applications, plus the ability to print to roll-fed media, if required. Each is available for demonstration and delivery immediately.

Orbus Exhibit & Display Group has developed faster, high-quality fabric-printing capabilities for the growing "soft signage" market using a newly purchased EFI VUTEk GS3250LXr Pro LED printer running SuperFlex Ink from EFI and 3M. The productivity and unique capabilities the Woodridge, Illinois, US-based company gains with its 3.2m, roll-to-roll VUTEk GS3250LXr Pro LED printer and SuperFlex inks provide a distinct advantage.

Orbus, which already uses traditional UV and dye-sub inkjet printers, is a leading provider of tradeshow products and graphics. However, UV inkjet inks are not flexible enough for fabric-printed soft signage designed to be folded and stored for re-use, and the company's dye-sub printers present throughput capacity challenges. The new VUTEk printer and ink have helped Orbus meet increased demand for high-quality, reusable, backlit fabric applications.

"Soft signage is an important part of Orbus's offering in the tradeshow industry, and with the new VUTEk printer and inks, we are able to replace an older, dye-sub printer with a faster, high-quality system," said Jamie Herand, vice president of graphic operations for the Orbus Exhibit & Display Group. "SuperFlex Ink opens new avenues for us in soft signage. It gives us more vibrant colour and it doesn't crack the way traditional UV inks do."

"The R&D investment EFI has made, working with 3M, to develop a superior, highly flexible ink, brings our industry-leading LED inkjet technology into new applications that make our customers more profitable and more productive," said Frank Mallozzi, EFI's senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing. "Orbus, one of the country's leading providers of exhibit display graphics, is moving the industry forward with this application of new, superwide-format inkjet print technology."

Available for EFI's 3.2m VUTEk GS3250LXr Pro LED and 5m VUTEk GS5500LXr Pro LED roll-to-roll inkjet printers, SuperFlex Ink provides an extended colour gamut and can withstand greater than 150% elongation. The ink is ideal for fabric-printed soft signage, vehicle wraps, outdoor graphics and other applications requiring exceptional flexibility and durability. EFI "cool cure" LED technology on Orbus's new printer cures ink at a lower temperature than other curing or drying methods, giving Orbus the ability to print on fabrics, films and other flexible media that cannot withstand high heat.

With close to 400 of its "cool cure" printers installed worldwide, EFI is the industry leader in industrial inkjet LED, a greener, energy-efficient technology that can reduce users' environmental footprint while reducing costs. Energy assessments carried out by industry association Fogra have shown that EFI's VUTEk superwide-format printers with LED curing can reduce energy consumption by up to 82% when compared with devices that use conventional mercury arc lamps.

EFI is presenting its EFI VUTEk GS-series LED printers and SuperFlex Ink this week at the 2014 SGIA Expo in Las Vegas. A video demo of SuperFlex Ink's unique characteristics is available online at: http://youtu.be/rSsg03ednDM. For more information about EFI products, visit www.efi.com .

For more information about Orbus's printing capabilities, visit http://www.orbuscompany.com/.

London-based Genix has invested in the first MTEX 5032Pro direct-to-textile digital printer to be installed in the UK – and the only fabric printer with a 3.2m capability inside the M25 corridor.

Genix is a multidisciplinary agency providing print, creative and project management solutions. Its roots lie within the print industry and having worked for the past twenty five years with some of the best brand names around it has evolved and developed into a truly adaptable creative resource, supplying content to the market via numerous channels.

“We are constantly striving to embrace new technologies and ideas and see continuation of this process as key to our future success,” said Genix Sales Director Andrew LeMaire.  “That’s where the MTEX 5032Pro comes in. Soft imaging was the last wide format print technique that we didn’t have in our stable. We have UV but it isn’t the same - with the MTEX the material still feels like fabric without the stiffness of the UV, which simply lays the ink on the surface.

“We knew the way forward a while ago but hadn’t been able to take this step until now as we needed to upgrade the size and accessibility of our production area.”

Genix had been housed in a 8,500 square feet basement location in Soho, but in April expanded into a new production centre in Tottenham Hale with creative, project managers and client services run from their Audley House base in the centre of London.

“Without the move we wouldn’t have been able to bring in a machine the size of the MTEX 5032Pro and even in the bigger premises the relatively small footprint of this particular machine was one of the reasons that influenced the purchase,” added Andrew.

“We wanted to expand our range with other new printing processes as well as textile, and we’ve also recently invested in a Latex printer.

“We originally saw the MTEX at Sign UK then went to FESPA specifically to have a better look. What swung it was the footprint being smaller thanks to the in-built calender unit that we couldn’t get elsewhere. Even in our new premises space is at a premium.”

Genix’s client base includes many end users and high quality brands who are very colour critical, and they need to manage colour over a range of printing disciplines. With the MTEX the team can start proofing the colour as soon as the material starts coming through the calendar unit, whereas with a second unit they would have to print the job and then test it.

“Experience has taught us that the tensioning of the material when webbed for printing is crucial, and once it’s loaded up you don’t really want to be disturbing it,” explains Andrew.

The MTEX 5032Pro was installed in August and Genix has been running trials to ascertain shrink rates for different media and other variables before going live. It’s early days but so far they are happy and expect it to have a huge take up.

“Soft signage is a real growth area and this machine will allow Genix to print graphics up to 3.2m wide to any length needed for both the exhibition and retail market,” added Stewart Bell, MD of MTEX Technologies.

“We see a good outlook for the wide format market, that’s why making these investments – with the new MTEX we’ve now got in house aqueous, solvent, UV cured, latex and dye sub printing and we truly can offer our customers the complete solution,” concluded Andrew.

For more information about MTEX go to www.mtex.eu or email stewart@mtex.eu, or for more information on Genix go to www.genix.co.uk or email information@genix.co.uk

Agfa Graphics earned the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) Product of the Year award for the Jeti Titan HS at this year's SGIA Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. The competition recognised the latest equipment and supplies currently on the market that are advancing the specialty imaging industry.

“We are so pleased with the recognition,” said Deborah Hutcheson, Director of Marketing Agfa Graphics North America. “We’ve known our products are top of the line, and now we have an award that demonstrates it. We’re already gearing up to enter next year’s competition!”

Sixty-eight companies from all over the globe submitted to the competition, entering 139 products in 25 categories. Each product was judged during the 2014 SGIA Expo (Las Vegas, October 22–24) and displayed in the Golden Image Gallery on the Expo floor, and this year’s entrants in each category pushed the limits of innovation.

“The Product of the Year Award Competition showcases the best printers, technologies and consumables from the specialty imaging community,” said Ray Weiss, SGIA’s Digital Imaging Specialist. “Whether they were a seasoned company or an industry newcomer, each and every entry came to win, and they gave the judges a real run for their money.”