Bigger, Faster Wide Format

Wide-format digital printers continue to push the boundaries with innovative new applications imaged on substrates ranging from glass to fabric to ceiling tiles to wood. Suppliers are responding in kind, broadening their offerings to meet market demands.

Drupa, as expected, represented a major stage for wide-format suppliers looking to showcase their latest offerings. (See p.36.) Many of these products will also be at Graph Expo in late October, exhibited either on the show floor or in the more densely packed Wide Format Pavilion, now totaling a record 40,050 sq.ft. of exhibit space.

In addition to the firms highlighted in this article, Mimaki will show its 60´´ hybrid UJV-160 roll-to-roll, LED UV-curable inkjet printer, while Mutoh will have the 64´´ Zephyr, a roll-to-roll UV inkjet device featuring Xaar printhead technology. Xerox will demonstrate its latest piezo, solvent wide-format printers: the 8254E (54´´) and 8264E (64´´) use drop-on-demand inkjet.

HP, following its acquisition of the MacDermaid ColorSpan and NUR Macroprinters product lines, currently offers 27 wide-format printer series, giving it the broadest portfolio of large-format technologies in the industry, says Ziki Kuly, industrial large format director, HP North America,

Canon rolled out 11 wide-format products in 2007; its most recent, the 5-color dye and pigment imagePROGRAF 44´´ iPF810 and 60´´ iPF820, for the high-volume technical drawing printing market, were introduced at drupa in May. Among those Canon introduced in last year: the 44´´ iPF8100 and 60´´ iPF9100, featuring the Lucia pigment inkset.

Making headlines on the trade show circuit are the EFI VUTEk DS Series, a UV digital flatbed positioned to capture analog screen print and short-run offset jobs; new ink and partnering print systems from HP and Océ and UV printers from Agfa, Gandinnovations, Mutoh and Screen that offer both fast production speeds and photographic-quality output. Eco-solvent printers are in full display, with Océ and Xerox, among others, offering new models. Mimaki is showcasing the UJV-160, which uses UV LED technology for ink curing. (See also p. 44.)

VUTEk is also highlighting the white ink capability of its QS2000 and QS3200 super-wide printers, included as a seventh inline channel, and allowing inline printing of white ink in one pass, in six variations: overprint, underprint, spot, underspot, fill and overspot.

Industrywide, UV digital flatbeds are generating a lot of buzz, as users jump on the machine's ability to image onto nearly any substrate, providing unforeseen application opportunities. Additionally, the end product doesn't require laminating, delivering savings in time and money. IT Strategies projects revenues from flatbed UV printers will grow from slightly less than $800 million in 2006 to over $2 billion in 2011.

M2 Displays uses its Océ Arizona 250 GT UV flatbed to print on rocks, guitar pedals and skateboards. The Chino Hills, CA-based shop owns two Arizona flatbeds, an Océ 9060 Eco Solvent roll-to-roll printer, an HP DesignJet and HP 5500 inkjet.

Owner Bryan Mehr purchased his shop's first Océ UV-based Arizona flatbed because of output quality. “I was even happier after I got the machine because it lets me be more innovative—I can do more work,” says Mehr. “With high-speed machines, the vacuum seal becomes undone because of the speed, and then the printhead can get damaged. With the Arizona, I can see the printhead come across the bed and determine if its high enough. I can adjust the printhead, letting me print on a wider array of surfaces.”

In Miami, 121 Digital owner Mike Brody views his Fuji-film Acuity HD 2504 UV digital flatbed, used for 3D lenticular printing, POP and backlit trade show displays, as critical to his wide-format business. “If you don't have a flatbed, you are at a real disadvantage,” notes Brody. “They save you a lot of money in mounting and laminating costs.” The Acuity, now available with a roll-fed option, runs at 174 sq.ft/hour.

Adds Brody, “The more machinery, the greater amount of jobs you can bid on. We just installed a roll-to-roll option for the Acuity, which lets us output in excellent quality up to 86´´ wide; it opens up the machine for flexible substrates and the fine art market.”

The Gandinnovations NanoJet UV flatbed uses 24 Spectra 15-picoliter heads. Printing at speeds of 220 sq.ft/.hour in photorealistic mode, it has a print area of 4×8´ and prints in six colors at 800 dpi, using the firm's UV-curable inks. The specially designed vacuum table uses a linear motion system to control movement.

Agfa's :Anapurna XLS offers even higher speeds (474 sq.ft./hour) at photographic quality. Each of its eight Universal printheads contain 764 nozzles and have the ability to print grayscale images up to 16 levels with a minimum drop volume of 8 picoliters, resulting in highly detailed print at up to 1440×1440 dpi.One of the XLS unique features is its walking floor design, reports Mike White, wide-format manager of Industrial Inkjet Systems at Agfa North America. “Materials are mounted on the walking floor, which uses vacuums and a unique stamper feet design, to hold the materials in place while the print shuttle moves across the surface, letting the XLS print directly on more substrates and lowering waste. Moving gantries on other flatbeds are not as stable as the :Anapurna XLS is. In other systems, movement from the belt and vacuum could result in banding.”

Drupa marked the commercial launch of Screen's Truepress Jet2500UV digital flatbed, which can print to many different substrates—both flat and rolled—in a wide range of sizes. It delivers a maximum output resolution of 1500 dpi for posters, banners, building materials and textiles up to 1.9´´ thick and 98.4´´ wide. A high-precision linear motor lets the inkjet printer attain a top speed of 726.5 sq.ft./hour.

Last year, Fujifilm's Sericol division introduced the Inca Onset UV digital flatbed as a formidable alternative to screen printing and short-run offset. The Inca Onset, priced at $3 million, already has eight worldwide installations.

“Digital UV makes screen printers more competitive and more nimble,” says Terry Amerine, market manager of wide-format graphics at Fujifilm Sericol. “Users can take files off a customer FTP site and send them directly to the press; there are no plates, no other prepress. These are services that their competitors can't offer.

The Onset print speed is 12,000 sq.ft/hour; it outputs a graphic in 15 seconds and delivers 100 full bed sheets an hour. The speed derives from its 576 printheads and 73,728 nozzles jetting 3 billion ink droplets per second.

“The result is a machine that is so fast that it not only delivers a highly competitive solution for screen printers but, for the first time, provides a highly competitive alternative to offset presses, offering a flexible and cost effective alternative for up to 400 finished sheets,” says Jerry Avis, international strategy and business development director for Fujifilm Sericol.

Holland and Crosby, a large POP printer in Toronto with both screen and digital capacity, took hold of the first North American Inca Offset installation in February.

VUTEk's entry into this new segment of the market, the DS Series, is slated for commercial release in 2009. A prototype was shown at drupa.

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“The VUTEk DS Series offers breakthrough speed and digital economics,” remarks Chuck Dourlet, the firm’s marketing VP. “It’s in a position to change the cost dynamics of running a job, especially when you add in all the costs associated with prepress, screen manufacturing, removing and reclamation. Users can run hundreds of a job unit for the same cost dynamics of running one unit. Jobs can be easily customized or regionalized, and you can do real-time collation when batch printing.” 

The eight-color DS, with a maximum resolution of 1,200 dpi, delivers up to 6,000 sq.ft./hour of usable graphics, its speed the result of a continuous array of fixed print heads spanning the entire width of a bed that moves back and forth. The zoned vacuum table, controlled by the user, can handle rigid substrates up to 1.6x2.4m and 50mm thick.

Solving solvent 

Looking to move permanent outdoor display printing into greener pastures, HP introduced its Latex Inks, which are 70% aqueous-based, and will run (so far) on the new 6-color, roll-to-roll HP DesignJet L65550. The system is targeted for commercial release in early 2009. 

Outdoor prints produced with HP Latex Inks achieve display permanence up to 3 years non-laminated and up to 5 years laminated and are scratch, smudge and water resistant on a range of media, reports HP’s.Kuly. 

New HP media surface-treatment technology lets the latex inks produce a wide color gamut for durability and sharp, vivid image quality on traditional media as well as materials that don’t typically print well with solvent inks, such as woven high density polyethylene (HDPE) and Tyvek.
The new Océ ColorWave 600 42” roll printer, running at 1,575 sq. ft./hour, uses Océ’s CrystalPoint technology, a new printing technology that combines toner and inkjet printing. Océ’s CrystalPoint converts CMYK color Océ TonerPearls toner into a gel, which is then jetted and crystallized onto any type of paper, producing high quality, waterfast images with extremely accurate dot placement (1,200 dpi addressable raster resolution). 

“The Océ ColorWave 600 is the first of a new generation of Océ color printers,” says Karen Fitt, VP, advertising and public relations. “Océ would not have invested so heavily in terms of time, money and human resources if we did not believe there was a tremendous potential for this groundbreaking technology. It is anticipated that this new technology will enable Océ to provide leading color printing systems to the wide format market for 15 to 20 years.” 

Océ is also showing its 54´´ wide 4-color Océ CS9050 eco-solvent printer. It delivers high quality output at print speeds up to 151 sq.ft. /hour in multiple print modes, ranging from 540×720 dpi to 1440×1440 dpi. VariaDot imaging technology and WAVE Stitching print modes provide ink economy and superior print quality, says Fitt.