By Cassandra Balentine
The benefits of wide format inkjet are well known to anyone in the print industry. Trends and advancements in roll-fed, flatbed, and hybrid options continue to expand opportunities.
“Key trends revolve around enhancing printing speed, achieving great color consistency, and increasing the durability of the final product. Printers have had to overcome obstacles related to printing speeds, consistency of color output from one job to another, or the necessity of having to take the additional step of lamination,” comments Patrick Donigain, senior manager, marketing, Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Implementing the latest technology helps users overcome these obstacles, which can be an essential part of maintaining competitiveness. “Swift turnaround times, delivering consistent color quality with each print, and reducing costs by minimizing the reliance on lamination can be crucial in meeting customer demands and expectations,” adds Donigain.
Today’s wide format inkjet devices strive to hit these points and more.
In the November/December issue of DPS Magazine, we cover the latest trends in wide format, overall and specific to roll-fed, flatbed, and hybrid options. Here is a quick product round up of options in the 24- to 64- inch market.
Canon
The Colorado M-series printer is a roll-to-roll printer that can help users say ‘yes’ to more jobs, create stunning applications, and reduce turnaround times. Features Include the power of UVgel Technology, which Donigain says produces robust, fade, and scratch-resistant prints with excellent print quality. It is also designed to offer “white ink without worry,” as UVgel white ink is an optional add on designed to reduce the hassles usually associated with white ink.
Further, the M-series’ FLXfinish+ offers print matte, gloss, or mixed matte and gloss in one print, without varnish or an additional printhead.
The device handles an extended media range, including textured, transparent, colored, reflective, magnetic, and heat-sensitive media.
It also features a modular design, which allows users to configure a Colorado M-series printer to current business needs and easily upgrade features, speed, and inline finishing as business grows.
The Colorado M-series offers a maximum print speeds of up to 1,700 square feet per hour (sf/h) and high-quality speeds of 430 sf/h.
Epson
The Epson SureColor P8570D is a 44-inch roll printer designed to easily integrate into workflows and produce stunning prints at true production speed if up to 1,657 sf/h. It leverages six-color UltraChrome PRO6 Ink (CMY,MK,PK,G) to produce vivid, beautiful output that rivals eight-color printers. Featuring an innovative Adobe Embedded Print Engine with four on-board Intel Atom CPUs, it quickly processes complicated PDF data and accurately reproduces transparent design layers at speeds up to three times faster than previous generations.
The Epson SureColor R5070 64-inch roll-to-roll signage printer is the first to include multi-purpose Resin ink technology. Leveraging a PrecisionCore printhead coupled with Epson UltraChrome RS ink, the SureColor R5070 provides high-quality scratch resistant output, ready for immediately lamination that offers consistent color job-to-job and panel-to-panel ideal for repeat jobs, wall tiling applications, large banners, wall displays and more. Designed to keep up with fast-paced print shops it offers user-replaceable printheads and ultra-low-cost ink for a low total cost of ownership.
Designed to meet production needs, this printer integrates automatic dual roll capability that seamlessly switches between two medias, and easy front panel feeding and operation it delivers next-level productivity for high-volume print shops.
The Epson SureColor V7000 UV flatbed printer delivers outstanding image quality, productivity and convenient in an ultra-productive design. Featuring ten-color UltraChrome UV ink, including Red Ink, opaque White Ink, and varnish, it delivers bright, colorful, tactile prints with low graininess and smooth gradation. It’s capable of printing on a variety of media, including rigid substrates, ideal for rigid signage and promotional goods. Designed with ease-of-use in mind, it includes a variety of unique features including a multi-zone vacuum system to keep materials securely in place and automatic thickness adjustment to instantly accommodate media up to three-inches thick.
Konica Minolta
Konica Minolta’s new AccurioWide 250 hybrid wide format inkjet printing system is now the fastest and widest print width model of the AccurioWide family. Featuring Konica Minolta’s inkjet printhead technology, the AccurioWide 250 introduces faster printing modes at up to 1,238 sf/h. The wider, 2.5-meter print width allows users to print 4×8-foot boards in landscape orientation across the press, resulting in the ability to produce boards faster. Customers can also save working space when running 4×8-foot board production by switching from long print tables to short print tables, which eliminates up to 12 feet in printer depth—a total of 96 square feet of floor space.
UV LED inks dry instantly, increasing productivity and return on investment through time saved, allowing users to stack, cut, or ship immediately. Other benefits include high-image quality of up to 1,440 dpi, low-ink consumption per square foot, Konica Minolta 1024i printhead technology, and powerful Asanti version 5 workflow software.
All AccurioWide printers have Konica Minolta IJ printheads (1024i) which produce superior image quality. The Konica Minolta white ink is an opaque ink offering high opacity in one pass. It also has “Thin Ink Layer” technology, which is designed to reduce ink coverage by approximately 30 percent without forsaking color density.
Mimaki
Mimaki USA recently announced the UJV100-160Plus UV-LED roll-based, power-efficient printer. This entry-level model offers improvements over the UJV100-160 model that reduces running costs, features application expansion capabilities, and improves operational efficiency.
Mutoh
The MUTOH XpertJet 1462UF UV-LED flatbed printer with a moving gantry features a large 55×27-inch printable surface area, two four-inch UV-LED lamps, two piezoelectric drop on demand dual printheads in a staggered configuration, and prints on objects up to 5.9 inches thick. Running CMYK in one printhead and White and Varnish in the second printhead. It reaches print speeds of up to 41.8 sf/h.
The device legally prints ADA-compliant braille and 2.5D layered prints to create finely textured art to add value to any print job.
Roland DG
Among its range of wide format products, Roland DG offers the VersaUV LEF2-300 and LEF2-300D
The benchtop flatbed UV devices print directly onto PVC, wood, metal, ceramic, leather, and many more items to personalize and customize a vast array of substrates and three-dimensional objects.
Going Wide
From ADA-braille and banners to vehicle wraps and everything in between, there is a wide format solution out there to fit your needs.
DPS Magazine, Jan2024
