Inkjet Is Living Large (Format)

After a full year in production, Paul Moebius is pretty jacked about what he’s seeing from the Truepress Jet 2500UV. With a 98.4-inch maximum print width, the grand-format inkjet printer from Screen USA was installed in 2011 at Digital One Color, the firm that Moebius founded. The versatile San Diego print shop uses the Truepress primarily for retail display graphics—“it’s our ‘bread and butter,’” said the president—for some big-name customers, including Sony, for whom Digital One is a preferred vendor.

“We’re running backlit acrylic with the white ink [option],” he shared. “We recently produced 6,700 prints for the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. They were printed on Sintra (PVC plastic) and cut on the Zund,” one of three flatbed cutters on the production floor. (It added a Colex Sharpcut in July.)

Outputting at speeds up to 230-square-feet per minute, the Truepress 2500 “is not the fastest,” but its quality is nearly impeccable, said Moebius. It employs UV-curable inks, making it possible to print on a variety of substrates with consistent color and quality, said the manufacturer. Moebius reported screening direct to Dibond, a rigid aluminum composite, at 1,500 dpi, describing the end product as looking unbelievably accurate, featuring “fine lines and really small drops.” The press’s multi-level grayscale printhead enables smooth gradations, while a powerful linear motor drives the head for precise dot placement. “On that Sintra job [for Sony], there was 4-pt. type and no banding,” he added.

Digtal One Color also uses the Screen device to print outdoor signage, wall wraps, and perforated vinyl. “We used to have to eco-solvent print onto vinyl,” Moebius said. It is a hybrid machine that “does a good job roll-to-roll, too,” he noted. Moebius likes the Truepress so much, in fact, that he’s thinking about installing a second unit before the end of this year. “It’s great,” Moebius concluded. “It’s a workhorse.”

In the U.K., large-format POS (point-of-sale) specialist Best Digital also added a Truepress Jet 2500UV this June, along with the world’s first Truepress Jet W1632UV, which is speedier; printing up to 308 square feet per hour. Both flatbed inkjet printers were ordered at drupa. (Link: www.myprintresource.com/press_release/10730515/)

MyPRINTResource (MPR) has previously reported on Memjet printhead technology being used in the Xanté 42-inch-wideExcelagraphix 4200, which prints on a range of media up to 3/8 inch thick, including foam board, folding carton, corrugated cardboard, and sheet sizes from 8.27x8.27 inches up to 3.5x100 feet. (www.myprintresource.com/article/10682515/inkjet-web-innovations?page=4)

What’s New?

As wide-format digital print technology continues to change, improvements come in the form of faster run speeds and better output quality. MPR spoke with some early inkjet and UV adopters as well as device manufacturers about new products hitting the market—and what other new innovations we can expect to see during the upcoming fall tradeshow season.

This past spring, PE Plus Imaging, Toronto, became the first North American firm to acquire the Rho P10 Series printer from Durst Image Technology. (video: http://ht.ly/a4Rib) At Sign Expo 2012, Durst showed a fully operational Rho P10 250 Presto, which prints up to 2,100 sqft/hr. The P10 250 flatbed is one of the most versatile and productive 10-picoliter UV inkjet printers, featuring Durst’s new Quadro Array 10 print heads, which use silicon-based MEMS technology to produce “fine art” image quality with up to 1,000-dpi print resolution. The 250 is a member of Durst’s new Rho P10 Series of printers, designed specifically for producing a variety of hand-held and eye-level materials—backlit signage, POP and commercial displays, small packages, etc. —cost-effectively and at production speeds.