Annotated List Of Eco-Solvent, Mild-Solvent, Lite-Solvent Wide Format Printers

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1 FLAAR Reports Nicholas M. Hellmuth August 2005 Annotated List Of Eco-Solvent, Mild-Solvent, Lite-Solvent Wide Format Printers

FLAAR Reports CONTENTS Eco Introduction Agfa Grand Sherpa Universal AM Kimoto Philyrasystem Mutoh Phoenix Mutoh Spitfire 100 Mild-Solvent Printer Older Mutoh Eco-Solvent Printers Roland VersaCAMM

2 FLAAR Reports CONTENTS Eco Introduction Agfa Grand Sherpa Universal AM Kimoto Philyrasystem Mutoh Phoenix Mutoh Spitfire 100 Mild-Solvent Printer Older Mutoh Eco-Solvent Printers Roland VersaCAMM Roland SolJet Pro II V SignWarehouse Caption for cover page: Kimoto Philyrasystem eco-solvent printer. Licensing Information If you wish to distribute this report to other people within your company, please obtain a site licensing agreement for multiple copies from FLAAR by contacting Sheila Irving, sirving@bgnet.bgsu.edu. Substantial discounts are available for licensing to distribute within your company. The advantage of a license is that you can opt for automatic updates. You may have noticed that FLAAR reports tend to be updated as additional information becomes available. In some instances a license would be available to distribute outside your company, including in other languages. To distribute this report without license violates federal copyright law. To avoid such violations for you, and your company, you can easily obtain additional copies from

3 FLAAR Reports 1 Introduction This annotated list is new and features printers presented for the first time, at FESPA 2005 trade show. Others in this inventory are standards that have been around for longer, but the primary scope of this particular FLAAR Fast Facts are the newer generation of eco-solvent printers. These Fast Facts are an update to our earlier descriptive list of eco-solvent printers published last year. Agfa Grand Sherpa Universal AM The Agfa Grand Sherpa Universal AM appears to be a re-badged version of the Mutoh Spitfire 65 and Spitfire 90. These printers are new for The Agfa press releases specifically state that they are using Agfa s new line of mild solvent inks. The Agfa website does not provide much information, nor did the brochures available at FESPA. Print heads colors Ink capacity dpi Dpi at more AM 65 AM in m 90 in m Epson 2 x 4 or 6 Only 220 ml Epson heads are Epson 2 x 4 or 6 Only 220 ml slow Agfa Grand Sherpa Universal AM 90 eco-solvent printer.

FLAAR Reports 2 Kimoto Philyrasystem printheads colors dpi Dpi at more

615 m Epson 4 or 6 360 1440 heads are slow RFS-1600 1.

printers. I saw these only at FESPA 2005, not yet in the US.

Prints from the Nicholas Hellmuth holding up prints from the

4 FLAAR Reports 2 Kimoto Philyrasystem printheads colors dpi Dpi at more GBS m Epson 4 or Epson GBS m Epson 4 or heads are slow RFS Epson 4 or The Komoto machines are retrofitted Roland printers. I saw these only at FESPA 2005, not yet in the US. Kimoto Philyrasystem eco-solvent printer. Kimoto Philyrasystem eco-solvent printer. Prints from the Kimoto Philyrasystem eco-solvent printer. Nicholas Hellmuth holding up prints from the Kimoto Philyrasystem eco-solvent printer. Kimoto Philyrasystem eco-solvent printer.

5 FLAAR Reports 3 Mutoh Phoenix The Mutoh Phoenix was introduced in Europe at FESPA 2005 (June). There are two brochures: the one handed out at FESPA and a slightly different brochure on the Mutoh Europe website. The latter speaks clearly of only two models: Phoenix E, for eco-solvent ink, and Phoenix MS, for mild-solvent ink. The original brochure hinted at UV ink, including rigid, and listed solvent instead of mild-solvent. There is no mention of a UV version on the Mutoh Europe website. None of this is on the Mutoh USA website. Although I have lived in Japan, I can t read the Japanese text. But don t for a second misconstrue this to mean you can use UV ink. No, you need UV-lights to use UV ink. What the Mutoh brochure is trying to say is that the basic chassis is designed to be adaptable to a UV technology in the future. But you can t switch back and forth between UV and anything else. For eco- and mild-solvent, if you drain the system and don t mind the expense of all that wasted ink, conceivably you can switch from eco-solvent to mild-solvent? Mutoh Phoenix With ecosolvent ink With mild solvent Print heads 3.3 m 3.3 m 8, brand not listed colors So far I have not found where they list what colors are offered Ink capacity dpi Dpi at more bulk Unclear whether a concept car or an actual product. 3.3 m 3.3 m 8 bulk This is not a cheap jerry-rigged printer. The Phoenix is designed from the ground up to accept eco-solvent and mild-solvent inks. It has plenty of heating and drying units: Pre-heating Fixing Post-heating Drying made up of IR heading and a bank of fans. The printheads are not listed, but the fact that the printer uses the somewhat limited (and wasteful) 220 ml cartridges, we can use common sense and estimate that the printheads are from Epson. This gives it variable droplet quality, but at a price in slowness. Epson Europe sets a record for honesty for stating clearly that output at maximum speed is unusable. They phrase it Mutoh Phoenix eco-solvent printer. differently, not guarantee production output quality. Most people call it junk mode. But set at slower modes, the output should be beautiful. But we will have to evaluate in a demo center of site-visit case study before we can issue any recommendations whatsoever.

6 FLAAR Reports 4 Mutoh is also honest in listing eco-coated and coated media. They don t go as far as to say it is required, and they also feature uncoated media, but by now most print shop owners are aware that early generations of eco-solvent ink was bait-and-switch: these inks of circa required coated media and did not work well with uncoated s. Mutoh Spitfire 100 Mild-Solvent Printer Mutoh Spitfire 100 Mild-Solvent Printer, media inches wide. This printer was unveiled (for Europe) first at FESPA It is a large-sized printer, in part due to the unwieldy Epsoncartridge ink system. Any printer manufacturer that wants to use Epson printheads has to agree to use inks bought from Epson (Epson itself buys the ink in bulk elsewhere; Epson does not make ink, but Epson eagerly sells ink). Downside is that this printer accepts only cartridges 220 ml in size, not the 440 ml versions. Spitfire 65 Spitfire 90 Spitfire in m in in m in m in in printheads colors dpi Dpi at more Epson 2 x 4 or Epson heads are Epson 2 x 4 or slow Epson 2 x 4 or I rate the Mutoh Europe spec sheet as deserving honorable mention for specifically recognizing two facts of life: one, that you can t laminate s right after they have been printed. The has to sit and dry first. And second, for heavy-duty applications where mechanical stress is involved (floor and vehicle graphics), lamination is required. Mutoh advertises this printer as having all parts being solvent resistant. This reminds us that early versions of most printers with Epson printheads were not solvent resistant. It has taken about three years for the manufacturers to replace earlier faulty parts. Mutoh lists the new parts as: Ink supply tubing Head caps Pumps Etc (everything that is included here is not listed). This means that it would not be recommendable to depend on an earlygeneration solvent (or eco-solvent) printer Mutoh Spitfire 100 mild-solvent printer. of that uses Epson heads. The presence of Epson heads is usually an indication that the machine is not a heavy-duty printer of the class that uses Spectra heads: Vutek, Gandinnovations, etc.

FLAAR Reports 5 Older Mutoh Eco-Solvent Printers The Rockhopper name is used only in Europe and other countries; but not in the USA. The original version was introduced back in February 2002.

7 FLAAR Reports 5 Older Mutoh Eco-Solvent Printers The Rockhopper name is used only in Europe and other countries; but not in the USA. The original version was introduced back in February The Rockhopper II was introduced in March Eco-solvent Plus ink came out about September 2003, after a debacle due to the poor adhesion quality of the original ink: the first generation ink required expensive coated media too. Rockhopper 62 in 1.57 m Rockhopper Rockhopper 38 Rockhopper II Rockhopper II Rockhopper II 43 in¹ 1.18 m in 95.4 cm in m in m 87 in³ m cm printheads colors dpi Dpi at more Epson Epson heads are Epson slow Epson m² Epson 6 or 2 x m Epson 6 or 2 x m Epson 6 or 2 x Mutoh Rockhopper is the original water-based printer retrofitted to try to accept eco-solvent inks. Rockhopper II is the second generation that tried to overcome problems of the first generation. The model II comes in three model widths, 50, 64 or 87 Rockhopper 38 is a small version to compete with Roland. Rockhopper is the name in Europe. Print width is on media width of So despite its name, this is not a 38-inch printer or even a 37-inch printer. It is a 36-inch printer+. It is worthwhile noting that the printheads must be warrantied for use with eco-solvent inks. If there is no printhead warranty, you are stuck paying $2,000 every time a head fails. This is partially because Epson printheads were not originally designed for any kind of solvent ink. The present warranty is 12 months. Rockhopper II eco-solvent printer. ¹I have seen two sets of specs: one for 43 the other for 46. I have also seen the model designated as Rockhopper 48. ²These are the figures given for width in the European Operation Instructions. ³For almost every Mutoh model there are different measurements for the media. I do not know if one set of measurements is for the printers made in Belgium and the other for printers made in Asia. But the Operation Instructions give the measurement for the Rockhopper II as in, meters.

FLAAR Reports 6 Roland VersaCAMM Roland VersaCAMM SP-300V Print heads colors Ink capacity dpi Dpi at more Price 30 in 29 in Epson 4 220 ml 360 1440 $14,995 SP-540V 54 in 53 in Epson 4 220 ml 360 1440

Roland SolJet Pro II V These Roland printers had already been shown at trade shows in the US.

8 FLAAR Reports 6 Roland VersaCAMM Roland VersaCAMM SP-300V Print heads colors Ink capacity dpi Dpi at more Price 30 in 29 in Epson ml $14,995 SP-540V 54 in 53 in Epson ml $19,995 Be forewarned that lamination may be required. This involves buying a laminator. In other words, eco-solvent ink is not as robust as true solvent ink. Roland SolJet Pro II V These Roland printers had already been shown at trade shows in the US. Other than switching from the well known and respected Wasatch SoftRIP to a completely unknown Japanese RIP, it is hard to see what the V series offers that was not already present on Roland printers last year. Most professional production printers need a minimum of three heaters: pre, platen, post. The Roland has two. SJ-1045IS SJ-745EX SJ-645EX SC-545EX 104 in m 74 in m 64 in m 54 in m Print heads colors Ink capacity dpi Dpi at more Epson 4 or ml Epson heads are Epson ml slow Epson ml Epson ml Rolad SolJet 1045EX eco-solvent printer. Roland booth at the FESPA 2005 trade show.

9 FLAAR Reports 7 SignWarehouse SignWarehouse rebrands Mutoh printers, so the stats are identical to Mutoh. Note: Because Epson Inc requires that any printer using Epson printheads that the ink must also come through Epson (even though it has a Mutoh, Roland, or Mimaki label, they buy it from Epson; Epson in turn buys it from an ink company). Epson sells ink only in 110 or 220 ml containers. That further increases the cost of the ink. Ink costs are compared in price per liter. Inks for the Mimaki JV3 may now be available in 400 ml containers, but this is nowhere near the options with ColorSpan, Seiko, and comparable solvent ink printers (that use industrial-strength printheads and hence are not stuck with having to limit themselves to Epson requirements to use a mini- Epson cartridge. Bulk ink is not only less costly it is more convenient. CLICK HERE TO ACQUIRE FLAAR REPORTS Digitizing Scanning Color Managing RIPing Printing Laminating & Trimming Please realize that all reports are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. The reader software is free from PDF fi les are intended to be read on your computer monitor. Naturally you can print them if you wish, but if the photographic images within the reports were high enough dpi for a 1200 dpi laser printer it would not be possible to download them. So the images are intended to be at monitor resolution, naturally in full color. FLAAR itself makes the fi les available only in PDF format because that is the international standard. We have no mechanism to print them out and mail them. Obviously if you have downloading problems we will try to help, but please realize that we assume you have a 56K modem (or better) and capabilities to handle a basic PDF fi le. Proprietary rights notice Copyright FLAAR Network 2004, First published July Most recently updated July Previously updated September 2004, January 2005, March 2005

10 Acquire these reports at: Top of The Line Production Machines True, Dedicated Flatbeds Serious Production Machines Miscellaneous UV Evaluations

Reports. Nicholas M. Hellmuth December UV-Cured Flatbed Inkjet Printers Displayed at Viscom Düsseldorf

Reports. Nicholas M. Hellmuth December UV-Cured Flatbed Inkjet Printers Displayed at Viscom Düsseldorf Nicholas M. Hellmuth December 005 UV-Cured Flatbed Inkjet Printers Displayed at Viscom Düsseldorf CONTENTS Introduction UV Cured Inkjet Printers ColorSpan Dilli and D.G.I. Eastech Gandinnovations GCC NEOLT