IDecember 2016

UV-Curing Printers

at SGI 2016, In preparation for

SGI 2017 Nicholas Hellmuth

II

*All items on this list are hot links

CONTENTSAGFA 2Brotherjet 3efi VUTEk 4Flora (RTZ) 6Fortune7 7Fujifilm 7HP 8Mimaki 9JETRIX 9MUTOH 11OCE 11QRES Technologies 12Roland 13SCREEN 13Who was totally absent for UV-cured 14TRENDs 15MEMJET vs HP PageWide 16General Comments on Products at SGI Dubai 18

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INTRODUCTION

For 2016 we are initiating additional ways of bringing together information on printers. New for 2016 will be a separate FLAAR Report on all desktop flatbed sized UV-cured printers exhibited in Asia, Europe, or USA. So we include in this Dubai report all desktop UV-cured printers, but their separate report will be separate (probably this summer, and will cover 2015-2016).

The Middle East is an important area because of the Dubai World Expo 2020. This event, and the years leading up to it, will create lots of market for signage. By coincidence the master plan which won the World Expo venue for Dubai was done by HOK Architects (Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Architects) which also did the Abu Dhabi airport and the Riyadh airport (several decades ago).

SGI Dubai 2016, convention centre entrance

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UV Printers at Sign Middle East (SGI 2016) Dubai

AGFA

:JETI Mira MG2732, flatbed, narrow axis (rare to have gantry across narrow axis outside China), Roll-to-Roll across front (probably why flatbed is oriented to narrow axis).

www.agfa.com

:Anapurna M3200 iRTR, a nice printer made by Dilli in Korea.

AGFA :Jeti Mira MG 2732

AGFA :Anapurna M3200 iRTR

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Brotherjet

Two printers were exhibited: A3 and A4. None had model designations visible. No info on printhead in the brochure for these models, but a similar model was advertised with DX5 heads, so I assume that is the model printhead in these A3 and A4 printers.

Brotherjet is unlikely any relationship whatsoever to Brother printhead company and Brother T-shirt printer company of Japan.

Ashbi General Trading FZE. The word was spelled phonetically on the booth, Treading, Ashbi General Treading FZE. Since spelling of English words is not phonetic, often you get such spelling in world areas of other languages.

www.brotherjetUK.comwww.brotherjet.com

Brotherjet A3, Ashbi General Trading booth

Brotherjet A4, Ashbi General Trading booth

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efi VUTEk

Rastek H650 LED, combo transport beltHS100

Efi has a good distributor for the Middle East area: saga digital. Very experienced team.

www.efi.com

efi Vutek 1625H LED at Saga Digital booth

efi Vutek HS100 at Saga Digital booth

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An old, used, efi Rastek H650 in booth of www.DG-Parts.com

efi Vutek HS100 at Saga Digital booth

efi Vutek H65 at Saga Digital booth

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Flora (RTZ)

PP 2512UV, flatbed, no roll-to-roll, in booth of FLEX-EUROPA

RTZ, Shenzhen Runtianzhi Digital Equipment Co., Ltd.

www.FloraDigital.com.cn

Flora PP 2512

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Fortune7

YF2000UV, roll-to-rollYF1700UV

Fortune7 is primarily an ink distributor. They claim to “be the first printer manufacturer in the UAE.” More likely this means they are assembling Chinese components in Dubai.

Fortune7 Advertising Solutions LLC.Main office is in Dubai; also has office in Riyadh.http://fortune7adv.com

Fujifilm

Acuity LED 1600, in booth of SME

Note that this is the old version of this printer. At SGIA 2015 the “II” upgrade was exhibited.

In the beginning, Fujifilm attempted to sell this as a “flatbed.” FLAAR Reports was the only place in the world that dared point out that a roll-to-roll printer with pinch rollers over grit rollers is not adequate enough to honestly advertise and sell it as a flatbed. Their sales reps were very upset, but finally that sales rep was no longer working there, and even Fujifilm stopped adding “pretend” roller tables at front and back.

Surely they try to sell the roller tables back at the distributor, but they don’t want to emphasize these at a trade show any more.

www.fujifilm.com

Fortune7 YF1700UV

Fujifilm Acuity LED 1600, SME booth

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HP

HP Scitex FB750, in HP booth

HP dropped out of the grand-format UV-printer world after abandoning the remarkable technology of NUR and previously of Scitex Digital. Many of the previous customers of NUR and Scitex Digital became customers of efi or Durst.

There is no way that selling even 30,000 latex printers has replaced the income lost by semi-abandoning the UV-cured world. And an HP flatbed latex printer will not change that situation either.

To anyone who has knowledge of what is going on around the world knows that HP has been experimenting with a pseudo-flatbed (sadly, evidently not a real flatbed). This is being beta-tested in Europe and will probably be delayed to launch at DRUPA 2016 (assuming it was not available at FESPA 2016).

If not available at FESPA 2016, it will unlikely be shown at ISA 2016 (though this was estimated by several sources already last year).

But if it has no moving conveyor belt, if it tries to push and pull media with grit-rollers on pinch-rollers then it will not pass any realistic evaluation. But, to be fair, we will see what shows up in the future. But HP has lost out, big time, by missing the textile surge totally (other than pretending their latex can print fabrics…). And HP has abandoned the continued UV market share: almost 100 brands worldwide (but HP only has an aging left-over minor update).

www.hp.com

HP Scitex FB750

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JETRIX

JETRIX KX6D, 14 heads (4 white, 2 primer), KM1024, in booth of Graphic International Centre.

JETRIX has been absent from several trade shows recently, most noticeably SGIA 2015. So it was nice to see them at SGI 2016 in Dubai.

www.jetrix.co.kr

Mimaki

JFX200-2513, dedicated flatbed, no roll-to-roll, wide axis, Ricoh Gen5UJF-7151, mid-sized desktop, Toshiba Tec, with clear and whiteUJF-3042UJF-3042HGUJF-6042

SIJ-320UV, roll-to-roll

As has been the trend for the past five years, Mimaki tends to have a much larger booth than Mutoh. Mimaki always exhibits a much more diverse range of size, shape, and kinds of printers than either Mimaki or Mutoh.

http://eng.mimaki.co.jp

Jetrix KX6D

Mimaki UJF-7151 Plus, Signtrade booth

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Mimaki UJF-3042, Signtrade booth

Mimaki UJF-6042, Signtrade booth Mimaki UJF-3042 HG, Signtrade booth

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MUTOH

ValueJet 426UF, desktop UV, booth of SMEValueJet 426UF, desktop UV, booth of Graphic International Centre

Roland had such a desktop years before Mutoh. Rodin had one in China years before that. Iconic that Japanese are copying Chinese concepts (though of course Mimaki had among the first).

www.mutoh.co.jp

OCE

Oce Arizona 460GT, with Roll-to-Roll across the front, Canon booth. This year the “Oce distributor” of the Middle East had no Oce printer; only rebranded Chinese printers, including textile printer (which was featured in our SGI general introduction, and will also be in our full textile printer TRENDs report).

The team of the Oce distributor, Heliozid Oce Emirates LLC, was still fully interacting with the Canon Oce team of the Canon Oce booth. So the Heliozid Oce people alternated between their own booth and the Canon Oce booth.

www.oce.com www.heliozid.com

Mimaki UJF-3042 HG, Signtrade booth

OCE Canon Arizona 460 GT

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QRES Technologies

F160 UV, dedicated flatbed, print height up to 30 cm.

Was presented at a Warsaw, Poland expo in 2015, and in Denmark the same year. QRES says they are two years old. Uses Sun Chemical ink.

Their web site states: “Based on the foundations of a company who was one of the pioneers of UV inkjet print technologies and installed many large format UV Inkjet systems, a team consisting of new and former employees started a new firm producing top-notch inkjet solutions.” FLAAR “translation:” “We have experience building Grapo and then SigmaJet printers; now we have a new company, QRES.”

You know that QRES is a rebirth of Grapo and SigmaJet when you see them offering upgrades for the Grapo Manta and Grapo Octopus. Curiously I do not see the Shark as being upgradable?

The Shark could not compete with Durst, plus Grapo tried to use Xaar printheads. So the Shark sunk the company; too bad, since the Grapo was a popular printer. And competition helps everyone in the industry.

But until Qres dares to exhibit at FESPA and more exhibits, their traction will not be much.

Dreamway Trading LLC is the local distributor for the Qres printer.

www.qresTech.com

F160 UV in Dream Way Trading booth

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Roland

VersaUV LEF-20, desktop

Typical Roland-style lack of significant UV-cured printer presence; not a single wide-format UV-cured machine; neither jerry-rigged hybrid nor the dedicated flatbed.

Mimaki is light-years ahead.

www.rolanddga.com

SCREEN

W3200UV HS, dedicated flatbedHP Latex 330, also at Jacky’s.

Screen suffers from being consistently inconsistent: sometimes exhibiting, other times not. Considering that Screen in Japan owns Inca Digital factory, it is unfortunate they can’t sell better around the world.

Inca printers are sold by Fujifilm; but Screen printers are not: Fujifilm sold Matan first, and now from Mike Mills and his team in New Hampshire.

www.screenusa.comwww.screeneurope.com

Roland Versa UV LEF-20

W3200UV HS

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TRENDs, who was totally absent for UV-cured

Anderson Group (corporate name), DPC (brand name) was not noticed in the large booth of their Middle East distributor. This is the first time a DPC printer was missing. If no DPC shows up elsewhere in the world, and fails to show up at SGI 2017, this suggests they can’t compete with cheaper Chinese printers nor with better Japanese or European-made flatbeds (nor even compete with Oce of Canada).

Fujifilm was not fully present, since their distributor showed only an old entry-level printer.

Teckwin, as usual, was missing.

Human Digital had no printers present that we recognized, other than one solvent printer that they make for Mimaki (so branded as Mimaki).

Xenons had two solvent printers but this year I did not notice any UV-cured printer in their distributor booth (MONO General Trading).

Gandy Digital was totally absent, yet 10 years ago the Middle East was one of their bastions (for the pre-meltdown iteration, Gandinnovations). The team that grew Gandinnovations in those years all left, formed Saga Digital, and are successful with efi VUTEk printers.

Gandy Digital had a weak showing at SGIA 2015 (no booth of their own), and zilch at ISA 2015. Yet for FESPA 2016 their PR claims the following:

Set to make its global debut at FESPA Digital 2016 (8-11 March at Rai Amsterdam), Gandy Digital’s new Fascin8tor 5m roll-to-roll printer delivers large format prints with very low ink consumption - without compromising print quality and regardless of speed. This allows customers to increase productivity, extend their application portfolio and maximise job profitability. (sic, spelling should be maximize).

The Fascin8tor is the latest addition to Gandy Digital’s growing portfolio of high-quality, high-speed large format printers at FESPA Digital 2016.

In addition to offering higher quality regardless of speed, the Fascin8tor also features a lower cost per square metre, thanks to its reduced ink consumption. The Fascin8tor uses Gandy Digital’s advanced Blade technology combined with eight Ricoh Gen4 print heads per colour to produce optimum print resolution. The printer uses fixed dot printing to ensure cost-effective, yet very high print quality in all printing modes and speeds.

According to the Canadian manufacturer, “printing with small fixed, high density ink dots results in cost savings for users due to lower ink consumption per square metre.”

Building on the success of Gandy’s other flagship printers, the Fascin8tor can print directly onto mesh without a liner for applications including outdoor billboards.

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TRENDs

Ten years ago, the flatbeds of Gandinnovations were their best models. Their R-t-R UV-cured were not their main strength. The Gandinnovations roll-to-roll always seemed to come after their nice flatbeds. Agfa dropped all the Gandy roll-to-roll UV-cured and roll-to-roll solvent printers very quickly.

Their Gandinnovations textile printer was outstanding in the demo room, but did not do as well out in the real world, and eventually even Agfa realized this and dropped it.

For a 5 meter to compete against efi, efi Matan, and Durst will be a challenge, since there are not enough Gandy Digital distributors any more. But at least there is no more Scitex or HP Scitex with any 5-meter NUR uv-cured printers. And Matan is no longer displayed in any Fujifilm booth. So in effect Gandy Digital has two fewer competitors in 2016.

But this printer will have to be awesome (in engineering), significantly less price, and have ink of even lower price, to even gain a foothold. The lack of LED curing or pinning will also allow efi VUTEk to offer benefits (since LED was not mentioned in the PR release, I assume it is not present).

It is unfortunate that Gandy no longer has the distributors world-wide, and no longer has the frankly remarkable presence of 2005-2008 of Gandinnovations.

General view at SGI 2016 entrance

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MEMJET vs HP PageWide

As is already widely known, Memjet has sued HP for patent infringement. There have been umpteen discussions of this on the Internet. We are neutral, keeping in mind that a patent farm is not something most people in the industry have much respect for.

But not one outside discussion of Memjet downslide has mentioned the fact that one Memjet printer manufacturer, Gongzheng, is no longer actively showing their printers at trade shows.

Gongzheng said that they are not featuring their Memjet printers any more because the HP has too

many advantages. Instead they are developing a comparable printer with Dimatix heads, but not Samba.

They still have lots old Gongzheng Memjet printers left in stock, so they are available in theory. But the consensus is that with HP PageWide available with HP worldwide service, and especially with pigmented ink, that Memjet with dye ink only will not go forward very fast at all.

I have tested both Memjet and HP PageWide. Neither is perfect (since ink clogs in any kind of printing system). But HP was able to handle files larger than Memjet. This does depend on the kind of file, and depends even more on the RIP, with Caldera being estimated to be the best. But a Memjet with Caldera could not handle our files at Sign Istanbul, whereas HP did quite well with the same files (though it processed them differently).

If HP can provide a manner of detecting clogged nozzles and replace them on the fly, and if HP can provide coated stock or at least material better than low-bid bond paper, I estimate that HP will win.

If Konica Minolta, Fujifilm Dimatix (Spectra) or Ricoh can develop MEMS heads that actually function, then MEMJET will fade into only an embarrassing memory: having set the world record for stupid, PR releases year after year (and set the record for being a patent farm).

In the meantime, any printer manufacturer seeking to enter MEMS printhead technology, try to remember what happened to JETRIX.

HP MEMS

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JETRIX lost probably 12 to 18 months of production because they made the mistake of believing repeated PR releases and printhead manufacturer claims of the benefits of MEMS (the technology of that era, several years ago). In other words, JETRIX lost MILLIONS of dollars.

These were not Memjet version of MEMS; these were MEMS technology from a frankly more sophisticated printhead manufacturer. Nonetheless, it was a disaster for one printer brand after another.

For example, Raster Printers was hit hard by the MEMs printhead errors, but like JETRIX was able to recover.

KEUNDO was hit hard also; they were building the new textile printer for Yuhan-Kimberly (the textile ink division, in Korea, of Kimberly-Clark). Yuhan-Kimberly closed down virtually the entire textile ink division as a result of the inability of KEUNDO to get a functional printer up and running with MEMS printhead technology (outside the demo room).

Leggett & Platt Digital Technologies effectively went out of business as a result of betting on MEMS printhead technology. L&P did okay (before they tried to use MEMS) from their launch

in 2001 through 2006, but due to leadership personality and MEMS disaster they sold their barely functional remnants to a Swiss company, WIFAG (who with Swiss finesse caused the entire printing segment to fail utterly, another example of, if leadership personality, and decisions, are nonsensical, a company will fail, as it did). Sad, because L&P printers had technology that not even Durst had.

Summary: exaggerated dreams, wishful thinking, and ridiculous PR releases about MEMS technology six to eight years ago caused millions of dollars of lost time, lost sales, and not good PR for two companies.

In effect, MEMS printheads caused two companies to go out of business (Yuhan-Kimberly and L&P printer division). Plus MEMs printheads were a final bump in the end-of-the-road for Keundo (which today has its printers made in China and has zilch of the international market share).

This does not mean in the year 2016 or 2017 to skip MEMS technology. Clearly MEMS is the future. What you learn is that PR releases can be the single most misleading aspect of our entire industry.

OCE Canon Memjet

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General Comments on Products at SGI Dubai

Six years ago, there was only ROLLSROLLER kind of flatbed laminator table noticeable (for flatbed applicator, a kind of flatbed laminating table).

Then, every year, one new brand; almost all from Scandinavia; now there are at least eight. Ironically not many (yet) from China, so far only one or two. At SGI 2016 there was ROLLSROLLER plus three other European brands. At FESPA you can expect five to seven brands. During 2016 there are finally about two brands in Chinese expos; but still none very sophisticated and not the sheer quantity of competing brands that you get for UV-cured printers, solvent printers, textile printers, and media and substrates.

ROLLSROLLER flatbed applicator

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PLEASE NOTE

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