Machine Matters

Nessan Cleary takes a closer look at this range of printers, with which Hollanders continues to single-mindedly pursue the textile market.

Dutch manufacturer Hollanders was set up in 2003 specifically to make large-format textile printers. Almost uniquely, Hollanders has opted to concentrate its efforts at the communications market, including soft signage, rather than the growing garment industry.

Nessan Cleary gets up close to this new flatbed, launched complete with new inks at Fespa 2013.

Korean ink manufacturer Inktec showed a flatbed printer at this year’s Fespa show in London. The Jetrix KX5 has a bed size of 2.5 x 1.3m, and there’s an optional roll-feeder which takes media up to 2.2m. This should take rolls up to around 100m, enough to allow the printer to be left printing during the night. Unusually, it will take media up to 10cm high. The operator has to set the carriage height but there’s a motion sensor on either side that will stop printing if there’s any danger of the heads hitting the substrate.

Nessan Cleary investigates how this cutting plotter handles a range of materials at high speeds.

Earlier this year Mutoh launched a new series of cutting plotters, known as ValueCut, which are essentially improved versions of the Kona series.

Nessan Cleary takes a look at the machine that heralds Epson’s move into the textile printing market.

Late last year Epson announced its intentions to get into textile printing with two new dye-sublimation printers, one of which was the 64in wide Surecolor SC-F7000. This machine was subsequently officially launched at this year’s Sign and Digital show with quite a number now established in the field.

Nessan Cleary gets to grips with this Mimaki TS34-1800adaptation.

This month’s Machine Matters covers a roll-to-roll solvent printer from Graphic Printing Technologies (GPT), a division of Amari Plastics that is perhaps best known as a reseller of printers from the likes of Mimaki, Epson and Agfa.

Nessan Cleary investigates this high-speed textile printer aimed at the soft signage market.

Earlier this year the Portuguese company POD added a new textile printer, the Mtex 1800, to its line-up of fabric printers which are all distributed in the UK by the Derby-based company Digital Print Innovations, or DPI.

Nessan Cleary findsRoland’s new eco-solvent printer really has been built for speed without loss of image quality.

Roland has just launched a new eco-solvent printer, the Pro4 SolJet XF-640, premiered at Sign and Digital UK and immediately available to order.

Nessan Cleary investigates the UK entrance of this Memjet-powered wide-format printer.

Reprographic Technology International (RTI) has been showing off a new Memjet-powered wide-format printer, the Vortex 4200, which it is just about to start distributing in the UK. In truth, this is an existing model, the WideStar, first launched at the end of 2011. It’s been developed by the Hungarian company, Own-X, but has not been widely distributed across Europe, mainly because Own-X has concentrated on its label printer, which has sold fairly well. So it’s only now that the wide-format machine is being introduced to the UK market.

Melony Rocque-Hewitt finds out just what’s so intelligent about this mini-beast.

Roland DG’s SolJet Pro XR-640 was launched in September last year and is billed as the company’s flagship machine. The SolJet range, which it now tops, is a highly successful one with a reputation for being powerful workhorses that are the mainstay of many a wide-format business.

Melony Rocque-Hewitt finds out just what’s so intelligent about this mini-beast.

As is the case for all families, in order to understand the offspring you have to consider the parent, so before we take a closer look at Onset S20i introduced last summer, we need to look at the Onset series as a whole. 

Melony Rocque-Hewitt looks at how this printer could grow with your business.

It is nearly two years ago now that Agfa completed  its purchase of Gandi Innovations. The sale allowed Agfa to plug an obvious hole in its hardware arsenal, and since then, the company has bought two machines to market, the development of which was well-established by Gandi and then picked up and completed by Agfa.

Nessan Cleary takes a closer look at a model which is of  five new ImagePrograf machines.

Canon has recently added five more wide-format printers to its ImagePrograf range of high quality aqueous inkjet printers. Amongst these is the 1524mm wide iPF 9400S which, as with all the ‘S’ series models, is aimed at a production environment. 

Nessan Cleary finds out why this cutter, though it’s been around a while, is just being introduced to the UK wide-format market.

Next to a printer, one of the most important pieces of equipment is a cutting table and there's an ever growing choice. This month we've been looking at the Mastercut 2200 from Blackman and White, which has been around for a while but is only just being launched into the wide-format sector.

With the first of this Drupa launched machine now installed in the UK Nessan Cleary takes a closer look.

Screen used Drupa this spring to launch the Truepress W1632 UV. As the name implies, this is a UV flatbed wide-format printer, taking media up to 1.6 x 3.2m and up to 48mm thick. Bui Burke, sales director for Screen UK, is in no doubt that its key attribute is its high speed, saying: “Normally when you run a wide-format machine flat out at its top rated speed you quickly realise that the quality is not commercially acceptable. But this has 94m2/hr and really doesn’t seem to print differently at its maximum speed.”