Ink on a roll

The market for some applications, such as billboards, are fairly static, while there is growth in other areas such as self-adhesive, backlit, textiles and wallpapers. It’s perhpas no surprise that these are all best done with roll-fed printers and clearly most kit and inks manufacturers anticipate a move away from solvent inks, which are increasingly subject to environmental and health and safety concerns. That said, solvent, and particularly eco-solvent, still offers very good value for money and most vendors admit that these printers will be around for a few more years and so continue to invest R&D funds  into developing eco-solvent inks. But let’s see where to expect more key ink developments.

Latex

Latex is clearly starting to gain some traction in the market as the Image Reports Widthwise 2012 showed. Asked which type of digital printer survey respondents were expecting to buy, latex machines came out top of the pile, with 37.4% saying that was what they would be opting for. Other reports have since indicated the same drive towards latex.

The main factor behind latex inks is that they are water-based and therefore seen as being environmentally-friendly, although they require a considerable amount of energy to remove the water content.

HP has pioneered the use of water-based resin inks, better known as latex, and has had this market to itself for the last four years. But now other vendors are looking at latex technology, a move which HP’s marketing manager, Francois Martin, welcomes, pointing out that many print service providers prefer to have a choice between several suppliers before investing in any one technology.

Mimaki has recently started shipping its own latex printers, with Ricoh also rebadging these under its own brand name. Mike Horsten, Mimaki’s European marketing manager, is confident that Mimaki can take 25% of the latex market in Europe over the next year. For now Mimaki has an advantage as its latex machines operate at a lower temperature than current HP models, which is good for some more delicate substrates.

Not surprisingly, HP is also refining its latex technology to keep up with the new competition. Martin says there will be further announcements shortly in terms of colour, speed and temperature designed to go after new applications.

Bordeaux, which produces inks for a number of printers, announced a latex ink at last year’s Drupa show. The company says its inks are compatible with piezo printheads and can be used in several solvent printers without modification. Dror Mualem, VP sales and marketing at Bordeaux, says its latex ink dries at a low temperature and avoids the cockling of the media experienced when using higher temperatures. He adds that Bordeaux has high hopes for latex inks: “I believe that Bordeaux's latex ink technology brings a message to the graphics arts industry although I realise it might take time until it is recognised.”

We expect to see other players throw their efforts into latex as well. The most obvious is Epson, which already has resin ink technology in its SurePress range of inkjet label presses. Martin Johns, Epson’s wide-format product marketing manager, says   that Epson is looking to develop different markets, adding: “We  are compared with latex and that would be the next most    logical step.”

UV-curable inks

Clearly, latex as a replacement for solvent is only one part of the story. The other is the continuing development of UV inks and particularly UV for roll-to-roll use, and this is where most vendors appear to be concentrating their efforts.

Peter Kenehan, managing director of Fujifilm Sericol says: “We are 100% believers that UV is the answer to most of life's problems so we put all of our energy into UV development.” He says that the main trends are reducing film weight and increasing quality, noting: “One of the great trends is smaller drops for higher resolution which reduces films giving higher colour gamut.”

Kenehan says that one of the areas that Fujifilm is looking into include low to no odour inks, which he describes as “the holy grail for food packaging”, an area he clearly sees becoming more important to wide-format.

Another issue is the finish to the prints. Inca Digital, for example, already allows users to control the glossiness of their UV prints on some printers including the Onset. Kenehan explains: “We can control how much ink we lay down, the amount of flow it has before we cure it.” But Kenehan adds that you can do this with a machine like the Onset, which lays down all its ink in a single pass, unlike most wide-format printers, which use multiple passes to build up an image.

Fujifilm’s Sericol division has also been testing a new UV ink designed specifically for printing on corrugated board. The Uvijet OC inkset is for the Inca Onset flatbed that Fujifilm distributes. Tudor Morgan, Fujifilm Sericol’s marketing manager, explains: “Our standard inks for the Inca printers tend to be multi-purpose which means they are over engineered to print on something absorbent.”

But while some features have been taken out, others have been added. These new inks have a much higher gloss level for instance, so there’s no need for any further varnishing. They are also designed to be more resistant to cracking and flaking for when the corrugated sheets are folded into boxes. Morgan adds: “Also we look at colour gamut to help people match colours and to get punch to their colours so the pigments that we have chosen are different to our normal inks to get more vibrant colours.” The new inkset consists of six colours - CMYK plus light cyan and light magenta.

Pricing is dependent on volume, but unlikely to be significantly cheaper than existing Onset inks. For now the inks are in the middle of beta testing with Fujifilm hoping to launch them around June in time for Fespa.

Mimaki has introduced a new ink type, SUV, which is a mixture of a water-based solvent and UV ink technologies. Horsten explains: “The solvent ink will attack the media and get you the adhesion that you need and the UV will get you the colour and strength and flexibility that UV has.”

The idea is that the water-based solvent is dried almost immediately and is then followed by a curing process. Horsten adds: “Normally with UV you jet and start curing immediately but the UV has time enough to settle down with this system.” The result should be a much more glossy, reflective finish with a bigger colour gamut than with UV ink. These inks come in a four-colour inkset and for now only work with an adapted JV400. Horsten says the cost of the inks is comparable to a standard UV ink.

Agfa is also concentrating its efforts on UV ink, and in particular LED-curable ink, which represents another trend in current ink development. Agfa is using its ink know-how to offer inks to other manufacturers. Jan De Vooght, general manager for Agfa’s industrial inkjet inks, says that Agfa is concentrating its efforts on difficult substrates, such as textiles and wood, explaining: “So we use jettable LED-curable primers that are integrated in the system to go to markets where we need good adhesion.”

He says that Agfa is also working on single pass systems, noting that Agfa has a lot of expertise in this area gained from its former Dotrix presses. For now, single pass systems – where multiple printheads are stitched together to form an array the width of the substrate – are mainly limited to narrow format printing. But single pass offers very high productivity, something that would suit UV inks, where there is no need to get rid of any water content.

Indeed, although latex is clearly gaining a lot of traction in the market now, it appears that most suppiers have focussed their R&D efforts on further developing UV. Latex makes a loud environmental case, and offers a reasonably easy upgrade path from solvent printers and is a good bet for anyone looking to buy a roll-fed printer for use over the next couple of years. But eco-solvent printers still offer very good value for money in the same time frame while UV is likely to be the dominant ink technology in the long term.

The white option

It’s become fairly common now for wide-format printer vendors to offer white ink as an option, and an increasing number of people are taking this up. However, many vendors report that sales of white ink are still fairly low, indicating that many print companies take the option’ just in case’, but then fail to capitalise on it by selling the appropriate applications.

But some users have put their white ink to good use. Ltd Ltd, for example, has been using three Mimaki JV33 solvent printers, one of which is equipped for white ink.

Ltd Ltd has built a reputation for highly bespoke installations with a variety of special effects, which it terms manifestations. Marketing director Craig Beecher says that it specifically  bought a printer with white capability “because there was a growing demand for white, especially for manifestations.”

 Beecher adds: “We use a lot of white ink, especially the more creative work. It’s generally for manifestations because we can print white on clear and frosted media so that it opens up a new area for manifestations for retail and office.”

Another white ink advocate is Gary Wallace, managing director of Wallace Print, Rochester, Kent. He originally set the company up for screen printing so was quite familiar with the notion of laying down white ink as a backing for colour jobs. Nonetheless, he admits: “I was amazed when I bought the Fujifilm Acuity and saw the white going down almost instantaneously, backing up the full-colour, and the fact that you can choke back four-point text and have no overspray.”

For the most part, Wallace will continue to use screen methods for white flood coats, keeping the digital printer for backing text since the white ink is more expensive than the CMYK inks and he would struggle to justify the cost of flood coating.

Wallace also found that the white ink attracted a lot of trade work from other printers that had not invested in the white ink, saying: “It’s enabled us to do a lot of acrylic work.” He adds: “The white is indispensable now because there are certain jobs that we couldn't put across the screen because of the way that inks contract and expand.

The Bigger Printing Company, which mainly does POS and exhibition stand graphics, bought an Océ Arizona 350XT with the white ink option because, as company director Sebastian Stanley explains: “We do a significant amount of backing window graphics with white vinyl so that was one of the key factors.”

In addition, many of Stanley’s customers want to use recycled display boards for environmental reasons but the colour of these meant that he couldn’t get truly vibrant colours. “Underprinting with white to anything that doesn’t have a pure white face to it gives us the impact. It means that the image comes across and the client has a choice of materials,” he says, adding: “Commercially it’s a good selling point and it’s good for the environment so I don’t see why people should compromise on their print.” Notably, Stanley says he is able to charge a premium for the white inks.

On the negative side he says that the main issue using white ink is that it slows down the printer. “If we have a large run to do then we really have to plan it well but it’s still only a small part of our business.” This isn’t such an issue with the window graphics because the Arizona can be left to print the vinyl roll overnight but it does affect printing to the rigid display boards.

The white ink does mean that it takes longer in the morning to get the machine up to speed. Stanley notes: “The inks are thicker so they need a certain amount of work to get them running but that’s expected.”

Bigger printing also runs one of the original Arizona 250GTs. The company has three older DesignJets but Stanley says he mainly uses the Arizonas because they are more robust, cheaper to run and can be left unattended. He plans to buy a third Arizona as the business expands, and will take the white option again.