Hands on

The Chinese brand Longier is offering a reasonably priced flatbed printer, but how well does it perform in practice? Nessan Cleary asks user Paul Serellis of Eazy Print in Eastleigh.

From time to time you come across a new player in the wide-format inkjet printer market, such as Longier. Its range is built in China but now available in the UK and Europe courtesy of Gary Hall of Hallmark Equipment Services. The first of these was installed over the Christmas period at Eazy Print, based in Eastleigh in Hampshire.

This Roland roll-fed UV printer promises the freedom to print to a wide range of media, but does it live up to this? Nessan Cleary asked user Jason Pavlou, managing director of Giraffe Press.

It’s easy to think of UV machines as being for rigid materials and solvents for flexibles but there is a class of UV roll-fed printers that can cope with a wide range of different substrates. These printers are more expensive than their solvent counterparts but their prints cure to a tough finish without the need for lamination and the freedom to use less standard media can lead to a wider range of applications. This is the thinking that led Roland to develop its VersaUV LEC printers. And it's also the reason that Jason Pavlou, managing director of Giraffe Press, bought one back in the summer of 2013.

This entry-level solvent printer promises good image quality at a reasonable price. But what’s it like to live with? Nessan Cleary asked user Alan White of FastSigns Crawley.

Despite all the predictions of their demise, solvent printers remain the backbone of many wide-format print producers, particularly small bureaux. They're relatively cheap - from around £12,000 to £30,000 for most models – and there’s quite a few to choose from. They can generally produce good quality results suitable for outdoor display graphics for a wide range of different applications from banners to vehicle graphics. This month we've been looking at just one model - Epson's SureColor SC-S30600, the most affordable of its solvent printers. We spoke with user, designer Alan White of FastSigns Crawley, which installed a SureColor S30600 two years ago. His immediate comment on the machine was that “there’s not much downtime on it.”

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HP has rejuvenated its entry-level wide format printers with the addition of the third generation latex inks. Nessan Cleary talks to Latex 360 user Ian Penman of IntroScan.

Nessan Cleary asked users for their take on this all-in-one textile printer aimed squarely at the graphics market.

In recent years there have been quite a number of textile printer launches, mainly due to the growth in the garments and home furnishings markets. But there has also been movement in the soft signage market with textile printers producing flags and exhibition graphics as well as outdoor banners. But printing to fabrics is not quite as straightforward as with other substrates and many textile printers are designed to print to transfer paper first, necessitating a heat press for the actual sublimation - and the prints will also require fixation so they can be washed without the inks disappearing. 

Nessan Cleary talks to Asanti user Barry Laver of Wincanton Print about his experiences with this wide-format workflow solution.  

As wide-format printing continues to grow, so too do the individual service providers with most now having multiple printers. That usually means having to manage multiple Rips, which can complicate the workflow. We've taken a closer look at some of the issues around workflow and the various software options available elsewhere in this issue, but for this story we'll concentrate on just one of these - Agfa's Asanti - which was formally announced at the London Fespa show in June 2013 and has been shipping with most Agfa wide-format printers since the start of this year. 

The Onset S40 promises high productivity but does it justify the cost? Nessan Cleary asks the question.

Until a few years ago people thought of digital printing as being only for short run until a couple of high production flatbeds appeared on the scene to challenge offset and screen printing. This month Image Reports looks at one of these, the Onset S40i, developed by Inca Digital but sold by Fujifilm. 

These days everything can be personalised. So how useful is this HP solution? Nessan Cleary asks those who have bought it.

Home furnishings and interior decoration are rapidly becoming popular wide-format print applications, with wall coverings high on the list. There’s a good range of wallpaper substrates available now and HP has built a complete solution around its latex printers that also includes design software, called Wall Art. 

The two most common ink technologies in use in wide-format today are solvent, which continues to offer good performance at low cost, and UV-curable, which will work with a wide range of media and can print direct to board. But now we are seeing a new type of ink emerge that combines the best of both of these ink technologies. The new inks are a hybrid technology with both solvent and UV-curable components. Essentially, the solvent is used in very small quantities to soften and key the media surface so that the pigments can penetrate into the media. The UV element then immediately cures the inks so that they are ready for immediate use, with no waiting around for the prints to out-gas. These type of inks typically have a bright colour gamut and a lower film thickness than with UV-curable inks.

The trend in laminators is toward entry-level models but there’s still a need for top of the range laminators such as this model say users.

Since the advent of UV printers and their ability to print direct to board substrates we don’t tend to hear much about laminators. Yet, they are still essential for finishing solvent and aqueous prints. The obvious use is to mount these prints to boards, which a great many people are still doing. Laminates are also used to add protection to a print, usually from the effects of UV light, but also protection from weather for outdoor signs, and from scratching and vandalism for displays in general. But there is a wide range of laminating films for different effects. This includes changing the texture of a print or adding a glossy or matte finish. On top of this laminates can also be used to enhance the colours in an image, or to add special effects such as frosting.

Users tell of how this unit provides a relatively cheap way of printing to fabrics for everything from banners to tablecloths.

There are a lot of advantages to printing to fabric for so- called soft signage but textile printing can also open up new markets for wide-format print providers, such as interior décor and even clothing.

Cutting tables are a must-have accessory for a flatbed UV printer but does it make economic sense to plump for an attractively priced import?

Sooner or later most people who buy a flatbed printer also find that they need a cutting table, if only to cut down the large rigid boards to more manageable sizes. But, inevitably, most budget for the printer and look to save money on the cutting table. Step forward the Dyss X7, a solid but affordable cutter that’s been pitched as an alternative to the main suppliers.

In theory GMG ProductionSuite separates the prepress from the ripping for greater production efficiency, so what’s it like in practice? Nessan Cleary asked users.

We've long been advocates of using workflow programs to organise production departments more efficiently, so it seemed like a good idea to look at one such system – GMG's ProductionSuite – in more detail. This should separate prepress functions from the output in order to squeeze the maximum efficiency from both halves of a job. It can oversee multiple printers so that jobs can be routed to the most appropriate device, even late in the production process. It can take care of difficult issues such as colour management and finishing marks and offer centralised management of every job in production.