Sophie Matthews-Paul finds this new machine to offer good quality and good features at a good price.
In the wide-format sector there are machines that are launched with a fanfare and do hitherto impossible digital tasks. On the other hand there is a quieter band of manufacturers producing engines which do as it says on the tin, and which continue to serve the large numbers of users who want to produce bread-and-butter applications without having their lives and working practices disrupted.
There is still a very strong need for a well-priced and strongly featured roll-fed unit that is happy producing quality output onto vinyls, banner media and back-lits as well as digital textile materials and other coated and uncoated products suitable for solvent-based ink chemistries.
Seiko I Infotech is a company that has continued along the mild-solvent path, and its latest arrivals come in two sizes, these being 1.37m and 1.62m, with a choice of colour options according to application and performance needs. The larger of the two models, the W-64S, was put through its paces for the purposes of this feature and, despite its modest price tag, this is sturdily build machine which contains some nice features under the bonnet.
An interesting aspect is the new printhead design and configuration which produces a resolution of up to 900 x 900dpi. These heads are, of course, piezoelectric and contain dynamic dot printing (DDP) technology that has the capability of jetting three different droplet sizes on each pass. With each being 12, 24 or 36 picolitre, this means that the printer can speed along quite merrily at a decent production rate with any loss in density.
The Seiko II W-54S and W-64S also feature what the company calls its smart pass technology. Incorporating interweaving isn’t new to wide-format inkjet, and it is a common sense approach to getting rid of banding. It also means that users can get away with fewer passes on many jobs, thus speeding up throughput. This, combined with improved dot patterns, means that sharp, crisp text and images and solid areas of colours aren’t compromised, with good detail across dark areas.
The printheads also incorporate, what Seiko II calls, smart nozzle mapping - a feature not normally found in what is, to all intents and purposes, an entry-level machine. This feature means that printhead nozzles can be remapped if clogging occurs so that can production can continue unhindered without any compromise to speed or quality. This also reduces the need for printhead replacements.
The design of the ink cartridges was pretty neat on the former H-series ColorPainter, and this is another nice feature on the new machines with 500ml containers. This is complemented by a new ink which is free of HAPs (hazardous air pollutants), and both ink and cartridge are intended to offer greener properties to people using mild-solvent ink formulations. There’s also the option to use Seiko II’s original low solvent EG-Outdoor GX inks which are established for their low consumption and subsequent modest running costs.
Media handling is taken care of with a tension mechanism feature that controls any drag and keeps the roll feeding consistently from start to the core. This also gets rid of fiddly feed adjustments and maintains maximum image quality throughout the printing process. There is also the option of a take-up system.
Both the W-64S and the smaller W-54S come in a choice of four- and six-colour options, and can handle rolls of material up to 50m in length. Average print speeds are around 17m2/hour, and drying is carried out by a three-way independently controlled heating system which covers the front, the print area and the rear of the machine.
This new Seiko I Infotech duo comes with its own special edition Onyx Rip, although other manufacturers’ products also support the ColorPainter printers. There are many similarities to the H-Series of machines although the printheads are completely new. Connectivity is via USB.
The new sturdy ColorPainter W-64S and its smaller sibling, the W-54S, are available from Seiko I Infotech’s sole UK distributor, Maidenhead-based Colourgen. These machines come with a two-year manufacturer’s warranty as standard, and prices start at around £15,000 for the W-54S four-colour model and in the region of £17,000 for the six-colour W-64S.