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.
To get a feel of what the machine is like to live with, Peter Hughes, managing director of Kenton Instore, based in Birmingham, was asked for his take. This is predominantly a screenprinting company that mainly produces point of sale advertising for the retail sector. But, Hughes says that customers were increasingly asking for a four-colour process which prompted him to look for a high-speed digital device. He nearly bought a HP flatbed but didn’t think that it could produce the right combination of print quality and speed that he wanted, though it was cheaper than the Onset. But then he saw an S40 running at 500m2/hr and 18 months later he is now considering buying a second one.
Hughes says that he only runs the printer at its fastest eight-pass setting: “It will do solid colours like no other digital printer, which is the most challenging work because any imperfection at all will show up instantly and the S40 manages that very well.”
Overall Hughes is happy with the image quality and says that it will reproduce small text down to eight or nine point at the faster speed. He says that it prints to most standard substrates, adding: “It will handle commercial quality corrugated so we don't have to buy special corrugated to make it stick.”
However, he does believe that the ink filling could be improved: “We can only put one tub in at once which is a bit of a hassle just for one. I think they want to have bigger reservoirs.”
He uses CMYK plus light cyan and light magenta but not white ink, because he thinks it slows the machine down too much and there’s an increased risk of the heads becoming clogged since they are used less frequently. The ink usage is as promised by Fujifilm, though Hughes acknowledges that he’s probably using more than most people, given that the printer is producing flat full colour work all day long. He adds: “Although we are paying a high price for the ink it’s a lower cost than screenprinting.” Consequently, even if a job has only a small area of four colour work, the company will print that digitally due to the lower costs.
Hughes thinks that the service contract - at around £54,000 per year - is very expensive and so he’s switching to an on-demand model. He explains: “We spoke to other people and that's what they are doing. We will have to pay for it but will use an insurance policy which should cover premature breakdown.” He says that the electronic side of the printer is very good, but that it is sometimes let down on the mechanical side, with items such as a float chamber having failed. But he continues: “The repair rate is so good from Inca that it's not a problem.”
Nor has he yet had to replace a printhead, which he puts down to the Onset’s rigorous maintenance regime, which takes about an hour each day. He says that the printer manages nozzle outs very easily: “Mapping out of nozzles is the key because you don't want one nozzle out on a flat. The mapping is automatic and it doesn't map them out permanently. Every day we do that and it knocks out what isn't required.”
The printer monitors how much UV the heads have been exposed to and then stops the machine to clean it to avoid clogging nozzles, which only takes a few minutes. It can also monitor when the bed expands or contracts through heat and adjusts the printing accordingly.
Hughes has had the floor dug out around the printer to bury the lift in the floor, freeing up access for pallet trucks to ease media loading. This idea has been used overseas though Hughes believes he’s the first to try it in the UK.
He has also used a chiller unit to suck out hot air from the Onset and now uses this to heat the rest of the factory, saying: “We are getting about 35kW of heat which replaced a big gas boiler.”
Hughes concludes that even though he remains committed to screenprinting, he’s considering buying another Onset, explaining: “We are becoming quite dependent on it so we worry what to do if it breaks down.” So, it would seem that the S40 does live up to its promise, at least as far as Kenton Instore is concerned.
ABOUT THE PRODUCT
The original Onset was the ?rst wide-format printer to use a full width print array, meaning that there was no need for the printheads to shuttle back and forth across the prints. The S40i is a smaller device capable of producing higher quality prints at a similar speed. It takes media up to 50mm thick and has a maximum print area of 3.14 x 1.6m. Print speed ranges from 175m2/hr in the highest 18 pass mode unidirection all the way up to 560m2/hr bi-directional printing in eight pass mode. Operators can choose a satin or gloss ?nish by varying the curing.
Resolution varies from 600dpi to 1000dpi, with 28 heads per colour. It uses Fuji?lm Uvijet inks with six colours - CMYK plus light cyan and light magenta - which are said to last for up to two years outdoors. The bed can be split into up to 15 zones to reduce the masking needed for thinner substrates. There’s also a three-quarter autoloader option, which is useful for hitting the higher speeds.
The Onset family also includes the Q-series, which offers better image quality, but is somewhat slower, and the recently launched R-series, which is a good balance between the high speed S-series and the high quality Q-series.
ALTERNATIVES
HP: Not surprisingly, there’s a limited demand for very expensive, high volume ?atbeds. The main competition probably comes from HP Scitex, which makes the FB7600 printer, and has recently launched the FB10000. These are large, robust machines, built to be scaleable, and with a choice of different automated loading options. Both take boards and ?exible sheets up to 1.6 x 3.2m.
The FB7600 can produce up to 500m2/hr in its fastest mode, which drops to 90m2/hr for the highest quality mode. It uses HP’s X2 printhead and takes six colours, including light cyan and light magenta. The FB10000 builds on this, with a new HDR printhead, which produces 15 picolitre drops but can multipulse these to also create 30 and 45 picolitre drops for greyscale printing. This printer can produce up to 625m2/hr in its production mode, though this drops to 407m2/hr if you aim for higher image quality.
Durst: The other contender in this market is Durst, which has a number of high volume printers, including the Rho 1300 series. Durst recently launched the 1312, which runs at up to 620m2/hr and the 1330 that runs at up to 1,250m2/hr. They also boast a new Gradual Flow Printing, which is essentially single pass printing across the narrow width of the image area. The base models use CMYK but there are options for light cyan and light magenta as well as orange, green and violet.