October 2008

Nicholas Hellmuth

UV Printers

DRUPA 2008

Launches and Exhibitsof UV Printers at

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Your only assurance that you have a complete and authentic evaluation which describes all aspects of the product under consideration, benefits as well as deficiencies, is to obtain these reports directly from FLAAR, via www.wide-format-printers.NET.

Copyright 2008

ContentIntroduction: Diverse Backgrounds and Needs Create this DRUPA Report 1FLAAR Awards 5Agfa Graphics N.V. 7Anhui Liyu Computer Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. 11Augend Technologies 12DigiCube 13Dilli 15Durst 16Eastech 18Flora / RTZ 19FUJIFILM Dimatix 19Gandinnovations 21GCC Europe B.V. 23Gerber 24Hewlett-Packard: former ColorSpan 27Hewlett-Packard: former NUR 28Hewlett-Packard: former Scitex Vision 29Konica Minolta 30Matan Digital Printers 31Meital 32Mimaki Europe B.V. 33Mutoh Europe NV 35Oce 36Raster Printers 36Screen Europe 37Sun LLC 40Teckwin 41Triangle (INX) 44VUTEK (part of EFI) 45Exhibited Off-Site 48Conspicuous by their Absence 48Chinese UV printers 50What to be aware of 50Some Sample Prices for UV printers 50Printheads for UV Printers 51Ink for UV-curable Inkjet Printers 52XY Cutters for Thick and Rigid Materials 53DRUPA compared with FESPA, SGIA, and ISA 55Booth Politics 56Decisions Decisions 56Acknowledgements 56UV or related Companies at DRUPA 08 57Appendix A 60

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Introduction: Diverse Backgrounds and Needs Create this DRUPA Report

Four major groups of people and corporations read the FLAAR Reports.

First, end-users (printshop owners and managers) are clearly one group of people who read this report. These printshop owners and managers need to minimize their risk of perhaps buying an inappropriate brand or model or technology or ink chemistry. If you get lured into buying a printer today that won’t be finished for another year, your business stalls. So the one thing that distinguishes a FLAAR Report from a PR release is that we work at distinguishing fact from fiction: in other words,

• which printers are laboratory experiments (that work nicely in the demo room of the manufacturer but which don’t work as well in the real world)• which printers may not function well when the tech support engineer leaves.• Which printers have the best liklihood to actually function in a production environment 24/7 or at least six hours a day five days a week.

So it is essential to have a report on DRUPA that is not loaded with false promises of impossible print speeds, delivery dates for a printer that won’t possibly be realized, or simply a reguritation of wishful thinking (in other words, this FLAAR Report is not a standard PR release).

I value the work done by PR people, and find helpful information in their messages, but if you don’t mention the downsides and if the company requires exaggerating the benefits, then the readers are not provided with a realistic report.

Second: Printer manufacturers are an increasing audience for the FLAAR Reports, so there is information on industry trends in this discussion. Just realize that many analysts are impacted by the reality about which brands are losing market share and which brands are gaining market share. It is a known fact that Gandinnovations is gaining the most market share; it is widely rumored that another competing company’s market share has been decreasing steadily as a result.

Introduction: Diverse Backgrounds and Needs Create this DRUPA Report

DRUPA 08 facilities

Analysts realize that there are still printshop owners that buy primarily on the basis of a brand name with its previous reputation. But gradually most printshop owners are realizing that if you buy by “brand name” if that brand is no longer a technology leader, you may be buying equipment that is substandard when compared with the technology leader (whose company may not have even existed ten years ago).

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A third segment of readers of this report are • investment bankers, investment stragegy consulting companies, • management consulting companies, • companies that buy or sell other companies, • investors who need to know which printing technologies are on the move, • and RIP, media, and materials companies who need to know the trends so they develop the appropriate products in advance.

A fourth group of readers of FLAAR Reports are students, professors, and trade association managers who also appreciate knowing what is going on.

One thing you will notice, is that the tsunami of PR releases triggered by DRUPA simply doesn’t tell the full story, doesn’t warn you of downsides. And most of all, the effusive PR releases don’t warn you when a printer is simply not finished.

I apologize in advance if any of my comments are a bit flippant or brusque. If any observation is disputed, I will gladly remove this, and instead will replace my comment with the direct quote from the industry analyst or printshop owner or colleague who even more bluntly pointed out a deficiency or issue than I do in this FLAAR Report.

DRUPA hall

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DRUPA 08 facilities

DRUPA outside hall

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DRUPA fairgrounds

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FLAAR Awards

The award for the printer with the most impressive new technology is a tie between the KonicaMinolta printer, the Agfa :Anapurna XLS, and the Meital 3000-10 flatbed printer.

Since I am a professor, I tend to be interested in new technology, especially features that relieve the boredom of “ho-hum, me-too” printers. Since you don’t make much profit either as a professor, or having to pay a staff of 17 people to assist preparing the PDFs and web sites, at least it’s nice to have some intellectual excitement by seeing something new and different.

The most intriguing printer was in the KonicaMinolta booth: using cationic ink and LED printheads. In other words, a single printer was using two chemistries that most industry analysts considered “impossible today, and with potential only in future years after millions more in R&D expenditures.”

The Meital printer was impressive for several reasons: first, although the company is a start-up, nonetheless their first printer functioned fully: every day. Compare this with other printers at DRUPA from established companies, that were either not printing at all, or lethargically and then only occasionally.

The Agfa :Anapurna XLS actually deserves two awards: one for impressive new technology (the “walking feet”) and another for “Prodigal Printer” award. A Prodigal Printer is like the Prodigal Son” in the bible: a printer that is bad for a period, but then turns around and becomes good, and returns with considerable potential.

Agfa Anapurna XLS

Meital 3000-10 flatbed printer

Konica Minolta KMIJ X printer

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But as with all new technologies, we can only issue a recommendation after we have completed a factory visit, print testing in a demo room, and then a site-visit case study to make sure that the new technology actually functions in the real world. So although we enjoy seeing exciting breakthroughs in ink chemistry and innovative mechanics of moving material through a printer, a printer is only successful when it helps a printshop earn profit and when the results make the clients happy with the images.

The most disappointing printers: two deserve special mention in this category: one was a printer that simply was not printing often enough to convince analysts that in a printshop it could really function 24/7 or even two shifts a day. The other was a printer that was “printing” but was faked: it had no printheads, no ink, and no UV lamps. As a courtesy I will not list these two companies.

If either of these printers is actually functioning acceptably at SGIA ’08, their improvement will be noted. Or if we see either function before SGIA in the manufacturer’s demo room or at a customer site: also in any of these cases we would revise our assessment to comment on the positive improvements. Either one or both may become Prodigal Printers in the future: deserving of special mention to recognize their improvement. But at DRUPA their performance was embarrassing.

Agfa Anapurna XLS UV printer

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Agfa Graphics N.V.

The Agfa booth was popular and the wide-format inkjet printers had a prominent location within the booth (Agfa offers many pre-press products in other divisions). For me the most interesting printer from Agfa is their new :Anapurna XLS.

After their joint UV printer project with Mutoh failed to produce a finished printer in 2005, Mutoh and Agfa both rebranded UV printers made in Korea by Dilli. Mutoh has exhibited these only once or twice, and only in past years (not recently); Mutoh America did not often offer these UV printers. After a few trade shows in 2006, even Mutoh Europe stopped exhibiting the twin version of these Dilli-Agfa UV printers.

Agfa, however, has been relatively successful with their :Anapurna UV printer series, both in Europe and in the US. Indeed from 2008 onward, Dilli no longer exhibits their own Neo Plus, Neo Venus or Neo Titan because starting in 2008 Agfa has exclusive distribution rights for the US and Europe. So the Dilli booth at DRUPA 2008 had only the Neo Jupiter on exhibit since this specialized industrial printer is not sold by Agfa.

At DRUPA 2008 Agfa continued with its rebranded Dilli printers, such as the :Anapurna M in two different versions, but also exhibited their first Agfa UV printer that was not manufactured by either Dilli or Mutoh: the :Anapurna XLS. This is an Agfa-only update of their :Anapurna 100 from FESPA Munich, 2005.

The Agfa UV inkjet component for Thieme has experienced mixed reception. Agfa PR releases promugate this as a success story. But not one single independent industry analyst accepts this rosy picture. Every industry analyst suggests that the Thieme printer has not been mechanically competitent and definitely not commercially successful. Since this printer is enormous, and as Agfa is not exactly sitting on a pool of extra profit, it is not surprising that the Agfa-Thieme machine was not shown at DRUPA. Perhaps if I visited several actual installations I could revise this assessment, but so far the outside buzz on the Thieme experiment with UV printers has varied from lack of interest to mildly negative.

Agfa exhibited two versions of their :Dotrix UV printer at DRUPA. This is one of my favorite printers, though there is no complete FLAAR Report since I have not visited either the factory, demo room, nor found any end-user.

New Agfa Anapurna XLS presented at DRUPA 08

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Hybrid printer with roll-to-roll and flatbed option.

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Agfa, however, has been relatively successful with their :Anapurna UV printer series, both in Europe and in the US. Indeed from 2008 onward, Dilli no longer exhibits their own Neo Plus, Neo Venus or Neo Titan because starting in 2008 Agfa has exclusive distribution rights for the US and Europe. So the Dilli booth at DRUPA 2008 had only the Neo Jupiter on exhibit since this specialized industrial printer is not sold by Agfa.

At DRUPA 2008 Agfa continued with its rebranded Dilli printers, such as the :Anapurna M in two different versions, but also exhibited their first Agfa UV printer that was not manufactured by either Dilli or Mutoh: the :Anapurna XLS. This is an Agfa-only update of their :Anapurna 100 from FESPA Munich, 2005.

Agfa Graphics booth at DRUPA 08. Agfa Anapurna XL2 UV printer.

The Agfa UV inkjet component for Thieme has experienced mixed reception. Agfa PR releases promugate this as a success story. But not one single independent industry analyst accepts this rosy picture. Every industry analyst suggests that the Thieme printer has not been mechanically competitent and definitely not commercially successful. Since this printer is enormous, and as Agfa is not exactly sitting on a pool of extra profit, it is not surprising that the Agfa-Thieme machine was not shown at DRUPA. Perhaps if I visited several actual installations I could revise this assessment, but so far the outside buzz on the Thieme experiment with UV printers has varied from lack of interest to mildly negative.

Agfa exhibited two versions of their :Dotrix UV printer at DRUPA. This is one of my favorite printers, though there is no complete FLAAR Report since I have not visited either the factory, demo room, nor found any end-user.

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Agfa Anapurna Mv UV printer

Agfa Anapurna M4F

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Anhui Liyu Computer Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Anhui Liyu bravely exhibits their UV printers at trade shows in Turkey and elsewhere in Europe via Optimum Digital Planet. But they have no independent US distributor, so their market share in the US is close to zero. But we admire the hard work that these Chinese companies invest in their products, and sooner or later their engineers will develop a system that wil be improved. I did notice the Liyu UV printer printing acceptably. It was turned on several times during DRUPA. The model designation is Eureka. There are 1.8 and 2.5 meter widths available, with 8 or 12 printheads.

This model has a raised “wall” across the front, which I estimate is intended to shield your eyes from UV light.

The quality and colors of the output was acceptable. Red colors were bright and pretty but yellows were too green (as is typical with most UV inks). There was no objectionable banding. But you need a printer that can hold up four years minimum, and this is tough for some manufacturers to realistically offer. The only way to document this is to initiate a site-visit case study of FLAAR visiting an actual printshop that has this printer installed.

Anhui Liyu booth

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Augend Technologies

Augend Technologies is the name for what used to be Infiniti Europe. There had been limitations over Infiniti as a brand name and gradually many printers that formerly were known as Infiniti are being given other names. This is all a good example of how to mess up the value of an established brand name, namely Infiniti.

Augend Technologies had a substantial booth at one trade show about a year or so ago, and presented two huge printing machines: one solvent and one UV. These were giant: the size of a small house, indeed I was taken inside the UV version. Yes, physically was taken through a door to inside the printer, all standing up while I walked around inside the printer.

Although the solvent version was printing last year, the UV version was not moving (which is why you could walk inside). A year later, Augend was listed as having a booth, for at least one of these immense printers, at a subsequent VISCOM event, but the printer never showed up. This suggested that these large printers were not yet finished. Considering the fact that the entry-level Infiniti UV printer was still most politely described as inadequate1 two years after it’s first launch, it is not to be expected that a 10X larger and 100X more complicated printer the size of a house could possibly function. But at DRUPA ’08, there was a video display of the large Augend UV printing press. The Augend manager said it would be ready for inspection shortly.

So as soon as it is possible to inspect the RF20 UV-cured printing press at its demo room, we will issue a FLAAR Report, as this kind of printer is an innovative technology.

Two Infiniti solvent printers were on display, but not any entry-level Infiniti UV printer at all. The Infiniti UV printer is exhibited mainly at ISA, SGIA, and Graphics of the Americas. Printshop owners who bought this entry-level Infiniti UV printer reported this model had endless deficiencies in the past two years. So far the only Chinese manufacturers whose products are at levels acceptable to Europe and North America are Flora and Teckwin. But year by year, manufacturer by manufacturer, other Chinese companies will learn that capable tech support in the local language, realistic availability of spare parts, and a reliable printer with no low-bid parts is what European and American printshops seek.

But the Infiniti and Challenger solvent printers are acceptable; I know a printshop in Guatemala that is content with his solvent printers from Infiniti and Challenger, but the UV printer from the same company is not adequate.

1Two end-users who have the Infiniti UV printer found it built of low-bid parts that fell apart, wore out, and in general were inadequate. These are their comments, not mine. I inspected both printshops in person.

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DigiCube

DigiCube appears to be the result of someone leaving IP&I and creating their own company. They have a lot of chutzpah to use the name “Cube”. Only time will tell if using the name of their former company is considered appropriate.

Most industry analysts commented that the chances of new UV printer companies being successful is uncertain: with HP marketing former ColorSpan printers, with Agfa being increasingly successful marketing Dilli printers, with Mutoh coming onto the market, and with Roland eventually having a UV printer too, there is not much space for a company with no distributors anywhere in the world.

Besides, the original IP&I has a growing dealer network. IP&I still exists and is still producing the Cube 260 and Cube 1606. Indeed an artist at DRUPA told me that he tested as many UV printers as he could, and “the best and most accurate UV printer I tested was from IP&I.”

So the DigiCube S7200 will need to either be better than IP&I, significantly less cost (and still be better), and have a dealer and tech support network. Nonetheless, I am impressed when any company works hard to try to succeed. If their printer offers innovations that improve the ability to feed flat rigid materials through a transport belt system, this is a valued improvement.

Their printer had an appropriate serial #, 0001, and listed Japan as country of origin, rather unexpected since everyone that I met in the booth was from Korea. But at least this prototype appeared fully functioning. I saw the DigiCube print more often than many other UV printers at larger and better known other company booths.

DigiCube S7200 UV-printer booth

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DigiCube S7200 UV-printer

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Dilli

Dilli and D.G.I. shared a booth (the two companies are owned by two brothers). D.G.I. exhibited two solvent printers. Dilli exhibited their Neo Jupiter, a dedicated flatbed printer that is comparable to the Mimaki 605CII, but the Neo Jupiter has a Spectra head with a large picoliter drop size; the Mimaki flatbed has a Toshiba Tec printhead for rendering fine text.

Agfa now has exclusive distribution for most Dilli printers in the US and most European countries. So Dilli no longer competes under their own name for any model that Agfa is selling. This arrangement is new from 2008 onward. Feedback from industry analysts documents that the Dilli company is respected for producing a reliable printer.

I believe that the Jupiter has promise, especially if the print quality can match or exceed that of the Mimaki printer of similar size. Two people who have tried the Mimaki 605C report issues: one person in Australia, and another person said the ink cracks on leather.

Dilli Neo Jupiter UV printer.

Students from the University of Ljubljana receiving information about the Dilli Neo Jupiter from Kyu-Hyun Park.

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Durst

Durst is doing an excellent job of producing robust high-end combo style UV printers. I have been to both Durst factories (Lienz and Brixen) and can thus testify to their capabilities in engineering and manufacturing prowess.

What Durst is now doing is issuing different models for important niche markets. Since décor is a growing industry, and since the new generation of printheads can produce excellent quality, UV printers are ideal for printing on wall tiles and wood veneer. The Durst Rho SP 60 is primarily for printing wood veneer. The Durst Gamma ceramic tile printer is a predecessor for in-line printing on unfired clay.

Customized printing on corrugated cardboard is a growing niche market as well. Whereas only a few companies would be willing to pay three million dollars for a still experimental and unfinished Sun FastJet (that can only print about 20 inches wide anyway), with an appropriate Rho printer from Durst you can print on cardboard at significantly wider sizes.

Durst booth

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The Rho 320R now has the magnetic drive for the print carriage. When you are in the Durst factories you can see and appreciate the quality that they build into their printers.

The Durst Rho 700 is a special version of the Durst Rho 800, at less cost.

The Durst Rho 161 TS is a Durst Rho 160 adapted for roll to roll and with special ink for reflective traffic signs. The Durst Rho 160 was an early UV printer (before Inca even existed). Although the original combo-style Rho 160 has long ago been retired, this platform was brought back to handle 3M inks for flexible material.

Durst probably sold 9 to 12 printers, of which about half were roll-to-roll. This shows that printshops value good engineering and European workmanship.

Durst printed samples at Drupa 08

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Eastech

Eastech no longer features UV-cured printers in their booth; for the last year they have shown their flatbed which uses “Magic Ink” to print on a diverse range of materials. It has been unclear whether a primer is needed, and whether top-coating is needed, and/or heating in the printer (all problems with Staedtler’s Lumocolor ink). So I visited Eastech-Thailand later in July to check on what the situation is with their inks and with their flatbed printer. Eventually there may be a separate report on Magic Ink and the Eastech printers that use it. One thing I can say in advance, is that Eastech is alive and well in their new Bangkok headquarters: very impressive architectural spaces. If you want to learn about the pros and cons of any ink chemistry or printer technology, you won’t find the actual information at a trade show, nor in a trade magazine.

The exhibit in the Eastech booth in DRUPA ‘08 showed an impressive array of different materials, primarily for interior decoration. This ink literally “prints on anything and everything.”

The reason why Staedtler’s impressive Lumocolor ink was never popularized is because Staedtler is an ink company with no OEM relationship to any major printer manufacturer. Merely having a good ink is not enough. To be successful you have to have a hardware partner, or build printers yourself (which is what Eastech does).

The other reason why Lumocolor ink was not successful is because it needed a heater in the printer (to handle the water-based aspects of the ink on some materials) and because several materials needed lamination after printing to protect against abrasion. If the ink can be scratched off easily, or wiped off with

Eastech samples

Eastech Booth

alcohol or ammonia (Windex glass cleaning fluid) it has an uphill battle to become desired. I mention Lumocolor because it is one of my favorite inks, and I was disheartened that it was not embraced by printer manufacturers.

Thus I hope that the Eastech system does not face the same situation. I feel any ink that can print on “everything” should be given a chance to succeed. A trade show is too hectic to inspect every single material, and I need to witness each item being printed, and do the scratch test when they are fresh off the printer (before they can be topcoated).

There have been two reports that one major European printer company is priming some printing samples at some trade shows, before they print on this material with UV ink, before the doors open. If this is true, it is cheating. We mention the brand and model of this printer in our report on this printer.

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Flora / RTZ

The fancy new factory of RTZ in China was paid for primarily from millions of dollars of investment by DuPont. But the DuPont Cromaprint required so much tech support that the repair costs caused DuPont to shut down its attempt at selling UV printers or UV ink (plus it has been suggested that DuPont was misleading people about the ink being from DuPont; it is rumored the ink was really from Triangle).

So when DuPont pulled out RTZ was stuck with a huge factory but minus their main client. Fortunately Raster Printers continues to buy and sell three entry-level RTZ printers. And a host of independent companies in Europe also rebrand the Flora F1 180uv printer. Plus LexJet is beginning to sell the RTZ printer that would have been the DuPont Cromaprint 18uv as the LexJet Legend.

But RTZ had one more printer left over from the collapse of the DuPont UV venture: this is a combo-machine, intended to replace the flawed DuPont Cromaprint 22uv. This new 2.5 meter combo printer has all the features specified by DuPont, based on improving everything that was wrong with the original RTZ combo model, Flora 2200 series (the DuPont DCC 22uv which was renamed the Cromaprint 22uv because the first generation was too inadequate to function).

So now RTZ is trying to find distributors and resellers for the printer that DuPont paid for but never began to sell. This is the Flora F 25UV combo style printer (with conveyor belt). This printer will be sold by LexJet in the US starting later this year or early in 2009. The new Flora machine is not only improved, it is simultaneously significantly lower cost: DuPont was putting an unrealistically high price on the Chinese-made printers because their business model was based on high profit for consumables. This kind of pricing model is not realistic for hardware (as DuPont found out). So the newer Flora printer will be better in most respects, and lower in price, than the ill-fated DuPont version.

RTZ is also working at pushing their F1 180UV, now renamed the F1 180UV Turbo in one place but named Flora F1 180 UV-BA in another place.

FUJIFILM Dimatix

Fujifilm bought Spectra printheads company and bought the Sericol ink company. Sericol was the distributor for Inca Digital flatbed printers. So Fujifilm is promoting several products at DRUPA: printers, inks, and printheads.

The Inca Spyder 320 with an extended ink gamut was exhibited. But there was no Inca Columbia Turbo.

While in the Fujifilm booth I asked around for assistance in learning about the features of this new Spyder 320 printer, but everyone seemed to be away or busy, so I spend my time in other booths where access to inspect the printers was easier (another reason for the sparse coverage here is that the Inca was roped off to prevent access).

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FujiFilm Sericol Inca Spyder 320 UV printer

Sericol FujiFlim Acuity HD 2504 UV printer

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Gandinnovations

Gandinnovations is the major competitor for NUR, VUTEk, and to some degree for Durst. Gandinnovations is the fastest growing wide-format printer manufacturer in the world. Gandinnovations sold more quarter-million dollar grand format inkjet printers than any competitor at DRUPA (combined sales of their three dedicated flatbed UV models, roll-to-roll UV (especially the JetStream), solvent, and AguaJet textile printers).

The Gandinnovations booth is organized with the entire inside open, with tables and chairs. It is like a club of cognosenti (those who know, what’s going on, in this case, those who recognize quality and engineering and features). I personally also like the informal clothing style, since as a professor I am not used to wearing a suit, much less any coat or tie in the classroom.

James Gandy, Hary Gandy, and their capable staff and distributors world wide were all present. I heard a dozen languages being spoken. They exhibited a wide range of printers from solvent to dye sub to UV flatbeds to UV roll-to-roll.

Gandinnovations Jeti 1224 UV printer

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The Jeti 1224 UV NanoJet true flatbed was designed to compete with the Oce Arizona 250 GT, The NanoJet is considerably faster, and priced accordingly.

The Jeti 2030 X-2 UV Continental true flatbed was the other dedicated flatbed UV-curable printer in their booth.

A JetStream roll-to-roll UV printer is aiming to be competitive for the NUR Expedio 5000 Revolution (and it’s new HP Scitex version).

A popular printer at the Gandinnovations booth was the AguaJet, indeed this printed all the decoration for the booth. The brightness and saturation of the colors from the AguaJet exceed the colors of 90% of the textile printers at FESPA Digital a month before (there were hardly any textile printers at DRUPA; the Gandy printer was definitely offering more pop in it’s color gamut than anything at DRUPA on fabrics).

Gandinnovations Jeti 3348 UV JetStream

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GCC Europe B.V.

GCC exhibited their new model StellarJet K100UV, a higher level than the GCC StellarJet 250. The other UV printer in their booth was the StellarJet 183UVK. Note that they switched to KonicaMinolta printheads. The earlier StellarJet 250UV used Xaar printheads.

The GCC booth was in an excellent location, at a corner, and near lots of other key booths, such as Triangle Ink. Their booth was in Hall 8B, which also had Screen, Inca, Mimaki, and other key brands. GCC is a well established company in Taiwan with years of experience making vinyl cutters and CO2 laser engravers. I have spent several days in their factory as well as have visited a successful printshop that uses the GCC StellarJet 250 to print on ceramic tiles.

GCC offers a special primer to print on ceramic tiles that are already fired. It is the best system for having your ink stick to tiles that I have seen anywhere. There is a separate FLAAR Reports on this tile-printing application.

GCC booth

GCC StellarJet K100 UV printer

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Gerber

At VISCOM Italy the Gerber ion was printing most of the time. But at DRUPA, every single analyst and everyone who commented on this printer asked the same questions: “did you see the Gerber printing? It was not printing when I passed by the booth.” The other comment was, “I was told the printer was printing, but I did not see anything moving, so I was unsure.”

This is not FLAAR, this is the comment by people every day who came by the booth. Yes, of course the printer was actually printing, but only a few hours the first several days, and then the rest of the time not as frequently. In distinction the Teckwin TechStorm UV flatbed was successfully printing every day I passed the booth: indeed they had two: one in Xaar’s booth; the other in the booth of Tepede + Teckwin.

The Oce flatbed was printing most of the time every day, and the several Gandinnovations Jeti flatbeds printed from 10 am to 6 pm every single day the entire two weeks. The only other flatbed at DRUPA which did not print was the VUTEk: it moved, but was unable to print (the image on the board was pre-printed to make it appear as the machine was functioning). Even the brand new Meital prototype flatbed printer was faster and more consistently printing than the Gerber ion.

I have never been faced with a printer like the Gerber ion since the Kodak 5260 of 2001-2002. Kodak was in denial the entire time, for two years, until they cancelled it with no fanfare. The difference is that the Gerber ion does function, albeit occasionally, and slowly. There is no indication that Gerber will pull the plug like Kodak did many times (Encad VinylJet, 5260, and eventually pulled the plug on all the other Encad wide format printers, including several that were in development and never exhibited at trade shows).

I missed the demise of the CrystalJet in the 1990’s because in those years I was still working on the Encad NovaJet 36 and early HP models. The CrystalJet failed due to a combination of factors: production and functionality issues with the printheads and politics within Lockheed and politics within Kodak relative to their partners. Gerber is more independent and the only politics would be with KonicaMinolta printheads and the cationic ink issues of these printheads.

What I don’t understand about the Gerber ion is why no one can explain what the issues are relative to it being so slow, and what causes it not to print all day long. There is also the question about to what degree does cationic ink ionize the metal parts inside the printheads. I discuss all these aspects in the FLAAR Reports on the Gerber ion printer (this printer is of sufficient interest that we have an entire report dedicated to it; actually two: a separate additional report on UV ink with a section on cationic ink).

The other question is, that if you have to keep changing the chemistry (ingredients) of the cationic ink to remove it’s propensity to ionize metal inside the printer and in the printheads, are you not also removing precisely the chemicals that give cationic ink its few beneficial features that supposedly make it worthwhile selecting over free radical chemistry? In other words, what is left of cationic ink after it is dumbed down to work inside an actual printer?

After DRUPA a financial report was issued by Gerber that stated only five people placed orders at the show. They also said that several orders placed previously have been cancelled (a fact I also heard independently from other sources). Nonetheless, Gerber has shipped the first 20 or 30 units to distributors and dealers.

Gerber ion UV printer

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This is precisely the scenario for Kodak’s 5260, for Encad’s VinylJet, and for the earlier CrystalJet. They went ahead and actually shipped printers to distributors even though these machines were not totally functional (the Gerber ion functions, but the question is whether it can print all day every day all month all year).

The Gerber ion has the potential to win a Prodigal Printer commendation if it can be demonstrated at SGIA later this year that it is capable of printing 8 hours a day, every day. Since the Gerber ion was only sporadically printing at SGIA last year, and was conspiciously absent in the Spandex booth at FESPA Digital in May 2008, in order to be convinced that this system can handle true production, I need to see two machines: one printing roll-fed eight hours a day; the other printing flatbed eight hours a day. And then to document that two printers actually function in each mode, each printer should switch mode several times a day (to be sure that one machine can handle roll-fed half a day and flatbed the other half).

It is also essential to time the printing of the full bed size, at 100% coverage, at top quality. In other words, how many minutes does it take to print one single board at this size. Period. Other statistics in the PR releases and advertisement specs are meaningless since no one has seen the printer performing anywhere near these figures at any trade show (the performance at VISCOM Italy was the best so far).

Gerber had a new distributor at DRUPA, so Gerber did not exhibit via Spandex (their European distributor for years). Spandex did not have a booth (very few companies that sell consumables exhibited at DRUPA).

I try to find something nice with every printer, so I will say that at least the Gerber ion did print with cationic ink occasionally. Most soothsayers have suggested that cationic ink simply will not work until another year of trial and error and more millions of dollars in testing and tweaking is invested. But KonicaMinolta (the source of both the Gerber printheads and the Gerber ink) showed the same cationic ink functioning with LED lamps! So clearly there is a future for cationic ink. But the questions is, which is better for curing: germicidal-type lamps (that are stationary along the underside of the gantry, not on the carriage) used by Gerber, or LED lamps moving with the carriage (as used by KonicaMinolta). The other question is which is faster: with LED on the carriage or with long fluorescent-like tubes that are fixed in position.

One sample from the Gerber ion was 8-pass, 360x360, on Tyvek, which is not a kind of material you can print on easily with solvent ink. Even with the HP latex ink, Tyvek must be treated first. So here is one potential advantage of cationic UV ink.

The color gamut in the Gerber ion reds was nice on those samples that were printed. Red colors are not always good with other UV inks.

One thing that was obvious the entire two weeks is that several companies at DRUPA 2008 were repeating precisely the scenario that Kodak went through with their flawed model 5260 printer, that Encad faced with their flawed VinylJet, and the same kind of difference between PR releases and reality as the CrystalJet faced a decade ago.

It seems that several companies exhibiting at DRUPA either are not aware of these three printers that failed or are experimenting with defying reality, as if by merely continuing to issue favorable PR reports that this will somehow make an incomplete and unfinished and flawed printer design or ink chemistry all of a sudden work when the printer is unpacked at a customer site.

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Gerber ion UV printer

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Hewlett-Packard: former ColorSpan

Of the series that was formerly ColorSpan, • ColorSpan 5440uv is now HP Designjet H35100 • ColorSpan 5460uv is now HP Designjet H35500 • ColorSpan 5445uv is now HP Designjet H45100 • ColorSpan 5465uv is now HP Designjet H45500Only one of the models was shown.

The ColorSpan 9840uv is now the HP Scitex FB910 and one of these was exhibited too. This is a combo-style design (moving transport belt). At DRUPA there were a host of diverse other models in this popular style: Durst Rho, Screen Truepress 2500, GCC K100uv, among others.

Crowded booths in the HP area

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Hewlett-Packard: former NUR

Now the NUR Expedio 5000 and NUR Revolution are the HP Scitex XP5100 and HP Scitex XP 5300. At two-pass mode the Revolution was producing 105 sq meters an hour at 360 dpi with no significant banding at this speed.

The NUR Expedio 3200 and NUR Expedio Inspiration are the HP Scitex XP2100 and XP2700.

The NUR Tempo Q is now the HP Scitex FB6100.

One of each series of these was on exhibit. The XP2700 was doing nicely with the adaptor for flat and rigid material.

The quality of the NUR Tempo was improved in the sense of less banding (feeding issue formerly) and less edge splatter (visible in the past on text over white background or two adjacent contrasting colors). Downside of the NUR Tempo is it being one of the venerable printers at the show, since otherwise the lifespan of a UV printer, technologically, is not much more than two, or at most three, years. This is a polite way of saying that most other UV printers have newer technology. The positive feature of the HP Scitex FB6100 is that it can handle roll-fed and rigid materials both. In this sense its competitor would be the Oce Arizona 250 GT, which has significantly finer print quality because the Oce uses newer printheads that were not available when the NUR Tempo was first developed.

Since the Scitex Vision VEEjet+ disappeared without any replacement, the FB6100 is the replacement for this year.

HP Scitex XP 2700 UV printer

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Hewlett-Packard: former Scitex Vision

The HP Scitex XL2200 disappeared without a trace after being announced in Barcelona in September 2006 and being proudly exhibited at SGIA 2007.

The Scitex Vision VEEJet+ disappeared without a trace already almost two years ago.

My favorite Scitex Vision printer, the CORjet (HP Scitex FB6700), was not exhibited at DRUPA since its size would have occupied too much space. But the UV version of the TURBOjet was exhibited (HP Scitex TJ8500). What I especially like about this printer is its cutter (from Fotoba).

FLAAR has no report on either the FB6700 or the TJ8500. As soon as a demo room visit is possible, evaluations could be initiated. As a professor of inkjet printing I am especially interested in both these printers, which I consider to be the best of the Scitex Vision technology. We would then need to inspect each printer on-site (a site-visit case study). But since so many other manufacturers are asking for evaluations, we are quite busy elsewhere in the world.

HP Scitex TJ 8500 UV printer

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Konica Minolta

There were two Konica Minolta booths: one was for copiers; the Konica Minolta printheads were in Hall 4. In this booth KM exhibited a prototype printer using cationic ink with LED lamps. It is noteworthy that virtually all industry analysts have stated that neither cationic ink nor LED lamps were mature enough technologies to function adequately. The sad performance record for the Gerber ion substantiates the difficulty of working with cationic ink. Raster Printers tried to use LED lamps for curing, and gave up, switching back to traditional mercury arc lamps.

Konica Minolta has patents for LED curing with cationic ink. Gerber claims “patent pending” on its long “flourescent-like” UV curing lamps for curing cationic ink with a lamp from the world of germicidal UV chemistry. Thus it remains to be seen how other players will get into this market, though LED curing is used by so many companies that clearly it requires more than one single patent to protect innovations by any single company.

Konica Minolta KMIJ X Printer

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Matan Digital Printers

Matan had a well-situated booth on a popular aisle in a good size and shape for their Barak 5 roll to roll printer. This machine was strategically situated alongside a well-traveled aisle in a huge hall that also featured HP, Canon, and Agfa. The booth personnel and managers were friendly and greeted people with information. I mention this because in too many other booths a visitor did not always find anyone to answer questions. I especially appreciate when booth personnel interact with the students that I bring.

Matan now has additional personnel absorbed from the takeover of NUR by HP. Former NUR managers are now working for dozens of other companies, though about half the NUR personnel have remained with HP.

The Matan Barak 5 and the Matan Barak 3 were both on exhibit in the same hall as the HP NUR and HP Scitex printers. Both Barak printers can accept a flatbed table (on wheels). So this is the only 5-meter dedicated roll-to-roll printer that can also take flat and rigid materials. The NUR Expedio Innovation can take flat material via an innovative add-on system, but normally, roll-fed printers are best for roll to roll usage.

The Matan Barak 5 is fast, as fast if not faster than the NUR Expedio Revolution and the Gandinnovations JetStream. The Matan Barak 5 offers 316 sq meters per hour (3340 sq feet per hour) with CMYK. They can print an entire 50-meter roll in 45 minutes! The samples in the photographs were using Ultraflex Normandy Pro. The UV ink is also good for printing on

• Tyvek • PVC banner for billboards (including recyclable PVC) • Blueback paper for billboards • Mesh for building wrap • Backlit material

Whereas all 5-meter roll-fed printers can take multiple rolls, for the Matan the multi-roll slots are already present on the chassis, so loading is easier.

• 32-printhead model is 350,000 Euros • 16-printhead model 5 is 300,000 Euros • 3-meter Barak 3 is 250,000 Euros.

Students from the University of Ljubljana receiving information about the Matan Barak 3

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Meital

The Meital 3000-10 flatbed printer is the first of the many brands which has used the concept of “Digital Press” to be actually a realistic digital press concept. All the other printers that have put on the moniker of digital press have simply been another inkjet printer: back and forth, back and forth, one pass after another (with eight passes required to make acceptable quality for close-viewing for POP signage or backlit).

The Meital printer deserves special attention for two reasons: first, Meital accomplishes attractive prints with the widest print swath of any printer under a million dollars. Second, this flatbed has one bed for loading while the other bed is printing. Although I did not see this aspect on the prototype in the booth, it documents how many new features are possible to improve throughput. Remember, if you are loading and unloading your printer, your production speed is ZERO square meters per hour.

Meital is the manufacturer, One Solution, www.aUniquePartner.com, is the distributor out of Belgium. Both companies include key people from NUR2. Meital is owned and staffed by NUR employees from Israel; One Solution is staffed by people from NUR’s former office in Belgium.

2During the sale of NUR to HP in December 2007-January 2008, many key engineers and managers left NUR and either formed their own companies or moved to other wide-format printer companies. For example, the head of NUR in North America is now at Matan.

Meital 3000-10 flatbed printer

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Mimaki Europe B.V.

When the Mimaki UJF-605CII came out several years ago, it was welcomed as being one of the few high quality UV printers. But today, in 2008, there are several printers with comparable quality (at lower price), and there is another printer at significantly better quality (Screen 650). Plus we have received a long list of issues with the original version of the 605C from a printshop in Australia. Although I would hope that the issues of the initial model have been corrected by the “II” upgrade, the fact that the customer in Australia feels abandoned is not a good indicator for tech support policies3.

The main flatbed of Mimaki was shown only in it’s smaller size. The sucesss of the Oce Arizona 250 GT has pretty well taken over the market for flatbeds under $150,000; Gandinnovations probably holds over 75% of the market for dedicated flatbeds in the quarter-million dollar range, with Inca holding the rest. The GRAPO Manta has few distributors, so sales are correspondingly modest, but at least I don’t hear of reports of issues with the GRAPO flatbed. Either way, between Oce, Gandy, Grapo, and Inca, it is tough for the Mimaki JF-1631 to increase market share without having features that set it apart.

On the Mimaki flatbed, at least on the JF-1631, in the past it had heat issues, vacuum table issues, etc. So until we can inspect it both in a demo center and at a customer site (a site-visit case study), we focus more on the Oce, since I know several customers personally who have bought a second of the Oce. People don’t buy a second one if the first one is unusable! Besides, the Oce+Fujifilm have sold over 700 units by this summer.

3To be fair to both sides, the main issue in Australia is that tech support people are rarely factory trained (due to the distance and cost). We receive more information on lack of tech support from Australia than from any other part of the world: on all brands of printers, not just Mimaki

Mimaki booth

Mimaki UJV 160 LED UV printer

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Mimaki was also exhibiting their roll-fed version of the UJF-605R series, as well as several solvent printers (which we cover in another FLAAR Report).

What was of most interest in the Mimaki booth was their LED-cured UV hybrid printer, at a breakthrough price of 40,000 Euros. If this printer can be finished, and if it does not have issues, deficiencies, or problems, this new Mimaki UJV-160UV printer has the chance to win market share that was previously held by the Gerber Solara (which actually sold several hundred units) and the ColorSpan 5440uv series (which sold over 300 units before HP took it over and implemented the improvements that ColorSpan was working on to overcome earlier issues).

Since the Mimaki UV printer is 40,000 Euros, and the Mutoh Zephyr is 100,000 Euros, this is significant competition. And, the Gerber Solara is pretty much out of the running by now, since in 2008 too many other choices are available.

Lots of “ifs” though, since the Mimaki JV5 took over two years to mature (had ink drying problems for it’s first two years). The JV33 solvent printer also had ink drying problems. The JF- uv series had the problems already listed (heat, vacuum table, among the most serious). It is unexpected for a capable engineering firm with decades of experience in making printers to have this recent track record. This has enabled Roland and Mutoh to take over the solvent printer market that was once held by the Mimaki JV3 (until the Seiko ColorPainter 64S became #1 best seller in it’s size and price class).

So I hope the Mimaku LED UV printer has a launch and beta period with no issues. So far there is no FLAAR Report on any recent Mimaki printer, neither UV nor solvent, since beginning in 2007 we no longer do our evaluations at trade shows: only at demo room, factory, or site-visit case studies.

Mimaki UJF 605RII UV printer

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Mutoh Europe NV

What I admire about Mutoh Europe is their honesty: other companies try to claim that their hybrid or combo printers will handle all flat and rigid materials. Mutoh Europe, in notable distinction, states clearly that their hybrid printer is intended primarily for roll-to-roll materials. The problems with feeding flat rigid material through a hybrid are best exemplified by the ColorSpan 5440uv series; end-users report issues with some flat materials. So it is refreshing to see Mutoh not claiming it will print on everything you toss onto the table.Yes, it will take some flat and rigid materials when you add a table at front and back, but this style of printer is not a dedicated flatbed. Indeed the UV inks selected by Mutoh are primarily for roll-to-roll materials.

Other companies blissfully ignore that some of these materials require a primer, others don’t adhere well, or have surface abrasion issues.

This printer is designed and built at Mutoh Europe in Oostende, Belgium. This is the same factory that produces the successful Mutoh Rockhopper 3 Extreme, Spitfire Extreme and comparable solvent printers that achieved success in part due to the capabilities of Intelligent Interweaving software.

Since the Mutoh Zephyr printer is new, there is not yet any FLAAR Report on it. But we do have FLAAR Reports on most other entry-level printers especially for franchise printshops and family owned printshops that seek their first UV printer, such as LexJet Legend or Raster Printers Daytona or the Teckwin Teckstorm when they realice that a dedicated flatbed has advantages for flat and rigid materials.

Mutoh is also intelligent not to release their Zephyr until it is fully ready. Any UV printer that is released prematurely, and stutters or balks or is unconvincing, then later it is hard to convince people that it really works, since there are plenty of printers already available from IP&I, Dilli, Agfa, Teckwin, that work just fine and are ready now, today.

Mutoh booth

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Oce

Oce exhibited it’s Arizona 250 GT and announced the Arizona 200, a lower priced version. The Oce 250 printer was functioning every day.

The Oce Arizona 250 GT has been popular but has two or three issues and is missing one key feature that is readily available on competing printers.

Oce had a brochure on an “Arizona 200” which is a more entry level. But with fewer printheads (if that is what the price difference is based on), it will be so slow as to be perhaps too slow.

The purchasing officers of one group of printshops came to DRUPA to ask FLAAR to assist them in preparing a short-list to purchase 18 mid-range UV flatbeds and one high-end flatbed. So I took them to the booths of Oce, Gerber, Gandy, Durst, Raster Printers, etc. Based on the information that they received, they asked their printer operators which of the printers would they prefer: the answer back, “we prefer a UV printer with white ink.”

A printshop in Australia sent e-mails every two days while I was at DRUPA to ask me to find a high-quality yet speedy UV flatbed printer: their main requirement (other than quality and reasonable speed) was white ink.

A company that makes musical instruments asked FLAAR to help them make a short list: they had to print on plastics, on leather, and on other materials. Their main requirement: quality, and an ink that would not crack on the leather. They said tests from a Mimaki UV printer was okay with quality but the ink cracked when you bent the leather. They also will ask for white ink.

A company in the US telephoned while I was at DRUPA to ask me to help them refine their short list: they needed a UV printer but its quality had to be enough to distinguish them from the output of rival printshops.

So clearly white ink is requested by many (but not all) printshow owners. Whether they use white after they have it is a different question, but the point is that they ask for white up front.

For all of these printshop owners and managers we provided FLAAR Reports in order to assist them making their decisions.

Raster Printers

Raster Printers exhibited itheir flatbed Daytona T600uv printer in the back of the VUTEk (EFI) booth. Unless you knew they were there, and unless you persevered, you would not have lnoticed this printer was present.

The Raster Printers machine was printing nicely every single day. The colors and image quality were gorgeous. I would rate the overall print quality as among the best at DRUPA, with only the half-million dollar Screen 650 being better (it costs half a million dollars; the Raster Printers costs under $90,000 in the US). The T600uv achieves its quality with MEMS printheads from Spectra. The only other wide-format UV printer in the world with the same heads is the Virtu HD8 from L&P (with a price tag of over $300,000). So the Daytona T600uv is a fair price for quality comparable to these more expensive systems.

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Raster Printers Daytona T600 UV printer

There was another Raster Printers Daytona T600uv in the booth of their German distributor.

Since Raster Printers shared a booth with EFI and VUTEk, their second model (made by RTZ in China) was not exhibited. The original Chinese version, the Flora F1 180, was across the aisle and around the corner in the nearby RTZ booth.

Screen Europe

Dainippon Screen had a giant booth adjacent to that of Fujifilm. Fujifilm was in turn adjacent to Xerox. In other words, each printer company was close to their partners.

The Screen Truepress jet650UV is a dedicated flatbed and could be considered potentially the highest quality UV printer in the world. It costs about half a million dollars. DRUPA 2008 was the first time the model 650UV has been shown at a printer tradeshow outside of Japan. The printer weighs almost two tons (when you include the support units which are alongside the main printer). Although they are selling this printer already in Japan (mainly to replace the smaller Mimaki UJF 605CII), the primary purpose of Screen in exhibiting the model 650 is more as a technology display to reveal the quality their company is capable of producing.

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If you are a printshop owner, manager, or purchasing agent, the best way to learn about the difference between one printer and another is to visit the factories and demo rooms of each manufacturer on your short list.

I have been to the factory of Spuhl, and wow, they really offer features in their combo printer that simply are not available on the any VUTEk combo printer.

I have spent a week at the factories of Durst (Brixen and Lienz) and have seen their entire manufacturing process. Very impressive. Although I have known Durst since I first saw their fledgling UV printer at DRUPA 2000 and Photokina 2000, my impressive of their capabilities changed after seeing how the printers were designed and manufactured.

I have not yet seen the factory of Screen, nor their demo room in Japan, but I estimate that I will see a level of capability equal to that of Spuhl and Durst.

Durst welcomes printshop owners and managers to their factories. I would guess that Spuhl would also. I would recommend visiting these companies if you seek a high end combo system.

Screen booth

There were two model Truepress jet2500UV Screen combo printers in the booth of Screen. I would rate them as among the more sophisticated combo-style UV printers (with the Durst Rho, L&P Virtu, and Spuhl Virtu being of comparable build-quality). This is a polite way of saying these printers are significantly more impressive from an engineering and physical structural aspect than 90% of the other combo-style UV printers of other brands. Other combo-style printers in the top category would be Durst, L&P Virtu, and Spuhl Virtu. The latter two printers were at ISA and FESPA Digital respectively, but not at DRUPA.

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Screen Truepress Jet 650 UV

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In past years companies that had simple combo style UV printers (with a moving transport belt) sold hundreds of their models. But today, in 2008, it will take more than a brand name that was famous ten years ago to sell a combo printer. Today Durst, L&P, Spuhl and Screen have developed, designed, and manufactured a higher level of sophistication that is something worth seeing.

Screen Truepress Jet 650 UV

Sun LLC

The Sun Neo LED Evolution printer was fully functional and produced a diverse range of print samples with LED UV curing lamps. Sun LLC has been a leader in the development of LED lamps for UV curing. Remember that in 2007 most people said that LED lights would not work; yet at DRUPA 2008, many companies were already exhibiting printers that used LED lamps. And at least four more companies will launch LED-curing UV printers by SGIA ’08 or ISA ’09. Sun has already sold 76 units before DRUPA. TechnoPlot will distribute these printers in the German language area of Europe.

Sun LLC is a large company, with offices throughout Russia and neighboring countries. The booth of Sun LLC was in an excellent location, near Durst in hall 7ª. The booth was popular both for end-users (printshop owners and managers) and many managers from industry who were curious to see LED UV curing lamps that were

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obviously fully functional. The Neo UV-LED Evolution can handle rigid material up to 20 cm thick (that’s 8 inches) and uses a 14 picoliter drop printhead from KonicaMinolta for high quality. Color gamut is good, especially in cyans and reds (most other UV inks are poor in reds, being either too magenta or too orange).

A unique feature on the Sun printer is that in any of four different positions (several on the front, several on the back) you can plug in an electronic controller to operate certain aspects of the printer.

Sun Neo UV Led printed samples

Teckwin

Teckwin is correctly listed under Shanghai Teckwin Development Co., Ltd. Actually there were two booths with Teckwin printers: Shanghai Teckwin with Tepede in Hall 3, and in the Xaar booth in Hall 4. Each booth had the dedicated flatbed, the Teckwin TeckStorm, printing every time I passed the booth, every day. The prints were on a diverse range of materials. I rate this as the first dedicated Chinese flatbed UV-curable printer that appears reliable enough to submit to evaluation.

Notice that I mention for most printer brands whether or not they were physically printing during the show. It is a habit of other companies to exhibit prototypes from their engineering labs or experiments. These experiments are not finished, and in most cases do not print an entire day during the show, either because they have issues, or because they are simply physically not yet finished. There were two brands of printers at DRUPA in these categories: none were Chinese. In fact the UV printers made-in-China printed better and more hours-per-day than several brands of printers made in the US.

This statement is the best way to provide a polite notice that printers made in China are now reaching the same level of capability as printers made in other countries.

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Teckwin booth

Of the two units exhibited, the one at the Tepede-Teckwin booth had a hood; the one in the Xaar booth had no hood. The lack of a hood to protect from damaging your eyes and to minimize spread of misted raw UV ink on the Oce 250 is one of it’s major deficiencies (other than it being so slow). A protective hood on the Teckwin flatbed alone gives this printer advantages over competing brands.

The present TeckStorm bed measures 1.22 m by 2.44 m.The next generation TeckStorm flatbed will be 2x3 meters.

Teckwin TeckStorm at DRUPA booth

Teckwin booth

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Teckwin Teck Storm

The Teckwin TeckStorm is the best dedicated flatbed printer yet produced by any country in Asia. This printer offers white, so can compete

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Triangle (INX)

The parent company, INX, had a large booth that included MegaInk. The Triangle booth was half a kilometer away in Hall 8b. The UV printer ithat Triangle exhibits is the Neolt, rebranded as the Triangle Milano.

The Triangle booth also exhibited a laboratory printer using LED curing lamps from Summit.

INX is also owner of ISI, a printer manufacturer who make solvent printers as well as the Raster Printers T600UV flatbed.

Triangle makes inks for most solvent printers, especially for the Seiko ColorPainter 64S and 100S. Triangle also is the source of the excellent UV ink for the DuPont Cromaprint 22uv (the ink was one of the few aspects of this printer that actually functioned, indeed its color gamut was excellent). Triangle booth presenting the evolve of LED printer

Triangle Milano

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VUTEK (part of EFI)

VUTEk exhibited their QS3200r, a dedicated roll-to-roll machine introduced last year. This QS3200r would definitely be recommended over the two Chinese attempts at producing a roll-to-roll UV printer. But the NUR Expedio 5000 is larger and faster, the NUR Expedio Inspiration is more agile (can also do flat rigid material), and the Gandinnovations JetStream as well as the new Matan Barak 5 are also faster than the VUTEk. Plus Spuhl is about to introduce a dedicated roll-to-roll printer. So it is not surprising that only a few of the QS3200r printers have been sold.

VUTEk was previously lacking a dedicated flatbed, and the question has been asked, that since EFI had financial problems late last year and early 2008, resulting in people being laid off, whether they have the investment capital to develop a completely new platform. At present most other VUTEk printers are constructed on a common platform (a polite way of saying that most of the “new” printers use components from previous models).

But to build a dedicated flatbed, there is no earlier VUTEk platform available. They would need to design and build a completely new and different machine. So far (at ISA 2008, for example) this dedicated flatbed has been noticeably absent. At DRUPA, however, VUTEk introduced a flatbed concept. This flatbed also confirmed the reality that the days of combo style UV printers were numbered. Durst Rho has taken over the market for sophisticated combo style UV flatbed printers. L&P Virtu in the US, Screen in Japan, and Spuhl VIrtu in Switzerland also have combo style printers that offer so many features and capabilities that are better than US-made brands of combo style printers.

In short, in order to regain market share lost by declining sales of combo style printers, VUTEk also realized that it needed to produce a dedicated flatbed printer to survive.

At DRUPA they showed a non-functioning prototype named “DS Series”. It was cleverly rigged to pretend that it was actually printing. But the image on the flatbed was pre-printed back in their lab, not on the machine they showed at DRUPA. The machine at DRUPA was not capable of printing; it was capable only of moving the table back and forth.

During the two weeks at DRUPA I spoke with over 200 people; obviously not all 200 about the VUTEk, but several told me they were not told the printer was not printing. Half the people I asked about the VUTEk (colleagues, etc), half said they thought the printer was fully functional and had no idea it was only a “concept car.” Sorry, but this is the public opinion. People were aghast to learn it had a pseudo print on top, only pretending it was printing at those speeds.

More than 50% of the people who visited the VUTEk booth said they were not told the printer was not really printing; they said they felt disillusioned and were very surprised that any company would

stage a fake image

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VUTEk preferred not to identify the printheads being used, so as a courtesy we will not name them.

VUTEk also exhibited one of their combo-style QS series UV flatbeds. They sold several hundred over the last two years (which is a good number, but today there is increasing competition and sales are diminishing noticeably).

VUTEk displayed their solvent printer that can switch over from solvent ink to a solvent based textile ink. HP Scitex also has a similar printer that allows you to easily switch ink.

For years VUTEk has sold printers because they carry the VUTEk brand name. This brand name has been a symbol for a good basic solvent-based grand format machine.

But the world of UV printers is different: there are lower-priced combo printers from GCC, Dilli, and IP&I. There are more sophisticated combo printers from the other brands we have mentioned already. So although people who buy solely by brand name still at least consider VUTEk, people who weigh the features, people who visit the factories of Durst, Spuhl, L&P, or Screen are switching to those brands: and hundreds of buyers are jumping to a dedicated flatbed of either Oce or Gandy.

This is not FLAAR or Nicholas Hellmuth saying this, what is in this report is the consensus of dozens and dozens of people in the industry. That is why our trade show reports carry the moniker “Trends”.

If the new DS flatbed of VUTEk can actually function by the time of SGIA ’08, and can be delivered by the time of ISA ’09, then VUTEk can rescue itself, because neither Gandy nor HP nor really Inca has anything similar (at least not yet). But VUTEk is experimenting with a printhead for the DS that is not used in any other UV printer today or yesterday, and is trying a pseudo one-pass mechanical system that is also new.

If Meital gets its model 3000-10 ready by SGIA ’08 and finished by the time of ISA ’09, this will be the only competition that will be able to compete with the VUTEk (if the QS works acceptably). The Meital flatbed was the most impressive flatbed printer technology at DRUPA for one simple reason: it could actually print, and in seconds.

Don’t worry that the Meital has a table size that is not huge; the giant table size of the Luscher proved to be a completely wrong idea: bigger is not better in the world of UV printers, as the Agfa-Thieme proved and as the Inca Onset may prove also. In other words, you might be better off with a row of three Meital printers than one single million dollar machine. Besides, with Meital you can start with one and work your way up: buy a second, then buy a third.

VUTEk QS2000 UV printer

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Efi VUTEk flatbed UV printer

VUTEk boothStudents from University of Ljubljana receiving information from VUTEk representative.

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Exhibited Off-Site

Two UV printers were exhibited off-site: one was reportedly a three-hour round trip. Since there was plenty to see at the Messe Dusseldorf, I did not have time to take such long trips. If they could have arranged an evening visit, that would have been easier, and if there was a way to get from their off-site location back to where I was staying near Mulheim an der Ruhr, then I could have made time in the evening. But there was only transportation back to some parking lot at DRUPA, so the trip was impratical.

The other UV printer was a bit closer, but I was discretely told that it was still not fully finished, so I decided it was not worth the visit simply to say that another 3-million dollar UV printer was not fully finished. I already said that in my FLAAR Report on this printer over a year ago.

Conspicuous by their Absence

3M

3M tried to get into the UV business four years ago by first offering UV ink for the then new L&P Virtu. But printshops that tried the ink said it was not very good. Then it turned out that 3M was unable to market the Virtu printer adequately, so L&P took over marketing and switched to another brand of UV-curable ink.

By 2007 3M was trying to get back into the UV ink business, this time by offering flexible inks for ColorSpan and other brands. This new ink is reportedly better than earlier attempts.

Also for the last several years 3M has quietly been offering a special version of the old Durst Rho 160 as the 160R (for roll-fed). For 2008 a new version has been launched, with a special ink for printing on traffic signs. I inspected this printer at the Durst factory in Brixen.

But so far, this machine has not been exhibited at any normal signage show: so not at FESPA, not at SGIA or ISA, and not at DRUPA 2008 either.

DuPont

DuPont had a large booth but no more UV printers from China.

DYSS

DYSS exhibited at ISA 2008 and SGIA 2007 but was not at DRUPA.

IP&I

IP&I was present at FESPA Digital and at ISA earlier in 2008, so this company is very much present on the scene, despite not being at DRUPA 2008.

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Keundo

I did not see any Keundo UV or solvent printer, nor any Colormy booth. But the CEO of Keundo was at DRUPA.

Legget & Platt Spuhl Virtu

Spuhl was present at FESPA Digital in Geneva one month before DRUPA so anyone who specifically wished to look at these impressive UV printers had an opportunità at FESPA. L&P Digital Technologies, the parent company in America, exhibited at ISA 2008, about two months before DRUPA. So these two partners are alive and well despite neither being at DRUPA. Indeed I visited the Spuhl factory the day after FESPA: very impressive.

Luscher

Luscher had an exhibit of other products but abandoned UV-cured flatbed printers over a year ago. It would be worth seeing if the unfortunate printshops who made the mistake of buying a Luscher flatbed printer in previous years have also been abandoned.

Neolt

Neolt was not present at all. Their printer, rebranded as a Milano from Triangle, was in the Triangle booth in Hall 9.

Roland

Roland has had experimental UV prototypes for almost three years now. By delaying, the market shares have been taken over by Dilli, Agfa, IP&I, ColorSpan, and now Teckwin and Raster Printers are gearing up for more market share. LexJet Legend 72HUV (although not exhibited at most trade shows) is aiming straight at franchise sign shops, previously the major users of Roland (and Mimaki) solvent printers. This is a brief way of saying that by the time Roland comes out with anything, half their normal customers will already have another brand.

At many trade shows Roland shows their UV printer behind closed doors. But that does not help because the above-mentioned competitor printers are shown at their booths openly.

Tampoprint

At DRUPA in the past Tampoprint exhibited Mimaki-based flatbed printers that used solvent inks to print on objects as large as metal cabinets. But at DRUPA 2008, none of their DMD large format flatbed series of printers was exhibited.

Roland booth

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Only Anhui Liyu, Flora, and Teckwin exhibited Chinese-made UV printers. The Teckwin flatbed, the TeckStorm, was in two booths and was printing capabily every day in each booth.

Skyship-Air, Yishan, and a dozen other manufacturers of UV printers were not present at DRUPA (due to the high cost of a booth, plus the high cost of hotels for booth managers and attendants. Most hotels were $300 a night for a place up to an hour away; local hotels were up to $600, per night.

Chinese UV printers

What to be aware of

Several of the printed images were still wet to the touch. In other words, not all the UV lamps are fully curing the ink. The output of the Liyu Eureka UV printer was a good example of ink that was still tacky.

Some Sample Prices for UV printers

The HP Scitex TURBOjet (UV version) is 600,000 Euros. For comparison, a solvent ink competitor is the Chroma, at 480,000 Euros. Chroma sold at least two units during DRUPA.

The HP Scitex XP5300, with “show special” is 480,000 Euros.

NUR, ex Inspiration, base price with no options, is 350,000 Euros. Table for flat and rigid materials is 70,000 Euros; multi-roll option is 7,000 Euros, and double-sided option is 15,000 Euros

The Screen Truepress jet650UV is about half a million dollars. Despite it’s cost it is reportedly replacing primarily the Mimaki UJF-605CII. The RasterPrinters dedicated flatbed, with Spectra MEMS printheads and white ink, is also gaining market share at a price well under 90,000 Euros.

The first production hybrid UV printer with LED lamps that is out of alpha stage and out of beta stage too, the Neo UV-LED Evolution is 99,000 Euros.

The Agfa :Anapurna XLS is 235,000 Euros.

The Durst Rho 320R is 325,000 Euros. The Durst Rho 700 is 300,000 Euros.

The dedicated roll-to-roll Matan printer prices are (would need to check if this includes the roller-tables to handle flat and rigid materials) • 32-printhead Barak 5 is 350,000 Euros • 16-printhead Barak 5 is 300,000 Euros • 3-meter Barak 3 is 250,000 Euros.

Teckwin TeckStorm Chinese UV printer

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Printheads for UV Printers

Xaar had a large and popular booth. They exhibited the Teckwin Teckstorm dedicated UV-curable flatbed printer. This printer uses Xaar 760 printheads, as does the Mutoh Zephyr. The Xaar 1001 printhead was successfully printing in the large-format Meital dedicated flatbed machine. Clearly there is a turn-around in the usage of Xaar printheads.

The FLAAR Reports on UV printheads lists which printheads are in which printers; lists all major printhead manufacturers including those used in the new VUTEk pseudo one-pass dedicated flatbed printer.

XAAR booth Students from University of Ljubljana receiving information from Wolfgang Hey of Tepede (Teckwin)

KonicaMinolta had two booths: one for their normal copiers and office printers, and a separate booth in a different hall for their printheads. The printhead booth included a hybrid printer using cationic inks and LED curing lamps.

Fujifilm Dimatix Spectra had a popular booth that was visited by industry managers as well as by curious end-users. Spectra is clearly the prestige brand.

Toshiba Tec printheads were in one section of the Toshiba booth.

Seiko did not have any noticeable printhead presence in their printer booth. Brother, Panasonic, Kyocera, and the printheads used in other UV printers lacked a booth.

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Ink for UV-curable Inkjet Printers

Sun, Sakata INX, Fujifilm (Sericol). Toyo and Triangle all had major booths.

Hexion, Marabu and several other ink companies were also present. Collins seems to have dropped out of UV at present. Van Son has also diminished their products for wide-format inkjet and don’t have any current offerings for UV-cured inkjet inks.

The FLAAR Reports on inks for UV-curable flatbed and UV-cured roll-to-roll printers lists all known ink companies around the world that make reliable UV ink for wide-format printers. So we provide details in this separate report, which is being updated with material from DRUPA.

Sakata Inx booth

The booth of Toyo had exciting material and dramatic displays. The booth of Triangle had plenty to study, so I visited there almost every day, and brought several key clients there as well. The Triangle Milano hybrid UV printer was on exhibit (made by Neolt in Italy) but more intriguing was the LED-cured single-pass (narrow format) test printer in the back, with LED curing by Summit UV (Mario Carluccio and his team). Triangle ink company has been on the rise for the last several years, both in UV, solvent, and other inks. I have visited their headquarters near Silicon Valley in California and look forward to learning more about their products in the future.

Thermo-formed ink samples were shown in the booths of Gandinnovations, Hexion, and Durst Rho. Mimaki tends to exhibit heat-formed prints as well, but even with two weeks I could not see what was in every display cabinet at every booth.

Durst had an excellent “Ink Booklet”, with 27 pages of information and documentation.

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XY Cutters for Thick and Rigid Materials

The word Zund is symonymous with XY flatbed cutters. There was a Zund flatbed cutter in at least four or more key booths in the major inkjet printer halls: in the Screen both, for example, and in the Oce booth (rebranded as the Oce ProCut). So when FLAAR initiated a project to test flatbed cutters for museum signage, it was Zund that hosted our visit to their factory for two days testing. For our FLAAR Reports on XY cutters we focus on this experience with Zund cutters.

The present Zund cutters are a third generation, with the model designation 3G.

Aristo had their own booth for their German-made flatbed cutters. I have not previously noticed this brand, especially not at ISA or SGIA. If they exhibited at FESPA, I simply did not notice them. This is what happens when a brand is not known. When you think of flatbed cutters the synonym is simply Zund and Kongsberg (both at the high end).

Teckwin now has an OEM agreement with AXYZ of Canada to sell their equipment rebranded as the TeckRouter. One of these XY routers was in the booth of Teckwin/Tepede in Hall 3, next to the TeckStorm dedicated flatbed printer.

When I ask any person with experience with grand format printers, about flatbed cutters, the only two brands on their short list are Zund and Kongsberg.

When you think of tissues for your nose, the word Kleenex is synonymous. When you think of a copier, the word “Xerox” is synonymous. “Please xerox this letter for me” is more common than “copy this letter for me.” And no one would say , “Please Canon this letter for me.” Since Zund is what I see in most printshops, and since Zund is what I first knew, it is taking a while to learn about Kongsberg (part of Esko Artwork).

Mimaki did not show its cutter nor did Gerber (Spandex did not exhibit at all).

Fotoba makes trimmers and cutters, not flatbed systems (and not for thick rigid materials). Fotoba has selected a niche market and does an excellent job in these applications, primarily as an add-on for the HP Scitex TURBOjet, especially the UV version. 80 TURBOjet machines have the Fotoba cutter included (probably a mix of the solvent version and the newer UV version).

Zund cutters booth

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Teckwin TECKRouter M1530 cutter

Zund XL 1200 cutter

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DRUPA compared with FESPA, SGIA, and ISA

DRUPA provides a kind of adreneline that is simply not available elsewhere. It is the biggest, but many people commented that although “big” it was by no means the “best” in terms of visitor experiences. This is my third DRUPA.

Exhorbitant hotel costs were the most frequent comment, followed by the fact that the city did not have enough hotels to begin with. Most people had to stay up to an hour away, and waste two hours every day going back and forth on subway, tram, or trains that were over-stuffed with regular German commuters. Here SGIA and ISA are so much better there is no comparison. ISA alternates between Orlando and Las Vegas, and hotels are easy to obtain, close by, and at reasonable cost. Even FESPA in Geneva was better situated than DRUPA in Duesseldorf. In Geneva I could stay within walking distance (albeit about 45 minutes each way), at a price that I felt acceptable.

A nice aspect of Duesseldorf, however, is that the city is safe; I would not put Atlanta’s downtown area in this category at all, especially not at night.

DRUPA halls were poorly organized, with the worst aspect being the mish-mash of unrelated printer technologies in the same halls. Hall 5 was a good example. You had to hike to Hall 15 to see Eastech, or to Hall 3 to see Teckwin.

Halls 8a and 8b were appropriate, since almost everything in those halls was related to inkjet printing, or was at least understandable why they were in those halls.

Hall 7 (7.0) was so confusing I never saw half the compagnie that were there. They should have had people handing out hall-maps at each entrance every day.

Inadequate information on which companies were in each hall: the lists were posted only at one or two doors in each hall, and even these were hard to find. There is no excuse for this.

Every printer manufacturer, other members of the Press, as well as printshop owners who came to DRUPA to look at printers to purchase all commented about the inappropriate mixture of unrelated technology in each hall. Most people also added that FESPA did much better. At FESPA Germany for example, I could find all wide-format inkjet printer compagnie in two or three halls. This meant I could skip the halls with screen-printing equipment. This resulted in missing DYSS, which was a UV printer made by a company that otherwise made only screen-printing machines, but in general FESPA organizes their halls much better than DRUPA.

But the more serious issue with DRUPA was the exhorbitant cost of a booth. Plus the show sold out, so several compagnies could not exhibit. Thus for the end-user, not all the pertinent compagnies were present. Here again, SGIA, ISA, and FESPA are better.

For 2008 FESPA was very daring not only to exhibit in a “DRUPA year” but even to exhibit in the same month. Most people predicted that attendance would be low. But actually attendance at FESPA Digital in Geneva was acceptable, and there were plenty of exhibitors.

On the positive side of DRUPA, each booth was clearly labeled as to it’s aisle and booth number, nicely posted on a column so it was easy to see. Too many other trade shows have booth numbers on the floor. In most cases these numbers are covered by carpeting or simply missing.

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Booth Politics

One booth attendant made it quite clear that he had no intention of answering questions of any student during the regular show hours. He said he could speak to students only after the show closed. I noticed that his booth was relatively empty when we passed by, so there was no excuse for not making the effort to assist students. Obviously we thereafter skipper this booth, and did not waste our time photographing their products (which in any event were peripheral; this was not a printer manufacturer booth).

In one booth of a laminating company, no one seemed to have the energy to stand up and come over, and when they did, they appeared to lack the inventive to find any brochures. I notice this in about 20% of the booths: the sales reps and booth personnel interact predominately with themselves and customers they already know. They don’t get up from behind the liquor counter or snack area to come out to the front of the booth to interact with a person passing by who stops. But with 80% of the booths being more pro-active, there were plenty of booths to obtain information from.

So in the hall with lamination companies where one booth was not energetic, in notable distinction, personnel in the GBC lamination booth were attentive.

In distinction Amir Sheinman at NUR (now HP), took time to explain his printers to the students. Rak Kumar, CEO of Raster Printers, took time to speak with my students too. Mandy Daniel in the Oce booth assisted each of the students that were in the FLAAR goup. Gandinnovations kindly provided fruit juice and lunch to the students. Dr Honle UV lamp personnel, etc, also helped explain things to the students.

Since these are the students who will be doing a thesis on wide-format inkjet printers, and as this thesis material will be credited to these students in future FLAAR Reports on new inkjet printing technology, FLAAR appreciates the fact that so many booth personnel and managers assisted the students in their learning.

Decisions Decisions

I am increasingly surprised how many printhshop owners make their buying decision primarily on the basis of their local sales rep and on the “deal” that they are offered. This is usually the best way to end up with a printer that is probably not the best for your specific needs.

Acknowledgements

I thank Oce for providing space in their daily shuttle, since with no hotels availalble, I stayed in the house of a colleague in Mulheim an der Ruhr an hour away. I thank this colleague for making a place available, since the outrageous price of hotels was unreasonable when you had to stay at DRUPA for fourteen days.

DRUPA provided a pleasant Press Room area for members of the press, though since FLAAR moved from Ohio to St Louis the month before DRUPA perhaps my press pass never reached my new address).

I am glad I went to DRUPA, would not have missed it for anything, but the cost of hotels, and time lost in commuting from an hour away are significant negative factors. Another notable downside of DRUPA is the lack of most textile printers. Plus, if you are a printshop operator, it is more economical to attend FESPA, ISA, and SGIA, and simply subscribe to the FLAAR Reports on DRUPA.

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UV or related Companies at DRUPA 08

Company Hall BoothShanghai Teckwin, Tepede UV printers 3 C89-9Heraeus Amba Ltd UV lamps 3 C35Dr Honle UV lamps 3 D40Nordson UV Ltd. UV lamps 3 E15

Sakata INX (MegaInk Digital) ink 4 C11Toyo ink 4 C40KonicaMinolta Printheads, ink, UV printer 4 F24Xaar Plc. booth Included Teckwin flatbed Printheads, UV printer 4 E10

Anhui Liyu UV printer 5 C02-2Flora / RTZ UV printersV printers 5 C02-1Gandinnovations UV printer 5 A23Lüscher AG Failed UV printer 5 D38VUTEK (part of EFI) UV printers 5 C01Raster Printers (in back of EFI booth) UV printer 5 C01

Océ N.V. UV and solvent printers 6 A44Sun Chemical Corporation UV ink 6 B75

DigiCube (new company) UV printer 7aD.G.I. (Digital Graphics Incorporation) Solvent printers 7a C11Dilli Precision Ind. Co. Ltd. UV printer 7a C11Durst Phototechnik UV printers 7a D13Sun LLC (Novosibirsk, Russia) UV printer, LED lamps, ink 7a E12

Agfa Graphics N.V. UV printers 8a B63Hewlett-Packard UV, solvent, latex printers 8a B26Matan Digital Printers UV printers 8a B25

Mimaki Europe B.V. UV printers, LED lamps 8b A03Screen Europe UV printers 8b A61FUJIFILM Dimatix printheads 8b B03GCC Europe B.V. 8b C11Triangle, Neolt (as Triangle Milano) UV printers, LED lamps 8b C02Esko Artwork XY flatbed cutters 8b A23

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Toshiba Tec printheads 9 A56Mutoh Europe NV 9 B43Complott Papier Union Augend Technologies Video only of UV printer 9 B55Complott Papier Union, Gerber ion UV printer 9 B55Zund cutters XY flatbed cutters 9 C40Integration Technology UV curing lamps 9 D26Meital (One Solution, S.A.) UV flatbed printer 9 E03

Eastech Flatbed,but not UV 15 B03-1Wasatch RIP 15 B04-3

A longer list that includes more than just UV-curable wide-format products.

Company Hall BoothMarabu GmbH & Co. KG After-market inks 3 A92Shanghai Teckwin, Tepede UV printers 3 C89-9Heraeus Amba Ltd UV lamps 3 C35Dr Honle UV lamps 3 D40Nordson UV Ltd. UV lamps 3 E15

Sakata INX International Ink Co. (MegaInk) ink 4 C11Toyo ink 4 C40

Xaar Plc. (including Teckwin flatbed UV printer)

Printheads, UV printer too 4 E10

KonicaMinolta Printheads, ink, UV printer 4 F24

Anhui Liyu UV printer 5 C02-2Flora / RTZ UV printers 5 C02-1Gandinnovations UV printers 5 A23Lüscher AG Failed UV printer 5 D38VUTEK (part of EFI) UV printers 5 C01Raster Printers (in back of EFI booth) UV printer 5

Océ N.V. UV and solvent printers 6 A44Sun Chemical Corporation UV ink 6 B75

DigiCube (a new company) UV printer 7aD.G.I. (Digital Graphics Incorporation) Solvent printers 7a C11

Dilli Precision Ind. Co. Ltd. UV printer 7a C11Durst Phototechnik UV printers 7a D13Sun LLC (Novosibirsk, Russia) UV printer, LED lamps, ink 7a E12

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Hexion Specialty Chemicals UV thermo-formed ink 7.2 G16Barbieri (in booth of a partner) Color management 7.2 D52

Agfa Graphics N.V. UV printers 8a B63Hewlett-Packard UV, solvent, latex printers 8a B26Matan Digital Printers UV printers 8a B25

Mimaki Europe B.V. UV printers, LED lamps 8b A03Screen Europe UV printers 8b A61FUJIFILM Dimatix printheads 8b B03GCC Europe B.V. 8b C11Triangle, Neolt (as Triangle Milano) UV printers, LED lamps 8bEsko Artwork XY flatbed cutters 8bXerix Solvent printers 8bKornit Textile printer 8bSertam (in Kornit booth) Printing on unfired ceramics 8b

Toshiba Tec printheads 9 A56Mutoh Europe NV 9 B43Complott Papier Union Augend Technologies 9 B55Zund cutters XY flatbed cutters 9Integration Technology UV curing lamps 9Meital (One Solution, S.A.) UV flatbed printer 9 E03

LEDCO laminators 15 B04-3Eastech Flatbed,but not UV 15 B03-1Wasatch RIP 15 B04-3

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Appendix A

What a Trade Show Looks Like the Day before it Opens

Preparing halls and booths before the grand opening of DRUPA 08

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People working to prepare the main entrance the day before the grand opening of DRUPA 08.

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Reality Check

Being a university professor for many years does not mean we know everything. But intellectual curiosity often leads us to enter areas that are new to us. So we do not shirk from entering areas where we are obviously not yet expert. If in your years of wide format printing experience have encountered results different that ours, please let us know at ReaderService@FLAAR.org. We do not mind eating crow, though so far it is primarily a different philosophy we practice, because since we are not dependent on sales commissions we can openly list the glitches and defects of those printers that have an occasional problem.

FLAAR and most universities have corporate sponsors but FLAAR web sites do not accept advertising, so we don’t have to kowtow to resell-ers or manufacturers. We respect their experience and opinion, but we prefer to utilize our own common sense, our in-house experiences, the results from site-visit case studies, and comments from the more than 53,000 of our many readers who have shared their experiences with us via e-mail (the Survey Forms).

Licensing Information

If you wish to distribute this report to other people within your company, please obtain a site licensing agreement for multiple copies from FLAAR by contacting ReaderService@FLAAR.org Substantial discounts are available for licensing to distribute within your company; we call this a subscription. The advantage of a subscription license is that you can opt for automatic updates. You may have noticed that FLAAR reports tend to be updated as additional information becomes available.

In some instances a license would be available to distribute outside your company, including in other languages.

To distribute this report without subscription/license violates federal copyright law. To avoid such violations for you, and your com-pany, you can easily order additional copies from www.wide-format-printers.NET.

Update PolicyStarting in 2008, updates on UV-curable wide-format inkjet printers are available for all individuals and companies which have a subscription, or to companies who are research project sponsors. If you are a Subscriber or manager in a company that is a research sponsor, you can obtain the next update by writing ReaderService@FLAAR.org. If you are neither a Subscriber or a research sponsor, simply order the newest version via the e-commerce system on www.wide-format-printers.NET. Please realize that because we have so many publications and many are updated so frequently that we have no realistic way to notify any reader of when just one particular report is actually updated.

There is a free PDF that describes the UV-curable inkjet printer Subscription system. Subscriptions are available only for UV-related wide-format printer publica- tions.

FLAAR Reports on UV-curable roll-to-roll, flatbed, hybrid, and combo printers are updated when new information is available. We tend to update the reports on new printers, on printers that readers ask about the most, and on printers where access is facilitated (such as factory visits, demo-room visits, etc).

Reports on obsolete printers, discontinued printers, or printers that not enough people ask about, tend not to be updated.

FLAAR still publishes individual reports on solvent printers, and on giclee printers, but subscriptions on these are not yet available; these FLAAR Reports on solvent, eco-solvent, and water-based wide format printers have to be purchased one by one.

Please Note________________________________________This report has not been licensed to any printer manufacturer, distributor, dealer, sales rep, RIP company, media, or ink company to distribute. So, if you obtained this from any company, you have a pirated copy. If you have received a translation, this translation is not authorized unless posted on a FLAAR web site, and may be in violation of copyright (plus if we have not approved the transla-tion it may make claims that were not our intention).

Also, since this report is frequently updated, if you got your version from somewhere else, it may be an obsolete edition. FLAAR reports are being updated all year long, and our comment on that product may have been revised positively or negatively as we learned more about the product from end users.

To obtain a legitimate copy, which you know is the complete report with nothing erased or changed, and hence a report with all the original description of pros and cons, please obtain your original and full report straight from www.FLAAR.org.

Your only assurance that you have a complete and authentic evaluation which describes all aspects of the product under consider-ation, benefits as well as deficiencies, is to obtain these reports directly from FLAAR, via www.wide-format-printers.NET.

Citing and Crediting

A license from FLAAR is required to use any material whatsoever from our reports in any commercial advertisement or PR Release.

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If you intend to quote any portion of a FLAAR review in a PowerPoint presentation, if this is in reference to any product that your company sells or promotes, then it would be appropriate to ask us first. FLAAR reports are being updated every month sometimes, and our comment on that product may have been revised as we learned more about the product from end users. Also, we noticed that one company cited the single favorable comment we made on one nice aspect of their printer, but neglected to cite the rest of the review which pointed out the features of the printer which did not do so well. For them to correct this error after the fact is rather embarrassing. So it is safer to ask-before-you-quote a FLAAR review on your product.

The material in this report is not only copyright, it is also based on years of research. Therefore if you cite or quote a pertinent section, please provide a proper credit, which would be minimally “Nicholas Hellmuth, year, www.FLAAR.org.” If the quote is more than a few words then academic tradition would expect that a footnote or entry in your bibliography would reference the complete title. Publisher would be www.FLAAR.org.

If you intend to quote any portion of a FLAAR review in a PowerPoint presentation, if this is in reference to any product that your company sells or promotes, then it would be appropriate to license the report or otherwise notify us in advance. FLAAR reports are being updated every week sometimes, and our comment on that product may have been revised as we learned more about the product from end users. Also, we noticed that one company cited the single favorable comment we made on one nice aspect of their printer, but neglected to cite the rest of the review which pointed out the features of the printer which did not do so well. For them to correct this error after the fact is rather embarrassing. So it is safer to ask-before-you-quote a FLAAR review on your product.

Legal notice

Inclusion in this study by itself in no way endorses any printer, media, ink, RIP or other digital imaging hardware or software. Equally, exclusion from this study in no way is intended to discredit any printer.

Advisory

We do our best to obtain information which we consider reliable. But with hundreds of makes and models of printers, and sometimes when information about them is sparse, or conflicting, we can only work with what we have available. Thus you should be sure to rely also on your own research, especially asking around. Find another trustworthy end-user of the same make and model you need to know about. Do not make a decision solely on the basis of a FLAAR report because your situation may be totally different than ours. Or we may not have known about, and hence not written about, one aspect or another which is crucial before you reach your decision.

The sources and resources we may list are those we happen to have read. There may be other web pages or resources that we missed. For those pages we do list, we have no realistic way to verify the veracity of all their content. Use your own common sense plus a grain of salt for those pages which are really just PR releases or outright ads.

We are quite content with the majority of the specific printers, RIPs, media, and inks we have in the FLAAR facilities. We would obviously never ask for hardware, software, or consumables that we knew in advance would not be good. However even for us, a product which looks good at a trade show, sounds good in the ad literature, and works fine for the first few weeks, may subsequently turn out to be a lemon.

Or the product may indeed have a glitch but one that is so benign for us, or maybe we have long ago gotten used to it and have a workaround. And not all glitches manifest themselves in all situations, so our evaluator may not have been sufficiently affected that he or she made an issue of any particular situation. Yet such a glitch that we don’t emphasize may turn out to be adverse for your different or special application needs.

Equally often, what at first might be blamed on a bad product, often turns out to be a need of more operator experience and training. More often than not, after learning more about the product it becomes possible to produce what it was intended to produce. For this reason it is crucial for the FLAAR team and their university colleagues to interact with the manufacturer’s training center and technicians, so we know more about a hardware or software. Our evaluations go through a process of acquiring documentation from a wide range of resourses and these naturally include the manufacturer itself. Obviously we take their viewpoints with a grain of salt but often we learn tips that are worthy of being passed along.

FLAAR has no way of testing 400+ specifications of any printer, much less the over 101 different UV printers from more than 46 manufactur-ers. Same with hundreds of solvent printers and dozens of water-based printers. We observe as best we can, but we cannot take each printer apart to inspect each feature. And for UV printers, these are too expensive to move into our own facilities for long-range testing, so we do as best as is possible under the circumstances. And when a deficiency does become apparent, usually from word-of-mouth or from an end-user, it may take time to get this written up and issued in a new release.

But even when we like a product and recommend it, we still can’t guarantee or certify any make or model nor its profitability in use because we don’t know the conditions under which a printer system might be utilized in someone else’s facility. For ink and media, especially after-market third-party ink and media, it is essential that you test it first, under your conditions. We have no way to assure that any ink or media will be acceptable for your specific needs in your specific print shop. As a result, products are described “as is” and without warranties as to performance or merchantability, or of fitness for a particular purpose. Any such statements in our reports or on our web sites or in discussions

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do not constitute warranties and shall not be relied on by the buyer in deciding whether to purchase and/or use products we discuss because of the diversity of conditions, materials and/or equipment under which these products may be used. Thus please recognize that no warranty of fitness or profitability for a particular purpose is offered.

The user is advised to test products thoroughly before relying on them. We do not have any special means of analyzing chemical contents or flammability of inks, media, or laminates, nor how these need to be controlled by local laws in your community. There may well be hazardous chemicals, or outgassing that we are not aware of. Be aware that some inks have severe health hazards associated with them. Some are hazardous to breathe; others are hazardous if you get them on your skin. For example, some chemicals such as cyclohexanone do not sound like chemicals you want to breathe every day. Be sure to obtain, read, and understand the MSDS sheets for the inks, media, and laminates that you intend to use. Both solvent, eco-solvent, and UV-curable inks are substances whose full range of health and environmental hazards are not yet fully revealed. It is essential you use common sense and in general be realistic about the hazards involved, especially those which are not listed or which have not yet been described. FLAAR is not able to list all hazards since we are not necessarily aware of the chemical components of the products we discuss. Our reports are on usability, not on health hazards.

Most inks are clearly not intended to be consumed. Obviously these tend to be solvent inks and UV-curable inks. Yet other inks are edible, seriously, they are printed on birthday cakes. Indeed Sensient is a leader in a new era of edible inks. Therefore the user must assume the entire risk of ascertaining information on the chemical contents and flammability regulations relative to inks, media or laminates as well as using any described hardware, software, accessory, service, technique or products.

We have no idea of your client’s expectations. What students on our campus will accept may not be the same as your Fortune 500 clients. In many cases we have not ourselves used the products but are basing our discussion on having seen them at a trade show, during visiting a print shop, or having been informed about a product via e-mail or other communication.

Results you see at trade shows may not be realistic

Be aware that trade show results may not be realistic. Trade shows are idealized situations, with full-time tech support to keep things running. The images at a trade show may be tweaked. Other images make be “faked” in the sense of slyly putting on primer without telling the people who inspect the prints. Most UV inks don’t stick to all materials; many materials need to be treated.Or the UV prints may be top-coated so that you can’t do a realistic scratch test.

Booth personnel have many standard tricks that they use to make their output look gorgeous. In about half the cases you will not likely obtain these results in real life: in most cases they are printing uni-directional, which may be twice as slow as bi-directional.

Trade show examples tend to be on the absolutely best media. When you attempt to save money and use economy media you will quickly notice that you do not get anywhere near the same results as you saw in the manufacturer’s trade show booth, or pictured in their glossy advertisement. Five years ago we noticed Epson was laminating prints to show glossy output because their pigmented inks could not print on actual glossy media. The same equipment, inks, media, and software may not work as well in your facility as we, or you, see it at a trade show. All the more reason to test before you buy; and keep testing before you make your final payment. Your ultimate protection is to use a gold American Express credit card so you can have leverage when you ask for your money back if the product fails.

You absolutely need to do print samples with your own images and the kind provided by your clients. Do not rely on the stock photos provided by the printer, ink, media, or RIP manufacturer or reseller. They may be using special images which they know in advance will look fabulous on their printer. Equally well, if you send your sample images to the dealer, don’t be surprised if they come back looking awful. That is because many dealers won’t make a serious effort to tweak their machine for your kind of image. They may use fast speed just to get the job done (this will result in low quality). Check with other people in your area, or in the same kind of print business that you do. Don’t rely on references from the reseller or manufacturer (you will get their pet locations which may be unrealistically gushy): find someone on your own.

Factors influencing outputHeat, humidity, static, dust, experience level of your workers (whether they are new or have prior years experience): these are all factors that will differ in your place of business as compared with test results or demo room results.

Actually you may have people with even more experience than we do, since we deliberately use students to approximate newbies. FLAAR is devoted to assisting newcomers learn about digital imaging hardware and software. This is why Nicholas Hellmuth is considered the “Johnny Appleseed” of wide format inkjet printers.

Therefore this report does not warranty any product for any quality, performance or fitness for any specific task, since we do not know the situation in which you intend to use the hardware or software. Nor is there any warranty or guarantee that the output of these products will produce salable goods, since we do not know what kind of ink or media you intend to use, nor the needs of your clients. A further reason that no one can realistically speak for all aspects of any one hardware or software is that each of these products may require additional hardware or software to reach its full potential.

For example, you will most likely need a color management system which implies color measurement tools and software. To handle ICC color profiles, you may need ICC color profile generation software and a spectrophotometer since often the stock pre-packaged ICC color profiles which come with the ink, media, printers and/or RIPs may not work in your situation. Not all RIPs handle color management equally, or may work better for some printer-ink-media combinations than for others.

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Be aware that some RIPs can only accept ICC color profiles: you quickly find out the hard way that you can’t tweak these profiles nor gener-ate new ones. So be sure to get a RIP which can handle all aspects of color management. Many RIPs come in different levels. You may buy one level and be disappointed that the RIP won’t do everything. That’s because those features you may be lacking are available only in the next level higher of that RIP, often at considerable extra cost. Same thing in the progression of Chevy through Pontiac to Cadillac, or the new Suburbans. A Chevy Suburban simply does not have all the bells and whistles of the Cadillac Escalade version of this SUV.

Don’t blame us… besides, that’s why we are warning you. This is why we have a Survey Form, so we can learn when you find products that are inadequate. We let the manufacturers know when end users complain about their products so that the manufacturers can resolve the situation when they next redesign the system.

Most newer printer models tend to overcome deficiencies of earlier models. It is possible that our comparative comments point out a glitch in a particular printer that has been taken care of through an improvement in firmware or even an entirely new printer model. So if we point out a deficiency in a particular printer brand, the model you may buy may not exhibit this headache, or your kind of printing may not trigger the problem. Or you may find a work-around.

Just remember that every machine has quirks, even the ones we like. It is possible that the particular kind of images, resolution, inks, media, or other factors in your facility are sufficiently different than in ours that a printer which works just fine for us may be totally unsatisfactory for you and your clients. However it may be that the specific kind of printing you need to do may never occasion that shortcoming. Or, it may be that your printer was manufactured on a Monday and has defects that are atypical, show up more in the kind of media you use which we may not use as often or at all during our evaluations. Equally possibly a printer that was a disaster for someone else may work flawlessly for you and be a real money maker for your company.

So if we inspect a printer in a printshop (a site-visit case study), and that owner/operator is content with their printer and we mention this; don’t expect that you will automatically get the same results in your own printshop.

In some cases a product may work better on a Macintosh than on a PC. RIP software may function well with one operating system yet have bugs and crash on the same platform but with a different operating system. Thus be sure to test a printer under your own specific work condi-tions before you buy.

And if a printer, RIP, media, or ink does not function, return it with no ands, ifs or buts. Your best defense is to show an advertising claim that the printer simply can’t achieve. Such advertising claims are in violation of federal regulations, and the printer companies know they are liable for misleading the public.

But before you make a federal case, just be sure that many of the issues are not user error or unfamiliarity. It may be that training or an additional accessory can make the printer do what you need it to accomplish. Of course if the printer ads did not warn you that you had to purchase the additional pricey accessory, that is a whole other issue. Our reviews do not cover accessories since they are endless, as is the range of training, or lack thereof, among users.

The major causes of printer breakdown and failure is lack of maintenance, poor maintenance, spotty maintenance, or trying to jerry-rig some part of the printer. The equally common cause of printer breakdown is improper use, generally due from lack of training or experience. Another factor is whether you utilize your printer all day every day. Most solvent and UV printers work best if used frequently. If you are not going to use your printer for two or three days, you have to put flush into the system and prepare it for hibernation (even if for only four or five days). Then you have to flush the ink system all over again.

Also realize that the surface of inkjet prints are fragile and generally require lamination to survive much usage. Lamination comes in many kinds, and it is worth finding a reliable lamination company and receiving training on their products.

Also realize that no hybrid or combo UV printer can feed all kinds of rigid materials precisely. Some materials feed well; others feed poorly; others will skew.

Although we have found several makes and models to work very well in our facilities, how well they work in your facilities may also depend on your local dealer. Some dealers are excellent; others just sell you a box and can’t provide much service after the sale. Indeed some low-bid internet sales sources may have no technical backup whatsoever. If you pay low-bid price, you can’t realistically expect special maintenance services or tech support later on from any other dealer (they will tell you to return to where you paid for the product). This is why we make an effort to find out which dealers are recommendable. Obviously there are many other dealers who are also good, but we do not always know them. To protect yourself further, always pay with a level of credit card which allows you to refuse payment if you have end up with a lemon. A Gold American Express card allows you to refuse payment even months after the sale. This card may also extend your warranty agreement in some cases (check first).

Most of the readers of the FLAAR Reports look to see what printers we use in our own facilities. Readers realize that we will have selected the printers that we like based on years of experience and research. Indeed we have met people at trade shows who told us they use the FLAAR web site reports as the shopping list for their corporate purchases.

Yes, it is rather self-evident that we would never ask a manufacturer to send a product which we knew in advance from our studies was no good. But there are a few other printers which are great but we simply do not have them in our facilities yet.

So if a printer is not made available by its manufacturer, then there is no way we can afford to have all these makes and models in our facility. Thus to learn about models which we do not feature, be sure to ask around in other print shops, with IT people in other corporations, at your local university or community college. Go to trade shows….but don’t use only the booth…ask questions of people in the elevator, in line at the

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restaurant, anywhere to escape the smothering hype you get in the booth.

Realize that a FLAAR Report on a printer is not by itself a recommendation of that printer.

Taking into consideration we do not know the conditions in which you may be using your hardware, software, or consumables, neither the author nor FLAAR nor either university is liable for liability, loss or damage caused either directly or indirectly by the suggestions in this report nor by hardware, software, or techniques described herein because.

Be realistic and aware that not all materials can be printed on equally well

Many materials don’t feed well through hybrid (pinch roller on grit roller systems) or combo UV systems (with transport belts). Banding, both from poor feeding, and from bi-directional (lawnmower effect) are common on many UV-curable inkjet printers.

Acknowledgements

Fortunately the university covered some of the operating costs of FLAAR. Thus we do not really have much incentive to pocket hush money from producers of lousy products. We feel that the pros and cons of each product speak more than adequately for themselves. Just position the ad claims on the left: put the actual performance results on the right. The unscrupulous hype is fairly evident rather quickly.

With 15 employees the funding has to come from somewhere, so we do welcome project sponsorship, research grants, contributions that facilitate our educational programs, scholarships for co-op interns and graduate students, and comparable project-oriented funding from manufacturers. The benefit for the end-user is a principle called academic freedom, in this case,

• the freedom of a professor or student to speak out relative to the pros and cons of any equipment brought to them to bench-mark.• The freedom to design the research project without outside meddling from the manufacturer.

Fortunately, our budget is lean and cost effective as you would expect for a non-profit research institute. As long as we are not desperate for money we can avoid the temptation to accept payment for reprinting corporate PR hype. So the funding is used for practical research. We do not accept (nor believe) and certainly do not regurgitate corporate PR. For example, how many manufacturer’s PR photos of their products have you seen in our reports or on our web sites?

Besides, it does not take any money to see which printers and RIPs function as advertised and which don’t. We saw one hyped printer grind to a halt, malfunction, or otherwise publicly display its incapabilities at several trade shows in a row. At each of those same trade shows another brand had over 30 of their printers in booths in virtually every hall, each one producing museum quality exhibits. Not our fault when we report what we see over and over and over again. One of our readers wrote us recently, “Nicholas, last month you recommended the …… as one of several possible printers for our needs; we bought this. It was the best capital expenditure we have made in the last several years. Just wanted to tell you how much we appreciate your evaluations….”

FLAAR is a non-profit educational and research organization dedicated for over 36 years to professional photography in the arts, tropical flora and fauna, architectural history, and landscape panorama photography.

Our digital imaging phase is a result of substantial funding in 1996 from the Japanese Ministry of Public Education for a study of scanning and digital image storage options. This grant was via Japan’s National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan. That same year FLAAR also received a grant of $100,000 from an American foundation to do a feasibility study of digital imaging in general and the scanning of photo-graphic archives in particular.

The FLAAR web sites began initially as the report on the results of these studies of scanners. Once we had the digital images we began to experiment with digital printers. People began to comment that our reports were unique and very helpful. So by 1999 we had entire sections on large format printers.

FLAAR has existed since 1969, long before inkjet printers existed. Indeed we were writing about digital imaging before HP even had a color inkjet system available. In 2000 FLAAR received an educational grant from Hewlett-Packard large format division, Barcelona, Spain, for train-ing, for equipment, and to improve the design and navigation on the main web sites of the FLAAR Network. This grant ran its natural course, and like all grants, reached its finishing point, in this case late 2005.

In some cases the sponsorship process begins when we hear end-users talking about a product they have found to be better than other brands. We keep our ears open, and when we spot an especially good product, this is the company we seek sponsorship from. It would not be wise of us to seek sponsorship from a company with a sub-standard or otherwise potentially defective printer. So we usually know which printers are considered by end-users to be among the better brands before we seek sponsorship. After all, out of the by now one million read-ers, we have heard plenty about every single printer out there.

We thank MacDermid ColorSpan (now part of HP), Hewlett-Packard, Parrot Digigraphic, Color DNA, Canon, Gandinnovations, and other companies for providing funding for technology training for the FLAAR staff and our colleagues at Bowling Green State University and for funds to allow us to attend all major international trade shows, which are ideal locations for us to gather information. We thank Drytac, Sun LLC, Raster Printers, LexJet, DYSS, Mutoh Europe, NUR (now part of HP), IP&I, Dilli, Yuhan-Kimberly, InkWin, GCC, Grapo, Durst, Teckwin and Zund for providing funds so that we can make more of our publications free to end-users. During 2000-2001 we had grants to cover all

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the costs of our publications, and all FLAAR Reports were free in those early years. As that early grant naturally expired after a few years, we had to begin charging for some of our reports to cover costs. Currently our reports on lamination tips are sponsored by Drytac and our publications on eco-solvent ink printers are sponsored by Mutoh Europe. Now (in 2008), we are seeking corporate sponsorship so we can gradually return to making at least 20% of our publications free to our readers.

Since 2006 we do a major part of our evaluations at a factory and headquarters demo room. Since the university does not fund any of these trips, it is traditional for the manufacturer to fund a research sponsorship. In the US this is how most university projects are initiated for de-cades now, and it is increasing. In fact there is a university in Austria that is not an “edu” but is a “GmbH”, funded by the chamber of commerce of that part of Austria. In other words, a university as an educational institution, but functioning in the real world as an actual business. This is a sensible model.

It has been helpful when companies make it possible for us to fly to their headquarters so we can inspect their manufacturing facilities, demo rooms, and especially when the companies make their research, engineering and ink chemistry staff available for discussions. When I re-ceived my education at Harvard I was taught to have a desire to learn new things. This has guided my entire life and is what led me into wide-format digital imaging technology: it is constantly getting better and there is a lot to learn every month. Thus I actively seek access to improving my understanding of wide format printer technology so that we can better provide information to the approximately quarter-million+ readers of our solvent and UV printer web site (www.large-format printers.org) and the over 350,000+ who read either our wide-format-printers.org site or our roughly half million combined who read our digital-photography.org and www.FineArtGicleePrinters.org sites.

ColorSpan, Durst, Grapo, IP&I, Mutoh, Dilli, GCC, NUR, Sun, Teckwin, VUTEk, Xerox, Yuhan-Kimberly, Zund have each brought FLAAR staff to their headquarters and printer factories. Bordeaux, InkWin and Sunflower ink have brought us to inspect their ink manufacturing facilities and demo rooms. We have visited the world headquarters and demo rooms of HP in Barcelona and received informative and helpful technol-ogy briefings. We are under NDA as to the subjects discussed but it is important that we be open where we have visited. Mimaki Europe has had FLAAR as their guest in Europe to introduce their flatbed UV printer, as have other UV-curable manufacturers, again, under NDA as to the details since often we are present at meetings where unreleased products are discussed. Xaar has hosted an informative visit to their world headquarters in the UK. You don’t get this level of access from a trade magazine writer, and I can assure you, we are provided much more detailed information and documentation in our visits than would be provided to a magazine author or editor. Companies have learned that it’s a lot better to let us know up front and in advance the issues and glitches with their printers, since they now know we will find out sooner or later on our own. They actually tell us they realize we will find out on our own anyway.

Contributions, grant, sponsorships, and project funds from these companies are also used to improve the design and appearance of the web sites of the FLAAR Information Network. We thank Canon, ColorSpan, HP, ITNH, and Mimaki for providing wide format printers, inks, and media to the universities where FLAAR does research on wide format digital imaging. We thank Epson America for providing an Epson 7500 printer many years ago, and Parrot Digigraphic for providing three different models of Epson inkjet printers to our facilities on loan at BGSU (5500, 7600, 7800). We thank Mimaki USA for providing a JV4 and then a Mimaki TX-1600s textile printer and Improved Technologies (ITNH) providing their Ixia model of the Iris 3047 giclee printer.

We thank 3P Inkjet Textiles and HP for providing inkjet textiles so we could learn about the different results on the various textiles. IJ Tech-nologies, 3P Inkjet Textiles, ColorSpan, Encad, HP, Nan Ya Pepa, Oracal, Tara and other companies have provided inkjet media so we can try it out and see how it works (or not as the case may be; several inkjet media failed miserably, one from Taiwan, the other evidently from Germany!). We thank Aurelon, Canon, ColorGate, ColorSpan, ErgoSoft, HP, PerfectProof, PosterJet, Onyx, Ilford, CSE ColorBurst, Scanve-cAmiable, Wasatch and many other RIP companies for providing their hardware and software RIPs.

We thank Dell Computers for providing awesome workstations for testing RIP software and content creation with Adobe Photoshop and other programs. We also appreciate the substantial amount of software provided by Adobe. As with other product loaned or provided courtesy of ProVar LLC (especially the 23” monitors which makes it so much easier to work on multiple documents side by side).

We thank Betterlight, Calumet Photographic, Global Graphics, Westcott, Global Imaging Inc. Phase One, and Bogen Imaging for helping to equip our archaeological photo studios at the university and its archaeology museum in Guatemala. Heidelberg, Scitex, CreoScitex (now Kodak) and Cruse, both in Germany, have kindly provided scanners for our staff to evaluate.

We really liked some of the results whereas some of the other products were a bit disappointing. Providing samples does not influence the evaluations because the evaluators are students, professors, and staff of Bowling Green State University. These personnel are not hired by any inkjet printer company; they are universities employees (as is also true for Nicholas Hellmuth). The testing person for the HP ColorPro (desktop printer) said he frankly preferred his Epson printer. When we saw the rest results we did not include this Heweltt-Packard ColorPro printer on our list of recommended printers, but we love our HP DesignJet 5000ps so much we now have two of them, one at each univer-sity.

Sometimes we hear horror stories about a printer. The only way we can tell whether this is the fault of the printer design, or lack of training of the operator, is to have the printer ourselves in-house. Of course some printer manufacturers don’t understand the reasons we need to have each make and model; they are used to loaning their demo units for a week or so. That is obviously inadequate for a serious review.

Some of the media provided to us failed miserably. Three printers failed to meet common sense usability and printability standards as well (HP 1055, one older desktop model (HP Color Pro GA), and one Epson). Yet we know other users who had better results; maybe ours came down the assembly line on a Monday or Friday afternoon, when workers were not attentive. One costly color management software pack-age was judged “incapable” by two reviewers (one from the university; second was an outside user who had made the mistake of buying this package).

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So it’s obvious that providing products or even a grant is no shield from having your products fail a FLAAR evaluation. The reason is clear: the end user is our judge. The entire FLAAR service program is to assist the people who need to use digital imaging hardware and software. If a product functions we find out and promulgate the good news. If a product is a failure, or more likely, needs some improvement in the next generation, we let people know. If a product is hyped by what an informed user would recognize as potentially false and misleading nonsense, then we point out the pathetic discrepancies very clearly.

This is what you should expect from an institute which is headed by a professor.

Actually, most of our reviews are based on comments by end users. We use their tips to check out pros and cons of virtually every product we discuss. You can’t fool a print shop owner whose printer simply fails to function as advertised. And equally, a sign shop owner who earns a million dollars a year from a single printer brand makes an impact on us as well. We have multiple owners of ColorSpan printers tell us that this printer is their real money earner for example. We know other print shops where their primarily income is from Encad printers. Kinkos has settled on the HP 5000 as its main money maker production machine, and so on.

Yet we have documentation of several print shop companies whose business was ruined by specific brands that failed repeatedly. It is note-worthy that it is always the same brand or printer at both locations: one due to banding and printheads then simply no longer printing one color; the other brand due to pokiness of the printer simply not being competitively fast enough. Same with RIPs, we have consistent statements of people using one RIP, and only realizing how weak it was when they tried another brand which they found substantially better. Thus we note that companies which experiment with more than one brand of product tend to realize more quickly which brand is best. This is where FLAAR is in an ideal situation: we have nine RIPs and 25 printers. Hence it is logical that we have figured out which are best for our situation.

Grant funding, sponsorship, demonstration equipment, and training are supplied from all sides of the spectrum of printer equipment and software engineering companies. Thus, there is no incentive to favor one faction over another. We receive support from three manufactur-ers of thermal printheads (Canon, ColorSpan and HP) and also have multiple printers from two manufacturers of piezo printers (Epson and Mimaki). This is because piezo has definite advantage for some applications; thermal printheads have advantages in different applications. Our reviews have universal appeal precisely because we feature all competing printhead technologies. Every printer, RIPs, inks, or media we have reviewed have good points in addition to weaknesses. Both X-Rite and competitor GretagMacbeth provided spectrophotometers. Again, when all sides assist this program there is no incentive to favor one by trashing the other. Printer manufacturer ad campaigns are their own worst enemy. If a printer did not make false and misleading claims, then we would have nothing to fill our reviews with refuting the utter nonsense that is foisted on the buying public.

It is not our fault if some printers are more user friendly, print on more media than other brands. It is not our fault that the competing printers are ink guzzlers, are slow beyond belief, and tend to band or drop out colors all together. We don’t need to be paid by the printer companies whose products work so nicely in both our universities on a daily basis. The printers which failed did so in front of our own eyes and in the print shops of people we check with. And actually we do try to find some redeeming feature in the slow, ink gulping brands: they do have a better dithering pattern; they can take thick media that absolutely won’t feed through an HP. So we do work hard at finding the beneficial features even of printers are otherwise get the most critique from our readers. Over one million people will read the FLAAR Information Network in the next 12 months; 480,000 people will be exposed to our reports on wide format printers from combined total of our three sites on these themes. You can be assured that we hear plenty of comments from our readers about which printers function, and which printers fail to achieve what their advertising hype so loudly claims.

We turn down offers of funding every year. These offers come from PO Box enterprises or products with no clearly visible point of manufac-ture. Usually the company making the offer presumes they can buy advertising space just by paying money. But that is not what our readers want, so we politely do not accept such offers of money.

Contributions, grants, sponsorships, and funding for surveys, studies and research is, however, open to a company who has an accepted standing in the industry. It is helpful if the company has a visible presence at leading trade shows and can provide references from both end users and from within the industry. Where possible we prefer to visit the company in person or at least check them out at a trade show. Obvi-ously the product needs to have a proven track record too. Competing companies are equally encouraged to support the FLAAR system. We feel that readers deserve to have access to competing information. Competition is the cornerstone of American individualism and technologi-cal advancement.

FLAAR also covers its costs of maintaining the immense system of 8 web sites in three languages and its university facilities in part by serving as a consultant such as assisting inkjet manufacturers learn more about the pros and cons of their own printers as well as how to improve their next generation of printers. It is especially useful to all concerned when manufacturers learn of trends (what applications are popular and for what reasons). For example, manufacturers need to know whether to continue designing software for Mac users, or concentrate software for PC users. So the survey form that you fill out is helpful to gather statistics. You benefit from this in two ways: first, you get the FLAAR reports in exchange for your survey form. Second, your comments bring (hopefully) change and improvement in the next generation of printers. When we do survey statistics, then the names, addresses, and telephone numbers are removed completely. A survey wants only aggregate num-bers, not individuals. However, if you ask about a specific brand of printer, and do not opt out, we forward your request to a pertinent sponsor so you can obtain follow-up from that brand, since we ourselves do not have enough personnel to respond to each reader by telephone. But we do not provide your personal information to outsiders and our survey form has an opt out check-off box which we honor.

FLAAR also serves as consultants to Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller companies and individuals who seek help on which printers to consider when they need digital imaging hardware and software.

A modest portion of our income comes from our readers who purchase the FLAAR series. All income helps continue our tradition of indepen-dent evaluations and reviews of inkjet printers, RIPs, media, and inks.

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