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Nicholas M. Hellmuth

May 2015Trade Show

Wide-format Inkjet Printers( textile, latex, UV )

Inks, Media & Substrates

ISA 2015

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NOVUS Engineering had a brand new UV-cured printer: totally new (PrinterEvolution, Global Imaging booth).

AGFA had a vibrant booth: two completely new printers.

EFI VUTEk has an impressive UV-cured printer booth at the expo: large in size and dramatically filled with lots of heavy-duty UV machines (mostly LED cured technology).

The absence of Matan, Fujifilm, and other companies that failed to have an actual presence sent lots of print shop owners and distributors to efi VUTEk.

One company was listed on the map but totally failed to have a printer (for second year in a row). Having no booth personnel in this mythical booth, and doing this two years in a row stands out. At least this year they were not list-ed in the exhibitor catalog, nor listed in handouts, but their brand name was very much present on the giant maps printed out on the floor of the main aisles, plus ten thousand or more maps handed out to every attendee. Curious that the hall map could not be more accurate two years in a row.

Lots to see at ISA 2015 in Las Vegas.

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Of the growing FLAAR staff, five of us came to ISA 2015.

Andres Reporter and reviewer

of UV-cured printers

Maria Renee Reporter and reviewer, evaluator

of Textile Printer, Inks & Fabric Materials

Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth Senior Review Editor

Pablo Evaluator of Media, Inks, CNC,

RIP software Coaters & Laminators

It is no secret in the industry that some trade shows have gone downhill (sorry, but even though Graph Expo still is popular, it is significantly smaller). VISCOM Milano dropped what looked like more than 20% every year for three years (by fourth year appeared to be 50% smaller, so we stopped attending). VISCOM Spain is the most unfortunate example; it was so disorga-nized it was not even clear when it finally disappeared.

And it is even less a secret that SGIA has been very very popular with major exhibitor brands the last two years. But once you saw the size of ISA 2015, and the diversity of products being exhibited, it was very clear to many people that ISA is still worth attending and worth exhibiting here as well. Plus ISA is early in the year, so a good place to see what is new.

Being in Las Vegas was one major help. Being in Atlanta, Georgia (or St Louis, Minneapolis, Phoenix) has not been successful. Even if the excuse of such cities is that an atypical city location “introduces the expo to a new audience,” such cities lose the international audience.

ISA 2015 was sufficiently healthy that we immediately booked a booth for ISA 2016.We would not waste our time or money with a booth unless an expo was really good.

If you missed ISA 2015, we hope to see you at ISA in Orlando in 2016.

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What’s New in UV-cured?EFI VUTEk had new features and overall had a healthy looking booth (lots of visitors, lots of demos, lots of sales). We show every model in the separate FLAAR Report dedicated to UV-cured printers.

HP has improved the HP Scitex FB500 and FB700, to create the HP Scitex FB550 and 750. Still the old Ricoh Gen3 printhead, but several internal changes: • Rail for the carriage is new • Attachment at the end (so there is less vibration) • software and other inside features.

Efi booth

EFI

Efi boothHP Scitex FB550

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NOVUS Imaging had a brand new prototype printer, for real estate signs. This was in the co-located booth of Global Imaging and Printer Evolution. This printer is wholly manufactured in the USA, though obviously compo-nents come from Japan (printheads), etc.

I had to smile when a knowledgeable person in the industry told me that one cutting machine in another booth, usually claimed “100% made in …..” actually allegedly has its main portion coming from China. I will need to confirm whether this machine really does have a Chinese component. If this flatbed cutter really has its main section made in China, this frankly will be a sad surprise to me. This cutter itself is clearly designed in a European country, but “manufactured” or “assembled” take on different meanings if the key part comes from China.

Another ploy elsewhere is for a company to say they manufacturer their own ink. There are only a few printer manufacturers who actually have their own ink factory. You can have excellent ink without having your own factory. Indeed by shopping around you can probably get more and better kinds of ink than if you are stuck with your own ink. But of course if your ink factory and your printer factory are really coordinated, this can be an asset.

More Mimaki flatbed printers than any other brandHP set a record for having more HP latex printers in more booths than any other printer at the expo. But for UV-cured printers, Mimaki set a record (for more placements in addition to their own Mimaki booth).

• Mimaki JFX-200-2513 in booth of Tubelite. • Mimaki JFX-200-2513 in booth of Ricoh • Mimaki JFX-200-1513 in booth of PBS Equipment

Mimaki JFX200-2513

Global Imaging booth

Mimaki booth

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New BrandingWe keep track of new brands, and at ISA 2015, one new branding of UV printers stood out: iti (Inkjet Technology, Inc.). Here we found Ralph Johnson, whom we know from earlier years, plus Rak Kumar, who has been in the world of wide format since the days of electrostatic printers (including Raster Graphics). It is an asset to have this much experience over so many years.

To really know about a printer it is essential for FLAAR to be in a demo room with the printer available to test. We have plenty of our own high-resolution photographs to show how a printer handles this quality of an image.

So as soon as we can get to Brisbane, California, we will do an evaluation of the iti Model TX 2512. In the mean-time, I can definitely comment on the brochure. It is fully literate, not translated by a computer from a foreign language. If the User Manual is the same professional quality this will be noted in the evaluation.

iti TX2512

iti TX2512

iti

An advantage of being at ISA expo is visiting with key people in the industry. While we were near the iti booth, we found several people

we have known for many years, so here are Jimena, Maria Renee (both FLAAR), with Rak Kumar (iti), Ralph Johnson (iti), Nicholas, Pab-

lo, and Mike of FLAAR with Jiang Hong (RTZ) and Sunny (RTZ).

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UV-Cured Printers in GeneralOver 37 booths had UV-cured printers. This is a strong showing. Our TRENDs level FLAAR Reports on UV-cured printers compares and contrasts all booths with UV-cured printers at every major trade show which we attend.

FLAAR has been working in China for many years; one of our teams lived in Beijing for six weeks helping a com-pany there (to improve their marketing material (web site and brochures). We really enjoy Chinese culture and all of us try to learn at least basic Mandarin.

Flora is the well known brand name for the printers produced by RTZ (Shenzhen Runtianzhi Image Technology). We are currently updating our web pages on Flora printers for a project to cover the diverse technologies that this company offers. Flora is best known for solvent and UV-cured printers, but they also make T-shirt printers and ceramic printers and we are checking on printers for glass.

By coincidence Jiang Hong and his family arrived at the Las Vegas airport the same time that I did. He and his daughter were in the RTZ Flora booth during the expo. Jiang Hong is President of ShenZhen Runtianzhi Digital Equipment Co., Ltd.

Flora PP 25124×8 Foot UV Printer with

Roll Option

Flora PP 25124×8 Foot UV Printer

Print sample at Flora booth

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Dilli is a good example of the capability of Korean engineering. Each country (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China) have different business philosophies and thus different traditions for their companies.

Dr Hellmuth has lived in Beijing for six weeks and has been visiting Chinese ink, media, and printer factories for over seven years. He has lived in Japan for six months; the origin of the FLAAR Reports were issued while Dr Nicholas was in Osaka (as visiting professor at the National Museum of Ethnography to provide training in digital scanning and Adobe Photoshop).

He has been to Korea at least three times, and to ink and printer factories in Taiwan. So we have experience with the differences in each country (and differences in each company).

Some companies are very conservative, and did not enter the world of UV-cured printers until very late. Other companies, like Dilli, entered early so have plenty of experience.

Some printer manufacturers are associated with specific ink companies; others are independent of ink compa-nies. Each situation has pros and cons.

Here we show the Dilli booth. They have flown us to Korea (many years ago) to inspect their factory, their team, and their business philosophy.

Neo Sun FB2513-04DWX

Neo Titan RTR 3204DX

HB2504D-W2X

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We study why a company is successful, and why another company simply does not sell very many printers. A major factor is the personality, the charisma, of the owner(s) and managers of a company, plus the printer operators. HP had a hospitable team of printer operators at ISA. Efi has a hospitable team as well, and at SGI in Dubai each year Oce has a helpful local manager and equally helpful Canon Oce manager from the European office.

The efi VUTEk booth appeared to be the most visited booth of any UV-cured printer brand at ISA. The entire FLAAR team attended their Press conference. This was both informative and helpful and the meal choice was definitely also better than most other more routine press conference meals of potato chips, other munchies, etc.

HP boothEFI booth

AGFA of course has a major presence in traditional printing for decades, and before that in film for 35mm cam-eras (and 70mm and more sizes). Although I used primarily Kodak Kodachrome and Ektachrome film for color, and Ilford for black-and-white, I also used Fujifilm film (in the days of Leica and Hasselblad, 1970’s through early 1990’s) and occasionally some 70mm Agfa for a rollout camera.

At wide-format printer and signage expos, we have followed AGFA for over 15 years. Since their purchase of the technology of Gandinnovations about seven or eight years ago, and the clever AGFA alliance with Dilli over many years, in all past years you knew in advance what would be found in any AGFA booth: updated Gandy printers and well-engineered Dilli printers. So it was very much a total unexpected surprise to note that AGFA has the :Jeti Tauro, so now finally gone beyond Gandinnovation printers (which were great in 2006-2008, but are a tad dated today, even if updated with new features).

This Tauro and new :JETI Mira I would need to study in a demo room or installed in a print shop, but it definitely is different than anything designed by the team which was the key to success of James Gandy.

Overall AGFA has considerable potential for raising market share, since their three biggest competitors do not have dedicated flatbed printers (they have moving conveyor belt structures to handle thick and rigid materials). But, our 15 years experience has allowed us to make a list of everything it takes besides the printers to raise your market share worldwide. Two new printers (plus the good Dilli printers) will only be successful if each corporate aspect is met (each aspect on our list, a list of strategy how to improve its market share which rather obviously we do not publish; this information we provide only to private clients).

AGFA :Jeti Tauro

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Many companies do not accept an attachment if it is more than 5MB in file size, so we have to keep the file size of this general report on ISA to under 5MB. So we can only show several brands in each category.

We show the brands whose factories we have visited (RTZ is one example) and/or companies where we know precisely who actually makes their inks or media or printers.

If your ink, media, printer, cutter, laminator, or other product category factory or main headquarters wishes to host a FLAAR Reports team, we would be open to discussing this with you.

Here you see our special FLAAR Report on all UV-cured printers exhibited at ISA 2015, compared with brands exhibited at other expos.

This can be ordered by writing FrontDesk “at” FLAAR.org and ask-ing to be invoiced.

Here you see our special TRENDs level FLAAR Report on over 90 brands of UV-cured printers, several hundred models.

A major component of the trends of UV-cured will be how soon can HP finish a 5-meter latex printer, and how soon can HP finish a flatbed latex printer. HP dropped both NUR 3.2 and 5 meter UV many years back, to focus on latex (thus sending lots of big-spend-ing print shop purchasing managers to efi VUTEk and Durst, for their 3.2m and 5 meter signage machines)

The several volume, full-color TRENDs level report can be ordered by writing FrontDesk “at” FLAAR.org and asking to be invoiced.

Plus, once you have ordered this, you can speak with Dr Hellmuth in-person, by phone, or by Skype, or speak with him at FESPA in Cologne or at an expo in USA. You can ask Dr Nicholas your questions about UV-cured, latex, or other inks, technologies, brands, or applications.

Solvent Ink PrintersStill plenty of solvent ink printers. STRATEGIC is a good example, with their STRATOJET models. Although I have not been to their company headquarters since they set up this brand, I know Sarabjit Singh Bedi and Joe Garcia for over ten years.

RTZ had their Flora solvent printers on exhibit. There is still a worldwide market for solvent printers even though UV-cured printers have more brands and more models than all other ink type printers put together.

FLAAR Reports has helpful lists of every brand of solvent print-er at all major expos: Europe, North America, China.

So if you are a competitor, you can learn how solvent printers are doing (compared with UV-cured, compared with latex ink printers, compared with water-based printers).

To ask for a Subscription to Solvent Ink printers (and solvent ink after-market ink manufacturers and rebrand-ers), write FrontDesk “at” FLAAR.org

STRATOJET booth

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Latex ink printersThere were more HP Latex 300-series printers throughout ISA than any other single printer brand series in the entire trade show:

• HP Latex 310 in DENCO booth • HP Latex 360 in a media booth, loaned via DENCO • HP Latex 360, booth of IT Supplies • HP Latex 360, booth of NuSign • HP Latex 360 in booth of distributor ADVANTAGE • HP Latex 360 in distributor booth of GRAPHTEC • Even an HP Latex 360 printer in the booth of AGFA (Pitman).

Plus of course all the HP Latex printers in HP’s own booth: • HP Latex 3000 • HP Latex 370 (new at ISA 2015) • HP Latex 330 • HP Latex 360

HP had a friendly booth at ISA 2015 with hospitable printer operators (Mick Phillip being one of several; we have known him for many years). This trait (hospitable booth staff) is a major asset for success. We also met Timothy Mitchel in the HP booth (Latex Experience Solutions Architect). Applications, such as wall coverings, are a major factor in the success of HP latex ink chemistry and curing technology.

HP latex 330

Water-based PrintersYou would expect water-based printers in the booths of HP, Canon, and Epson. These can either be “technical printers” (for CAD, GIS, etc) or if with pigmented ink, for fine art photographs and giclee. Since FLAAR began all our research on wide-format inkjet printers because we were evaluating high-resolution digital cameras already by 1996, our first evaluations in those years were entirely water-based printers.

We study CAD printers since our family background is in architecture. We study printers for photography and giclee since this was our project from the 1990’s through about 2005-2006. By then UV-cured ink was the up and coming ink. By 2008 UV-cured ink took over much of the former solvent market so we have focused on UV-cured printers for many years now. But we still keep track of water-based printers and media for photography and gi-clee on our www.fineartgicleeprinters.org and www.digital-photography.org.

Sample of water based

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Sample printsFLAAR has a division which uses our experience with digital cameras and studio lighting equipment to assist bot-anists and zoology students focused on studying the endangered species of plants and animals of Guatemala. We are working to raise funds to buy a 4WD vehicle so we can get our team and our digital camera equipment deep into the jungle-covered mountains of Central America.

To show samples of our research results at our fund raising meetings, we are asking printer and ink companies if they can print samples for us. STS Inks kindly printed the samples you see here. FOTOBA kindly cut these into strips in the COLEX FOTOBA cutter booth.

We also did test prints on textile printers courtesy of Eloi Ferreira and Marco Sousa of MTEX.

Here are the test prints from MTEX, printed at ISA 2015 in Las Vegas, in front of the actual tree in a remote part of Guatemala.

STS Sample print

MTEX Sample print

STS Sample print

Here are FLAAR staff at our main office, showing the print samples done at ISA 2015 (out in our ethnobotanical research garden).

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MTEX Sample print

People often ask why our office is in Guatemala. Here in these photos you can see why: we like to work in an eco-friendly environment. So here are more of the FLAAR

staff with more ISA 2015 print samples, in other parts of our ethnobotanical re-search garden which surrounds our six-level office building.

DigiFab Sample print

MTEX Sample print

DigiFab Sample print

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After-Market InkAlready during the pre-show day we saw STS Inks and Sam Ink plus many Korean ink companies. It helps when we have visited the factory in person: once at the STS factory in Florida and three times at the Sam Ink factory in Singapore.

When possible it also helps to visit print shops which are using the ink which we are studying.

There are also several booths of general distributors who sell inks, media, printers. In this kind of booth of di-verse products, the ink is only one of many products. Our list of “ink booths” is primarily of ink factories or the master distributors of an ink factory. Or a booth which is at least 50% focused primarily on inks.

STS inks

Sam Ink inks

Here you see our special FLAAR Report on after-market inks available from Taiwan, China, Korea, Singapore, Eu-rope, and USA.

This can be ordered by writing FrontDesk “at” FLAAR.org and asking to be invoiced.

Here you see our special FLAAR Report on after-market inks: 16 brands.

This can be ordered by writing FrontDesk “at” FLAAR.org and ask-ing to be invoiced.

STS inks

STS inks

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Media & SubstratesISA 2015 had more media and substrates than Graph Expo; more than most other printer or signage expos (ex-cept APPPEXPO 2015 which had over 170 brands).

Fair range of thick and rigid materials, including some Aluminum Composite Material, some honeycomb sand-wich board (Re-Board) and a seldom recognized category which can be informally called glitter or glistening media.

I first saw this brand of glistening media at SGI 2015 (Sign Middle East, Dubai). Then I saw this Shinhan Co. Ltd again at another expo; and now for a third time at ISA 2015 Sign Expo.

Thirteen years ago we at FLAAR used SIHL media for testing HP and Mimaki printers. Then their supply chain shifted in part to China and so we switched to another media brand that was more reliable. Now, for several years, several Chinese factories are significantly improved, and we estimate SIHL has dropped the sources for the media that caused our evaluators problems, so we would perhaps look again at SIHL, as a company and it’s media. In their booth we met Chris Steiner, Director of Sales US/Canada.

There was not much PE at ISA; we are studying the improvements to the PE of ARIA brand, especially their new printing service (where they have a UV printer with a specific UV-cured ink which works well on PE). PE has many advantages over PVC vinyl but requires a really well calibrated UV-cured printer and appropriate inks to work nicely. You can contact ARIA to learn about this. One of their offices is in Texas, e-mail info@aria.us.com, telephone 972 422-7073..

We have separate FLAAR Reports on the brands and kinds of media and substrates. These show at least 99% of all booths which focused on printable materials.

Here you see our special FLAAR Reports on media.

This can be ordered by writing Front-Desk “at” FLAAR.org and asking to be invoiced.

If you wish to have the complete itemized list of circa 170 brands of media and printable substrates, the FLAAR team keeps track of all brands around the world.

These can be ordered by writing FrontDesk “at” FLAAR.org and asking to be invoiced.

Re-board booth Honeycomb sandwich board

Shinhan sample

Rollsroller everywhereI saw at least four booths with the Rollsroller brand of flatbed laminator applicator. Plus one competitor. Rollover. At trade shows in other parts of the world you see other brands, one from South Africa but most of the other brands are made in Europe. So far the Made in China clones have not yet been successful as flatbed applicators.

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PrintheadsI did not hear anyone discussing or asking about printheads during ISA. Yet at APPPEXPO a few weeks before, you could find a buzz around any printhead which was a potential competitor for the Epson DX5 and DX7.

Epson pretends they are not bothered by Panasonic or Ricoh printheads because Epson says their own new printheads are better than the DX5 or DX7. But if in fact Ricoh or Panasonic replace the DX5 and/or DX7, Epson will lose both millions of dollars as well as market share. Besides, what will Epson do with all the heads it manu-facturers if printer companies jump to Ricoh or Panasonic?

Printheads are as important as new inks in recognizing advances in technology which allow new, better, and faster printers to become reality. The HP PageWide system, using HP’s own printheads, is a good example. But until I can test these in a demo room, it is premature to comment on their pros and cons relative to Memjet. With Memjet printheads the manufacturers have assisted in facilitating my access to information and to tests.

Xaar has brought me to their world headquarters in Cambridge, England, and two or three times to their regional office in China. Furthermore Xaar has brought me to about five printer factories in China which used their prin-theads (this was perhaps six or so years ago).

Now we are looking forward to being trained in Dimatix printheads in their demo facilities. It is essential to have more than PR releases as your source of information: I prefer an in-person study in a demo room.

Here you see our new FLAAR Report on printheads.

This can be ordered by writing FrontDesk “at” FLAAR.org and ask-ing to be invoiced.

HP PageWide sample

HP PageWide system

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MEMS printheads and Memjet printersThere were more Memjet MEMS printhead printers at GOA 2015 in Miami than at most other expos around the world. This is why FLAAR attends a really wide range of printer trade shows, so we can experience the full range of printheads and printers. To see Memjet heads in narrow format you need the brands of label printers. To see Memjet heads in wide-format there are additional brands. I noticed one of these brands, Oce ColorWave 900, in the Canon booth.

MEMJET suffered significantly year after year because the originating company in Australia looked more like a patent farm to earn money from patents rather than being capable of actually producing a printer which would function outside an R&D lab. From 2007 onward, most of the claims coming out of Australia varied from silly to so exaggerated that only a few people fell for them. It was rather obvious that no actual physical wide-format Memjet printer functioned as claimed once the nozzles got clogged.

Now Memjet faces serious competition from HP PageWide XL printers. HP printheads can also use pigmented ink. We can state how nicely photographic images look (on a Vortex from RTI) when printed on coated stock because Memjet manufacturers such as RTI (Vortex) allow FLAAR Reports to print samples at the expos, right in their booth. So until a team from FLAAR is in an HP demo center, we can still say that the quality of Memjet on coated stock is quite impressive.

FLAAR has separate evaluations on 42” Memjet-based printers (Xerox, Oce, RTI, and one brand from China, Gongzheng). We are updating these reports now that HP PageWide is available in 40” widths. To evaluate the benefits of the HP PageWide I will need to be in a room with this printer and print my test samples. Also need to know the price and which RIP software operates these printers.

ISA 2015 really had a wide range of products available to see, experience, and learn about. but it would be nice to have more Memjet printers in 2016. However Memjet will need some realistic evaluations, since PR releases have been their worst enemy, since PR releases on most products tend to be exaggerated and thus most people find a PR release rather dubious.

Oce ColorWave 900

Print sample

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3D SignageWe at FLAAR have been keeping track of 3D signage for several years now. Since this topic is very popular, we have separate FLAAR Reports (and PowerPoint lec-tures) which show all the different forms where inkjet printers can be used to create multi-dimensional signage. It is ironic that a normal flat print can be turned into a three-dimensional sign (we describe all this in our separate FLAAR Report on 3D signage).

Here you see our special FLAAR Re-port on 3D printers (what they are NOT able to produce) and realistic dis-cussions on how to create 3D signage with more intelligent equipment and materials.

This can be ordered by writing Front-Desk “at” FLAAR.org and asking to be invoiced.

MOOTOOM booth

3D printers, not visible whatsoever (at first)

On the pre-show day (last set-up day), and during the first day of ISA, we have not seen one single 3D printer, though surely they are somewhere. Graphics of the Americas 2015 in Miami had the most 3D printers of any printer expo of the Americas.

Here is the front cover of the FLAAR Report which includes photographs of both 3D printers as well as the remarkable results.

But by the afternoon of the second day I finally found a booth with two 3D printers at ISA 2015. I have been at the factory in China where these 3D printers are manufactured. The original name of the company was MOOTOOH; now they use the spelling MOOTOOM. This company is experienced in both solvent printers and 3D rapid prototypers. Sola Guo is the capable and experienced CEO of this company which makes several brands of wide-format inkjet printers plus the 3D rapid prototypers.

We hope to eventually receive one of the MooRobot 3D printers to evaluate it.

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Textile PrintersDurst and MTEX made ISA a strong grand-format textile printer expo. DigiFab, DGI, and d-gen also all present. So ISA did very well in mid-range and high-end textile printers this year. MTEX Americas is new for ISA (MTEX Americas is an ex-pansion of the parent company in Portugal).

For entry-level textile printers, you need also to visit APPPEXPO in Shanghai. We did test prints during ISA courtesy of MTEX and courtesy of DigiFab. It is very noticeable that what prints well with normal signage ink on signage media looks very different than an inkjet print on fabric.

Often backlit display is essential to bring out the best features of an inkjet print on a fabric. We do not have backlit lighting cases to showcase this, so we show the fabric samples as they are. Anything which is dark but not intended to be black is not a good idea to try with dye sublimation chemistry. Certain colors do well in dye sub; other colors appear differently. Often a drawing or graphic design looks better than a photograph.

Our print samples were photographs, intended to be printed on fine art or good signage media, so were not selected to look well with textile inks. But some colors and lots of the renderings of jaguars and macaws came out nicely.Also the kind of media you select will make some kinds of graphic design look better. So if you wish to do soft signage, or backlit signage, each application has colors that look great and colors that are not ideal for sublimation.

MTEX booth

DigiFab booth

Here you see the TRENDs lev-el FLAAR Report on textile printers, textile inks, calendar-ing sublimation systems, and T-shirt printers, by textile print-er and ink evaluator Maria Re-nee Ayau.

This can be ordered by writing FrontDesk “at” FLAAR.org and asking to be invoiced.

DigiFab booth

In order to show every single textile printer at ISA (Durst, d-gen, etc) we have separate FLAAR Reports which cover 100% of textile printers

and textile inks at each major expo.

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T-shirt printersThere are several ways to print T-shirts

• Screen printing• Inkjet printing• Direct to fabric• Via transfer paper• Toner onto transfer paper

Since screen printing has little new technology nor new techniques you do not see screen printing machines at ISA (no offset, no flexo either; ISA is appropriately focused on inkjet and traditional signage). SGIA and FESPA are strong in T-shirt printers but ISA did well this year.

Mutoh 405GT

Epson F2000 AnaJet booth

Sawgrass 7100DN

DistributorsWe have lists of all major wide-format printer, ink, and media distributors for all major countries around the world.

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Digital Cutters (for roll-to-roll material)To write about cutters it definitely helps to be at the actual factories. I have been in the MultiCam factory near the Dallas-Ft Worth airport many years ago, (to look at their traditional CNC routers). I Plus I spoke with a manager at a nearby print shop in Dallas who had one of their first generation MultiCam attempts to move away from mechanical CNC to more digital cutting. From this manager it was possible to learn that first generation digital cutters may not be as good as a Zund or Kongsberg or Aristo.

I have been to GCC factories both in Taiwan and in mainland China. (to study the entry-level traditional vinyl cutters).

But so far I have not been at the FOTOBA factory in Italy. But here in the Colex FOTOBA booth at ISA, I had an opportunity to experience their versatile cutting machine for roll-fed materials.

One FOTOBA machine did an excellent job cutting prints on PVC or comparable material. We appreciate the help of Valter Maddalon in getting this started and the booth managers for helping to do all this cutting.

Colex Fotoba booth

CNC samples

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Here are Fotoba and Colex printers during test cutting of print samples for FLAAR Reports. PR releases, sorry, are not realistic (and most are exaggerated). You need to actually know the technology in-person, and when realistic, test the technology in-person.

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Digital Cutters (for fabrics)I have been flown to visit the Gerber factory where I inspected their cutters for fabrics. I have been hosted to come to the Zünd factory in Switzerland many years ago. Although Zünd is best known for cutting thick and flat digital material they also come from a background of textile cutters.

Since there were no cutting marks printed on the fabric, it was a challenge to cut the many meters of material. Thus I especially appreciate the patience of the Colex staff in accomplishing the cutting of the cloth. We did not get business cards of everyone, but did get those of Vlad Karevka, Alex Nechetsky and Dzianis Talpeka. The whole booth team were hospitable and helpful. A Colex cutter did a nice job cutting the polyester samples printed by MTEX.

The joint Colex Fotoba booth had a wide range of cutters: also for roll-fed material. Plus their flatbed cutters can also handle thick and rigid material.

We recommend you look at their products at the next signage expo in your part of the world

Colex Fotoba boothCNC samples

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Traditional SignageEvery aspect of traditional signage is available to see at ISA. FLAAR is focused on digital imaging and digital printing, but we do note when traditional signage is present, and when it is absent. Definitely present at ISA 2015, indeed more traditional signage here than at any inkjet printer expo anywhere in Europe.

Ladders for installing signageSince FLAAR has several divisions, one of our other divisions really needs high ladders (to be able to photo-graph rare Neotropical flowers high in the trees in the jungle-covered mountains of Guatemala). So it was nice to see Little Giant Ladder Systems.

We would like to do an evaluation of this system, especially the sophisticated accessories, such as Dual Ratchet Levelers, and Work Platform.

LED & LCD, Dynamic Digital Signage

LED & LCD, Dynamic Digital Signage

The LED and LCD areas were significantly larger than anything at FESPA. We at FLAAR Reports support and pub-licize FESPA in Cologne, in FESPA Mexico, and in FESPA in South Africa, since these are all healthy expos which are competing in an acceptable manner with other expos in these world areas. But we are not a PR agency, so we state clearly when something is not strong, or biggest, or best.

For dynamic digital signage associated with a wide-format inkjet printer trade show, ISA does very well. I was able to watch most of my favorite cartoon movies while walking through ISA.

Irrespective of the subject matter, LED screens were all over ISA, in many sizes and shapes. Yet there were doz-ens and dozens of booths of wide-format printers, so all aspects of signage are present here.

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Trade Magazines

Many trade magazines had their booths at ISA. The photographs never show any editors or staff since they are at press conferences or taking notes in booths of signage products.

One other trade show said that their rule was that every booth had to have a booth person present 100% of the time. This made me smile when they said this, since this is NEVER the case for trade magazine or trade show booths.

But at our FLAAR Reports booth, Jimena Munoz was in the booth 90% of the time, and a back-up person was in the booth when she was away (except during the efi VUTEk press conference, when all five of us attended).

There are many trade magazines in each world area. Spain and Italy each have so many it is hard to keep track. For the USA the largest single issue was of SIGN & Digital Graphics of www.SDGmag.com, Ken Mergentime,Ex-ecutive Editor. Although with many experienced people from the world of signage and printing, Dr Nicholas Hellmuth is on this magazine’s Technical Advisory Board, as is Dr Ray Work, an independent consultant in inks. His decades of experience in ink provide him the ability to write articles on inks for SIGN & Digital Graphics magazine.

The April 2015 issue has a healthy 128 pages.

Here are photographs of the booths of other trade magazines at ISA 2015. We find all worth subscribing to, since FLAAR is not a trade magazine (we are a research institute, and provide material for education (including many years as Visiting Research Professor at two universities)).

The predecessor of the FLAAR Reports were issued from Osaka, Japan, while Dr Hellmuth was visiting research professor at the main Japanese national museum of ethnology (invited there to teach the staff digital scan-ning and digital imaging). We also issued FLAAR Reports on photography while assisting the department of architectural history and preservation of national art associated with the University of Malta on that beautiful island many years ago.

Then FLAAR was invited to two universities simultaneously (about five years at each) to create a wide-format printing and digital photography research and evaluation facility (BGSU in Ohio and UFM in Guatemala City, Central America).

So today in 2015 we are still doing research and still preparing lectures on wide-format inkjet topics, though are fully independent of a university (since our staff has to be all over the world to do our research; tough to be on any one campus for more than one month one semester).

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Press Room is more helpful if it has facilitiesGOA provides a fully equipped Press Room: computers, toner printer, and nice breakfast, nice mid-day meal, and Cola and Coffee all day long.

Graph Expo provides the same: fully equipped Press Room: computers, desktop printers, breakfast, lunch, Cola and coffee.

Each of these Press Rooms is within a few minutes walk from expo hall.

We sincerely appreciate the snacks since we prefer to work all day and not take time off for an actual lunch meal. It is helpful to have a place (NEARBY, not 150 meters through endless corridors) to get and send e-mail, because we fly an entire team to write-up the trade show, and thus it is a helpful courtesy to have a room where we can have an office while away from our office.

Maybe computer desks and toner printers were available to the Press in one of the ISA booth areas on the main floor? These also had the advantage of being close by. But the so-called Press Room seemed just an area for commercial press conferences; what helps is a place to retreat to write up what we have learned about at the expo; that was either totally missing, or maybe it existed but I mistakenly assumed facilities would be in a room marked Press Room.

Since we have over half a million readers around the world, it does help to have a space where we can do our write-ups while having a sandwich and Cola and nibbles. Upstairs in the main hall, as part of ISA area, would have been the most convenient by far.

Press Conferences and Evening EventsBecause our interest is to gather knowledge about printers, inks, media, applications, etc., we tend to skip press conferences. But we do find the efi VUTEk press event worth attending. Plus we attended the Mimaki evening event: lots of industry people to visit with and the lecture presentation had useful information (was not just a PR release).

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Venue (Las Vegas in general)Las Vegas is an entertaining place to visit: tons of restaurants at every price range. At night we are too exhausted to party (other than the Mimaki event which is for socializing and business).

Although Las Vegas is infamous for strip clubs, I am both too cheap and too busy to frequent them. But I can understand that these clubs are popular. What was tacky were the trucks driving around with signs for these places.

Venue (Mandalay Bay Convention Center)Nice location, easy to reach. Main issue was the confusing layout of the trade show hall. It took two entire days to figure out how to figure out where you were and how to get to the booths you needed to visit. This bizarre layout was definitely not a good idea.

Please expo organizers (and architects): a trade show hall should be rectangular, not a stepped wall puzzle. L-shaped is bad; and splattered L-ish shape is even worse.

Las Vegas Convention Center (near what used to be Hilton Hotel) is far better organized in its rectangular shape.

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Other signage expo VenuesCities with unionized convention centers are not very popular since high costs drive exhibitors away. Orlando and Las Vegas are the two cities with the most to offer for families or at least spouses.

I have been to expos in San Francisco, near Los Angeles, Chicago, and many other cities. New York, too expensive but plenty to see and do.

New Orleans: food in high-priced restaurants is no match the price (food is less than average and price is higher than most). Jazz is okay if you are into this, but too many places are sleezey. If you want that, more than enough in Las Vegas. In New Orleans it is merely out of place. I would estimate crime rate in New Orleans is comparable to Atlanta. Expo venue announcements at closing time are rude and unwelcome, “it is closing time, get out now.” Repeated 10 minutes later: it is past closing time; you are supposed to get out now, immediately.” ISA is courteous and never rude at closing time. Plus ISA provides free beer (which so far I did not have time to enjoy).

Atlanta: infamous for crime in downtown. Nothing worth seeing (unless you get excited with CNN tour). Not a place your family will want to return too. Sad, because it is easy to fly in and out of a hub like Atlanta and I have many friends living and/or working in this area.

London: expo center costs a fortune to reach in cab from Heathrow Airport, and wastes hours if you try from Heathrow airport in trains and metro (unrealistic if you have a lot of suitcases). Hotels far away and exceedingly costly. In London you have to switch from one transport system to another. In all German cities it is so much better organized to get from city to city and within any large city.

Dubai: easy to get around. Very safe city. Definitely no longer cheap but cab fair is not outrageous as in London. Incredible modern architecture and the best city for shopping in the world. We recommend SGI (aka, Sign Middle East).

Shanghai, Lots to see and experience. Metro is easy to use if you are adventurous and have patience for learning the system. We recommend APPPEXPO in March.

Beijing: lots of historical architecture and art to explore, plus remarkable modern architecture. But all the really big printer and signage expos are in Shanghai or Guangzhou.

Istanbul: friendly, not cheap but not overpriced. Lots of historical architecture and great museum. We have attended Sign Istanbul for many years.

German cities: excellent food, great beer, relatively safe (safer than Atlanta and New Orleans for sure). Cologne has the most historical architecture; Duesseldorf has an “old town” center. Munich has nice old part. All have excellent Metro (U-Bahn) and tram (S-Bahn) system. We attend FESPA every year and VISCOM Germany about every several years.

Have also been to printer expos in Paris, Panama City, Sao Paulo, Madrid, Milano, Mexico City, Johannesburg, etc. In USA Las Vegas and Orlando are the favorite cities for a trade show in part because hotels are reasonable cost (especially in Las Vegas, since they want you inside the hotel to hit you for meals and gambling profits).

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Final words on ISA 2015For the last several years it was fairly clear that SGIA was gaining popularity; Graph Expo was still viable but has shrunk so far since 2007 that it is amazing how many people still attend. Graph Expo 2014 was so much smaller than past years that I was surprised even having seen it shrink consistently every single year since 2008. But Graph Expo is still popular for the products that it covers which are never exhibited at either ISA or SGIA (especially toner printers, which are sadly missing from both ISA and SGIA). Ironically GOA 2015 in Miami had more label printers and more toner printers and more MEMS printhead technology printers probably than ISA and SGIA put together.

We at FLAAR Reports wish all appropriate expos to succeed. Inappropriate ones are expos which deliberate-ly try to force another out of business by starting in a country which already has an excess of other expos. Another inappropriate tactic is to move your expo right smack on top of the dates of another expo (to try to weaken the competing expo). We favor competition, but courteous competition (since we are all in this industry together). Our goal should be for the good and educational benefit of all concerned: print shop owners, managers, and staff, distributors, manufacturers, members of the press, trade show organizers, and all people and companies who work to improve digital imaging, inkjet printing, and public education on these topics.

I have interviewed people from many companies to ask for suggestions on why SGIA was universally sug-gested as “more profitable” for exhibitors, and I now have considerable useful information on this point. Fortunately ISA 2015 was better than many expected (but SGIA was very strong last year and will shrink only one year, because of selecting Atlanta for 2015). We expect and predict that SGIA will bounce back very strong in 2016 (since it returns to Las Vegas) so there is a lot to do for competing expos during this period).

This year ISA came back well, and being in Las Vegas really helped. But since we interviewed many people during the last six months, we now realize when being in Las Vegas can actually be a downside depending on where all other signage expos have been within the last 18 months. This is complex documentation and we have this information in private reports for private clients.

2016 will be a year of challenges, even though Drupa (2016) is no longer the biggest printer expo: for wide-format inkjet APPPEXPO won this title already in 2014. Nonetheless, each expo organizer team for 2016 will need innovative planning and improved services to attract both exhibitors and attendees.

Since we have lots of print shop owners and managers reading our FLAAR web site network every year, a lot of these print shop owners and managers plus many distributors and manufacturers, use our suggestions for what expos and in which countries are worth attending and/or exhibiting at. We have already booked our booth for ISA 2016 in Orlando.

Best feature at this ISA 2015 ExpoThe absolute best new feature of ISA 2015 was the giant hall floor plan which I saw in at least two locations.

This was a great idea and whoever proposed it deserves special mention. This map was large enough so you could see the name of all the key booths.

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PLEASE NOTEThis 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.

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.large-format-printers.org.

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.

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