In Wide Demand
Having a wide-format color ink-jet printer in-house can provide a valuable service to your customers.
To be successful—and stay alive—you must provide your customers with better service than commercial printers. That means giving the customers what they want, when they want it.
For Tino Castro, this meant purchasing a 12-color 52˝ ColorSpan Displaymaker 12 wide-format color ink-jet printer last year.
"For the past two to three years I've seen [demand] increase," says the printing services manager for the County of Riverside, Calif.
In the past, customers would come into his 20-employee shop with work orders for posters or banners and Castro would have to outsource those jobs. With the new machine, the in-plant now provides better service at a lower cost.
Riverside is a large county, with more than 1 million residents. Printing services has customers ranging from the Department of Social Services to the Sheriff's Department. Castro says at any one time the in-plant can be working on 90 to 100 jobs.
According to Castro, wide-format work can vary from 10 images one month to over 200 the next. Overall, he has noticed an increase in demand. He says that if it continues at its current rate, he plans to either upgrade, or buy a second machine.
Castro believes that advances in technology have caused the rise in demand. It's easier and cheaper to get wide-format work now, so naturally more people want it.
"Technology has improved to the point where anyone who wants wide-format printing can install it in their shop," he observes.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the machine will become a cash cow. Castro notes that although he is told wide-format color ink-jet printers rarely break down, there is one drawback—they're expensive to supply.
"They require 12 ink cartridges in the machine and you're looking at $250 to $350 per cartridge," he reports. For Castro, that averages out to roughly $3,600 every four months. And there's another issue:
"Different media require different inks," he says. Changeover from paper posters to vinyl banners requires replacing all 12 cartridges.
Still, Castro believes the machine is well worth the price.
"I think it was a good acquisition for my department," he comments. "It pays for itself because of the service it provides our customers."
The Power Of Atlas
The AgfaJet Atlas, from Agfa, is a sheetfed, drum-type, wide-format ink-jet printer designed for printing posters and displays up to 40x49˝ and for printing prepress proofs. It offers two output modes. In "Superfast Mode," the system prints pictures, text and line graphics at an output rate of approximately five minutes per page and with a resolution of 300 dpi. In "Wide-Gamut/High Quality Mode," it prints images with a resolution of 1,200 dpi.
Prints In 20 Minutes
Canon USA offers the BJ-W7000, a wide-format, bubble-jet printer. It produces 2x3´ prints in about 20 minutes. The BJ-W7000 features an ink tubing system that allows for easy user maintenance. Its display panel, quick warm-up time and ability to output a variety of paper sizes and types, up to 36˝, make it a good choice for corporate graphics providers.
Spanning The Width
ColorSpan offers high-speed, high-resolution, wide-format eight- and 12-color ink-jet printers. Available in 52˝, 62˝, and 72˝ widths, each includes AutoJet mapping, AutoSet calibration and head height adjustment to output images at up to 1,800-dpi resolution or 600-dpi images at up to 240 square feet in an unattended environment. A 36˝ drum-based device for fine art originals and digital art reproductions is also available.
A Grand Printer
Scitex Grandjet Piezo Electric wide-format printers offer 370x370-dpi output. The Grandjet V5 prints up to 16.4 feet, the Grandjet V3 prints up to 10.6 feet and the cost effective Grandjet V2 prints up to 7.2 feet. All work well for large displays. They use solvent-based pigments, which are UV resistant for 2 to 4 years.
Stylish Printer
The Epson Stylus Pro 9000 wide-format printer handles paper up to 44˝ in width. It is targeted for in-plants that do point-of-purchase displays and banners. The Stylus Pro 9500 is a 44˝ printer offering 1,440 dpi, 6-color printing at 22 square feet per hour.
Super Nova
The Encad NovaJet Pro Models 42e and 60e offer paper moving technology, a print dryer, an integrated feeder/take-up mechanism, unattended printing, front panel display, 42˝ and 60˝ printing capability (respectively), extended ink system with 500-ml reservoirs, and dual ink lines that let the operator switch different ink sets between jobs. The NovaJet Pro 600e has jet-out detection to automatically detect failed jets during printing.
1,200 Square Feet Per Hour.
Digital ColorStation 5442 from Gretag Professional Imaging is a digital color press that prints on 54˝ substrates, up to 1,200 square feet per hour. It can perform CMYK, spot color or digital varnish functions.
Right Out Of The Box
The Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 2500CP includes Adobe PostScript 3 built-in RIP, 4.3GB hard drive and HP JetDirect card with ethernet connectivity. PostScript drivers for Macintosh, Windows and UNIX are included, as well as AutoCAD drivers for Windows and DOS. Also available are two 54˝ models, the HP DesignJet 3500CP and DesignJet 3000CP.
Image Quality And Flexibility
The Kodak Professional Large Format 4000-Series ink-jet printers deliver image quality and flexibility. The 4000-Series printers are designed to work with a variety of consumables—opening new applications and opportunities. The 4000 Series printers are engineered for unattended use—increasing productivity while reducing waste.
Simple And Speedy System
The Océ Colour System 5050 is a color solution system that is easy to install and operate, and handles all kinds of wide-format color graphics. Océ systems are suited to technical jobs, as well, such as CAD, cartography, architectural drawings, color renderings and more. It offers 600 dpi resolution, or a 300 dpi mode for faster RIP throughput.
Six-color Printing
The Raster Graphics PiezoPrint 5000 54˝ printer offers six-color printing to produce continuous-tone quality. ColorBlend Technology adds light-density cyan and magenta inks to the basic four-color CMYK inks to produce smooth gradations. It can print a 3x4´ poster in four minutes, or 120 posters in eight hours. It uses fast-drying pigmented inks that are UV-resistant for outdoor durability.
Variable Droplet Technology
The Roland DGA Hi-Fi JET PRO (FJ-400 and FJ-500) delivers variable droplet technology and 1440x1440-dpi resolution. Available in 42˝ and 52˝ models, the FJ-400/500 models print in eight colors and can be configured in four or eight colors, including CMYK. They come with a PostScript 3-compatible Roland ColorChoice software RIP, which enables users to RIP and Print at the same time.
High Productivity
The Xerox ColorgrafX 54e electrostatic printer is for high production. It offers the ease of use of a Windows-based graphical user interface. New head technology uses a separate driver for each writing nib, providing consistent imaging at speeds of up to 600 square feet per hour at a resolution of 300 dpi.
Wide-format Roll Call
Lexjet Direct publishes a quarterly newsletter called Roll Call for the wide-format ink-jet and photographic printing community. It contains advice, technical help and solutions to wide-format digital printing problems. It's available at no charge by calling (800) 453-9538 or visiting www.lexjet.com.
Poster Protection
Protect wide-format posters from the elements by laminating them. These laminators are designed to do just that:
A Banner Machine
Banner American's Finisher 4300 and 6300 laminators thermally laminate both sides of 43˝ and 63˝ work—simultaneously mounting and laminating on board of up to 1⁄2˝.
Super Coater
The variable-speed D&K SuperKote 42˝ industrial laminator accepts board stock up to 42˝ thick. It uses films from 1.5 Mil up to rigid 10 Mil, including low-melt UV and pressure-sensitive films. It also comes in 25˝ or 32˝.
Several Laminator Options
GBC Films Group offers several wide-format laminators. The Cyclone runs sheets up to 32˝, Voyager runs sheets up to 31x40˝, Olympus runs sheets up to 44x44˝ and Explorer System in-line feeder, laminator and cutter runs sheets up to 311⁄2x41˝.
A Workhorse System
The Graphic Laminating LEDCO Thoroughbred laminator runs at up to 65 feet per-minute and laminates materials up to 25˝ wide. A high-speed finish line cutter (150 fpm), power feeder and scrap rewinder are available.
Seal The Deal
The 42˝ Seal Image 410 from Hunt Corp. performs top and bottom encapsulation in one pass. Designed for 5 to 20 prints per day, it can laminate a range of applications, including rigid and flexible indoor/outdoor displays.
Two Heated Rollers
The 62˝ Interlam Jet Lam 1600 heated roller mounting and laminating machine features two heated rollers. The Jet Lam 1100, a 43˝ alternative, is also available.
Simultaneous Laminating And Mounting
Spiral Binding's 42˝ and 60˝ laminating/mounting machines laminate one or two sides, encapsulate, mount with heat-activated (dry-mount) or cold pressure-sensitive adhesives and simultaneously mount and laminate.
by JOE RANOIA
