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Speed, LED-lamp curing, integration software, advanced engineering and versatile ink blends
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Because the ISA Sign Expo and SGIA Expo tradeshows have become extravagantly large, no person or journal can truly cover them in detail. For that reason, I often like to return to the venue, in type anyway, to present additional information on interesting products. At the October SGIA Expo 2011 tradeshow, for example, five improvement characteristics, singular or grouped, accompanied most new, digital-print product announcements — higher speed; LED-based UV-cure lamps; integration software; refined engineering; and more sophisticated inks. In brief, the highlights are:
— Speed: Print speed usually comes through the addition of wider- or longer- swath printhead clusters, e.g., more printheads, but at a cost. Still, if you’re a production shop, speed equals money, so the ROI is assured. Most difficult in the speed arena is media handling, which is why rigid-media, moving-platen (flatbed) machines are popular speedsters. Roll media tends to gain wings — lift — at high speeds. Also, unless controlled, the high-speed unrolling of media may generate capacitance-caused static electricity that could create both switching and software madness.
— LED curing: The LED-lamped, UV-cure technology provides lamp-life and heat-sensitive-media advantages because LEDs operate at lower temperatures and, typically, last much longer than mainstream UV-cure lamps. LEDs also allow printing on heat-sensitive media that may not survive the ambient heat produced during normal, UV-cure print processes. One caveat — LED-lamped machines may require proprietary inks.
— Integration software: Every high-cost, high-end, production-machine manufacturer now offers various software programs that feature one or more excellent implements — processing, maintenance, proofing or machine-integration tools — for complex, multi-machine situations.
— Advanced engineering: All around, refined-engineering, machining and printhead developments are allowing sign and print-for-pay shops to produce finer-detail prints at higher speeds.
— Better chemistry: Ink chemists have developed more sophisticated blends that offer increased flexibility and adherence, and this allows further diverse applications. Similarly, they’ve broadened gamut perimeters, which allow more colorful — and color-accurate — prints.
Here’s some, but certainly not all, enhancement examples:
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