NUR Expedio Inspiration roll-to-roll printer

With all the new models available at ISA and FESPA 2010, FLAAR is offering personalized consulting at each trade show. You can walk-the-floor with the Senior Editor of FLAAR and get his comments on any and all printers, inks, RIP software, color management, substrates, applications, etc. So if you wish to learn about the difference between combo, hybrid, and dedicated UV printers, how latex ink compares, about textile printers, etc. contact FLAAR to obtain consulting. You can also get consulting before ISA or FESPA anywhere in the world: Dr Hellmuth was in Dubai and India last week as consultant, and will be in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and China as consultant in the next two months. He was consulting in Korea and London in late 2009.

NUR Expedio rollers at VISCOM 2007

Some companies take a good basic design and improve it year after year: they don’t depart from the basic chassis; they make it better. L&P Virtu is such an example.

Other UV manufacturers abandon their earlier models after a year or so and build a completely new one, trying to upgrade and improve what they found out from end-users was not such a good design as they first thought. These companies probably prefer not to be listed here, so we will spare them embarrassment.

How does NUR do their new models?

NUR follows a comparable approach to L&P: they take a solid structure and add new features. The current upgrade to the original NUR Expedio 3200 is the NUR Expedio Inspiration. You will see it at FESPA ’07 in Berlin. FLAAR was there all five days. It was possible to inspect it again at VISCOM Germany in Dusseldorf in September.

Optional Flatbed Module

The optional flatbed module was presented at ISA 2007. When I first heard about it I figured it was a simple roll-up table. But no, this is designed and made in Israel, so it’s a sophisticated system that you have to see operating to comprehend how clever it is.

We will be inspecting this in more detail again, and updating this page with more information on the NUR Expedio Inspiration.

Upper view of the NUR Expedio Inspiration roll-to-roll printer at Viscom Germany trade show 2007.

Sample printed by the NUR Expedio Inspiration roll-to-roll printer.

NUR was the first to offer roll-to-roll UV

Durst offers their Rho 350R and now their Rho 351R for roll-to-roll printing. I just spent an entire week inspecting Durst Rho printers in the Durst headquarters and their two factories. Several new FLAAR Reports are being issued.

NUR comes from many years prior experience building roll-to-roll solvent printers for serious production of banners and billboards. Scitex Vision has comparable experience.

Several Chinese manufacturers are now trying to offer a roll-to-roll UV-curable printer, but that same company’s hybrid UV printers fall apart after a few months (that’s what two different print shops told us who had bought these Chinese UV printers).

Gandinnovations now offers two widths of roll-to-roll printers. These are definitely not low-bid Chinese machines. Gandinnovations has plenty of experience constructing serious production printers for solvent-based inks, as well as designing UV-flatbed systems. But whereas Gandy concentrates on flatbeds, and NUR concentrates on roll-to-roll UV, it’s not surprising that the NUR Expedio has been successful. When I was in the NUR factory in Israel you could see all the effort dedicated to manufacturing the Expedio models because they had so many orders.

Recently VUTEk came out with a roll-to-roll UV printer, the QS3200r. There is no FLAAR Report on this printer because we have been so busy with other brands and models. But we do have reports on the Durst, the NUR, and the Gandinnovations roll-to-roll UV printers.

But NUR was the first to offer a roll-to-roll UV-cured wide format printer. I can still remember it at DRUPA 2004. Since no other roll-fed UV printer existed at that time, I assumed it was solvent-based when I first saw it. No, it’s UV-cured.

A dedicated roll-to-roll system has many benefits over a combo or hybrid system. A true roll-fed system is more reliable than trying to add a roll-fed system to a combo or hybrid design. Since the market for roll-to-roll UV-cured printers is rising, FLAAR is taking a special interest in the roll-fed segment.

Here the NUR Expedio Inspiration roll-to-roll printer showing samples at SGIA trade show 2007.

NUR also offers a regular 3.2 meter Expedio UV-curable roll-to-roll printer and a 5-meter Expedio in two models: the basic Expedio 5000 and the Expedio Revolution with special ink for lowering the cost of producing banners and billboards.

This is the NUR booth at FESPA trade show 2007.

Here is Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth analyzing the NUR Expedio Inspiration roll-to-roll printer, when the printer was being installed in the trade show floor, FESPA 2007.

Nur Expedio Inspiration at FESPA 2007

After NUR was acquired by HP, the Expedio receive new designations in 2008

Now the NUR Expedio 5000 and NUR Revolution are the HP Scitex XP5100 and HP Scitex XP 5300.

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

The NUR Tempo Q is the HP Scitex FB6100.

 

 

Most recently updated March 10, 2008.

First posted May 23, 2007. Updated Oct. 1, 2007.