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Spuhl Virtu RS 25/48 and RS 35/48, the Swiss original for the L&P Virtu combo flatbed UV-curable inkjet printer family
Markus Schawalder and the various teams at the Spuhl factory in Wittenbach , Switzerland recently dedicated an entire day to showing me the production of this Virtu RS 25 and RS 35 UV combo printer in the factory. It was also possible to discuss features with the R&D manager, and do test prints for several hours with Diana and Daniel.
Hopefully there will be time and project funding to turn this into a FLAAR Report (there are 45 UV printer manufacturers and over 60 current models with new models appearing already at FESPA Digital and upcoming at DRUPA '08).
Prior to this visit to the Spuhl factory, I had no understanding of the several distinctive features of this printer, and all the things this printer can do, which are not possible, for example, with the VUTEk QS2000 or QS3200 .
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| Virtu RS 35 in the Spuhl demo room in Switzerland as it is printing FLAAR samples of Tikal, Temple I, Guatemala. |
First look at Spuhl Virtu RS 25 and RS 35 in 2006
What more can you say when you literally walk inside a printer of this magnitude. Thomas Maahsen kindly took time out, one day before FESPA Digital 2006 started, as the Swiss technicians were still installing the printer. He courteously made the time to show feature by feature to two of us from FLAAR.
This is one advantage when you are an exhibitor: you can get inside the trade show booths two days before the crowds pour in. Once the crowds filled the booth, everyone was so busy that it was hard to see anything peacefully.
Although I have seen L&P Virtu printers since Day One (DPI show, 2001), it was not until May 2006 that anyone at L&P actually showed me the inner details.
My reaction is very simple:
“What I saw inside the Virtu RS35 is what you expect when you invest almost a million dollars.”
At ISA 2006 I got a chance to meet Chuck Kallil Sr, the new head of the inkjet printer portion of Leggett & Platt. He seemed genuinely interested in having an independent study of the L&P line of printers.
Since there are over 80 models of UV printers from more than 45 manufacturers, we can't cover them all, so we tend to dedicate our resources to those printers that most of our readers ask us about (in those years, such as ColorSpan 72UVX or Durst Rho 600 ) plus where we have the most access because the manufacturers open their factory, demo room, and trade show booths to us (Gandinnovations Jeti flatbed , MacDermid ColorSpan 9840 , or Durst Rho 351R and Rho 800 Presto as examples).
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Based on the improved access courtesy of both L&P and Spuhl, I look forward to being able to add a FLAAR Report on the Virtu RS 25/48 and Virtu RS 35/48 in the future. I just finished inspecting the Spuhl Virtu RS 25/48 at FESPA Digital in Geneva and just finished a visit to the Spuhl factory a few hours away elsewhere in Switzerland the day after.
The Virtu RS 25 (2.5 meters) and RS 35 (3.5 meters) are the same machine at two widths. But the RS series from Spuhl in Switzerland are different machines than the L&P Virtu HD8 that is manufactured in the US. The Virtu RS from Spuhl are best compared with the Durst Rho 800 Presto.
I hope to visit the Leggett & Platt L&P Digital Technologies factory in Florida sometime this summer or autumn to learn more about their Virtu HD8 printer.
Most recently updated April 24, 2008.
First posted May 30, 2006 . Updated April 7, 2008.
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Dilli NeoPlus |
| HP Scitex XP5100 and HP Scitex XP5300 |
| HP Scitex XP2100 and HP Scitex XP2700 |
| HP Scitex FB6100 |
| L&P Spuhl RS |
| Sun FastJet |
| RIP Software |
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| Caldera RIP software |
Interesting inks & Alternative Inks |
HP latex ink |
UV-Curable ink, OEM (in preparation) |
UV-Curable, third-party ink |
| Encres Dubuit (others in preparation) |
Fine Art Photography Giclee & Proofing (on other FLAAR sites)
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Epson 4880 |
Epson 7880 |
Epson 9880 |
Most of our updates for 2008 onward are in FLAAR Reports in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. It is more efficient for us to make new information available in PDF format. So if the web page itself is not updated, check out www.wide-format-printers.NET to see if the printer, RIP, or other subject is covered in an update in a PDF download.
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