Augend Technologies appears to be a new name for Infiniti Europe

Aungend Technologies Xplorer solvent printer. Now that Latex and other alternative (and more environmentally friendly) inks have taken over, it is hard to see a promising future for solvent ink technology.

Infiniti Europe (and thus Augend Technologies) is very different from Infiniti USA (best represented by Aeromatrix)

Since Infiniti is a name more than a centralized company it is not surprising that the American reseller is totally different and unrelated to the European reseller. Both companies, however, have courteous booth staff and have always been patient and gracious when FLAAR has asked them questions for hours on end.

But Infiniti Europe never really launched their UV printer, indeed they withdrew it for a year or so (after showing it at FESPA 2005 in Munich ). This is good to have taken if off the market, since Infiniti Europe has to cover tech support on the printers they sell within Western Europe. If a printer is not yet finished, doing tech support can get expensive quickly. Reportedly Agfa dropped out of the eco-solvent printer market totally because of higher than expected costs of tech support due to issues with its inks.

Infiniti in the USA tends to sell into Latin America. No one in Latin America can seriously sue a company in the US (much less a company in China). So there is not really that much tech support available to people in far-away Latin America after they buy their UV printers. Once you pay for it, it belongs to you forever.

But in Russia, their Sun Neo UV LED version of the Infiniti UV seems to have fewer problems than the models sold in the US and to Latin America.

Infiniti UV printers come under different names

Infiniti UV1612S

UV-1606

FY6150P

Xterius 16UVs (Infiniti Europe)

But again, at D-PES Dongguan 2011, Infiniti exhibited a totally new and improved series of UV flatbed printers using Seiko heads.

As for the several versions of the hybrid printer listed above, it’s confusing, but so will getting spare parts be even more confusing. At least Augend is keeping the same name they have had for two years: Xterius 16UVS. This has essentially the same Xaar XJ126-300 printheads as the Sun NEO-UV, but the latter uses LED lamps because the Sun versions are retrofitted in Russia.

The Augend spec sheet does not indicate whether the 16UVS still uses just one UV lamp. More than 85% of UV printers use two UV lamps. The main exceptions are some Mimaki printers that do only uni-directional printing,with Toshiba Tec printheads, in order to achive superior quality.

The Infiniti UV printer uses only one printhead because this is a retrofitted solvent printer. They have not yet had enough experience to design an entire printer with two lamps: that would require redesigning the entire chassis to take care of the heat. Even with one head, the Infiniti UV printers sold in the USA have serious problems with the ink lines (which are not always of adequate standard).

But to be fair to the European version, we will need to inspect end-users in Europe to see if they have the same problems as sign shop owners report in the US and Latin America. It’s not FLAAR that says any of this, it’s people that bought these Infiniti UV printers and then find out they are still in alpha stage, or barely in early beta stage.

However it is not only Chinese-made UV printers that have these problems. The $650,000 Luscher JetPrint, in our opinion, is not really fully out of beta stage even after three years since DRUPA 2004, or at least was not when they sold the machines where we interviewed the owners (in Europe and in the US). This is a Swiss-made UV printer.

And on the subject of Swiss quality, another Swiss UV printer failed to function two years ago. Only now, after two years of retrofitting, has it been re-launched.

That’s why the FLAAR Reports are essential. We do our best to learn which are printers still in beta-stage, and which are not even out of alpha-stage. And, which printers are mature and ready for use today.

But the new company, Augend, is moving beyond Infiniti

Augend Technologies, however, is focusing on its Augend F16, a solvent-based “wide-format inkjet press.”

Recently Updated January 16, 2012.

First posted May 23, 2007.