 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Keundo’s UV printer is advancing past alpha stage and will be revealed soon
Keundo has been working on a UV printer for more than two years. The first prototype was actually displayed quietly at one US trade show about three years ago. This prototype used solvent ink and had only a narrow table; the new final design for the UV version has tables front and back the entire width of the machine.
 |
Keundo SupraQ 3300-UV printer |
Keundo SupraQ 3300-UV cured flatbed hybrid inkjet printer
The complete new and improved design has been displayed at Korean trade shows in 2007. But they are intelligently not yet presenting it at US shows (at least it was not at ISA 2007). This is smart of Keundo:
-
the Infiniti UV was exhibited while still in alpha-stage, and sold while still unfinished: the owners who bought them complained it simply fell apart after a few months.
-
DuPont had to recall 90% of their second generation printers (DuPont DCC 22UV digital printing system), and most of their third or fourth generation Cromaprint 22 UV printers are still having occasional issues (ask anyone who bought one). If they had waited until the factory had more experience it would have been better for the reputation of that model.
-
Zund had to recall most of their premature Zund UVjet 250-Combi printers and it took them two years to redesign them. The new Zund 250 is now out, significantly improved, and we will spend two days in Switzerland inspecting it before FESPA. Our comments will be updated as soon as we have this opportunity to test it in person.
-
The Oce Arizona 60uv was shown at trade shows for almost two years: never did function adequately and was recalled.
-
Raster Printers tried to display their Chinese-made printer before it was functional. DJT tried to sell their printer before it was even finished!
-
The Kodak 5260 was not a UV printer but is the best example of the public embarrassment caused by displaying a printer before it is finished. Actually it was never finished, but Kodak spent over a million dollars in advertising it nonetheless. The printer, and eventually Encad, went down the drain.
The lesson to be learned: end-users dislike being guinea pigs for testing unfinished printers. It is safer (for the long haul) to wait and get the printer fully finished first, and then show it. So we commend Keundo for not showing an unfinished printer. Keundo, and all the other Korean companies, have an excellent quality, so we look forward to seeing this printer Keundo SupraQ 3300-UV when it is displayed in Europe and the US.
 |
Keundo SupraQ 3300-UV, Nicholas at Keundo's Booth in Fespa 2007 |
Some features of the Keundo SupraQ 3300-UV printer
The first surprise is that this appears to be a platen-based design. This classifies it as a hybrid. The only other grand-format hybrid design is that of Neolt. All other large-width UV printers are either dedicated flatbeds or combo style (with a transport belt). The printer uses 12 Spectra Galaxy PH 256/50 AAA printheads, so it aims at signage-quality output with some speed, as compared with other companies that have gone to Toshiba Tec heads (to get text down to 6 pt that are legible). As with other printers you can opt for 6 traditional colors of CMYK + 2 white. It takes two white to be opaque enough. Print width is 3.2 meters (so it’s not truly a 3.3 meter machine…). Overall it appears to be a large and sturdy looking machine, as I would expect from Keundo. The tables, for example, look well designed and robust. As soon as the printer is shown outside Korea (most likely at FESPA ‘07) we will issue a FLAAR Reports on what we sense about its features, and its chances of survival in a competitive world of dozens and dozens of UV printer manufacturers. Our evaluation policy since 2006 prefers a site-visit case study to reveal how a printer functions in real life at an actual printshop. And we need a factory visit as well, so we can inspect build quality to document it is solidly constructed. So far we have visited the factories of MacDermid ColorSpan, Gandinnovations, Grapo, Inca, NUR, Sun (FastJet), and Vutek.
 |
First posted May 14, 2007.
 |
 |
 |
| |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
| Dilli Neo Jupiter |
| Gandinnovations NanoJet UV-curable |
| Gandinnovations Jeti 3348 JetStream |
| GCC StellarJet K100UV |
| HP Scitex XP5100 and HP Scitex XP5300 |
| HP Scitex XP2100 and HP Scitex XP2700 |
| HP Scitex FB6100 |
| L&P Spuhl RS |
| Seiko ColorPainter H-104S reviews |
| Sun FastJet |
| RIP Software |
|---|
| 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)
|
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.
|