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Offset printing companies gradually acquiring UV-cured flatbeds

Twice in the last few months I have flown to a city to inspect and evaluate a UV printer and it turns out that the company I have been directed to is an offset printing company that has just bought a UV flatbed priner.

Three times in the last months I have landed in a city thousands of miles away to test a UV printer and it turns out this printshop has both offset presses and also screen printing equipment in the same building.

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.

So clearly commercial printers with offset presses and screen printing companies are a major component of the kinds of printshops that are buying UV-curable flatbed printers.

The other kinds of printshops that are buying UV-cured printers are

• Digital printing companies
• Packaging: prototyping & production
• Label printing companies
• Franchise sign shops
• Family owned and operated sign shops (Mom and Pop sign shops)
• Reprographic printshops (CAD, etc)
• Quick Print shops
• Photo labs
• Giclee ateliers
• Décor, interior decoration, textiles, wallpaper
• Graphic arts (advertising, proofing, etc)
• In-plant and in-house printing departments

These visits are part of our unique manner to learn the true pros and cons of a wide-format inkjet printer. We call them site-visit case studies. This means that Dr Hellmuth or one of the Technical Writers of FLAAR visit a printshop somewhere in the world that has a printer that we are interested in evaluating.

We have done site-visit case studies in Athens (Greece, not Georgia), on the Island of Malta, frequently in Guatemala, twice recently in different parts of Slovenia, an hour away from Milan, several times in Germany, in Istanbul, Portugal, often in Toledo Ohio and St Louis, Missouri (where FLAAR has offices), and so on.

So for 2009 we decided it would be helpful to document the roughly dozen top categories of kinds of printshops that are switching to new wide-format inkjet technology: sign franchise print shops, screen printing companies, and commecial printers using offset presses are three major categories.

74Karat offset press at Scholz Druck in Germany.

Sheet-fed and web fed offset

Some offset printing companies long ago tested wide-format inkjet printers: usually an Encad or HP Designjet. A few were tempted by Epson. In those years these printers were slow.

Today water-based printers from Canon are faster; Epson is less slow than before; and some HP models are faster (some Z-series are as slow now as Epson was in the past; the lack of speed is to achive higher quality and utilize 8 to 12 colors).

Narrow web fed digital printers are the fastest. Sheet-fed wide-format has not really become a realistic format (at least not yet).

The question is whether to go for UV-cured, water-based, solvent-based, or wait for the new inks that are coming out later in 2009 and 2010.

Gravure

Gravure has the reputation of being high quality, expensive and thus used less and less. But since gravure can be used for packaging printing, it comes into my area of interest. As magazine runs become lower and lower, and as magazine companies may desire specialized editions for each world area, then short-run digital presses and narrow-format inkjet offer potential: not the world of gravure is not the world of wide-format and even less of grand format.

Letterpress

During 2009 I will keep my eyes and ears open to see if companies that favor letter press printing process can find something in the digital world that is useful to them.

Offset printing companies are also acquiring narrow format wide-format inkjet presses

Yes, variable data short run digital presses are popular with commercial printers: HP Indigo, Xeikon, Xerox iGen4 and a host of new printers from Oce and Canon are sought after as well. But it is worth noting how many offset printing companies are also acquiring wide-format inkjet presses.

Now you know why both Oce and Xerox offer mild-solvent or eco-solvent printers. Both Oce and Xerox have access to commercial printers already. And of course Oce also offers UV-cured flatbed printers, the Oce Arizona 250 GT and the newer Arizona 350.

Ryobi 750 offset press at Scholz Druck in Germany.

Consultants available to assist offset printer companies to take advantage of digital inkjet printing

Although I have been to the HP Indigo factory in Israel and to the electric ink factory of Indigo (also in Israel), and although I have spent an entire day inside the Xerox iGen3 facilities in Rochester, and although many of the clients for which I consult are using, or about to purchase, a variable data short run digital press, FLAAR tends to provide consulting related to inkjet printing, primarily wide-format, and especially UV-cured flatbed, hybrid, combo, and roll-to-roll; solvent inkjet (full, lite-, mild-, eco-, and bio-solvents), as well as textile printing and water-based printers (the pros and cons of Canon, Epson, and HP).

Web and sheet-fed offset printing companies are tending to look at a wide range of what inkjet offers. At a trade show what you get is PR, claims, and wishful thinking. FLAAR provides a reality check: plus we tell you what is coming next year, and the year after, so you can prepare for the future as well as prefer for today and tomorrow.

This GCC StellarJET 183UVK was in the room next to the two offset presses shown here. So if you also have offset presses, you also may wish to ask FLAAR about the 45 different brands of UV-curable inkjet printers, and about textile printers as well.

 

Here is a Gerber Solara ion X cationic UV-curing inkjet printer in the same building as offset presses and screen printing equipment. So clearly even quick printshops are now moving to adding UV-curing printers.

Consulting for giclee, decor, fine art photography and scanning. (FREE Download)	For all wide-format inkjet printers, RIP, Ink & Substrates. (FREE Download)

Consulting for UV printer manufacturers, available to manufacturers only: ink, media, substrate, scanner, RIP software, printer manufacturers, integrators, parts manufacturers, please request this by e-mail from ReaderService@FLAAR.org	To obtain this PDF on consulting services for financial analysts and business strategy consultants, please request this by e-mail from ReaderService@FLAAR.org

 

 

First posted January 26, 2009.