Flatbed Inkjets Will Open New Markets

Imas, the Italian distributor of the Inca flatbed printer series, believes that the latest models from the UK manufacturer will open up significant new markets for flatbed inkjet technology.

Imas, the Italian distributor of the Inca flatbed printer series, believes that the latest models from the UK manufacturer - the new Spyder and Columbia Turbo - will open up significant new markets for flatbed inkjet technology.

The company has already won sales of Inca Eagle and Columbia flatbed printers in Italy and at the Viscom Italia exhibition Imas will be demonstrating an Inca Spyder, as Mauro Manfredi explained.

"The 1.52 metre x 1.016 metre (60" x 40") format of the Spyder is ideally suited to the majority of screen printers in Italy, and we believe that its quality, speed and ease of use will make it extremely attractive to companies operating in this field," says Mr Manfredi.

"The Spyder can achieve a quality never before seen on UV flatbed printers which will appeal to a much wider market, including photo labs, sign makers and commercial printers.

The Spyder is incredibly quiet during operation and this, together with its smaller footprint, also makes it ideal for non-industrial working environments," he added.

The Spyder offers a number of output modes, producing resolutions from 400d dots per inch (dpi) ? 1,000dpi and a claimed maximum print capacity of 50 square metres (540 square feet) an hour.

The new printer incorporates a range of technologies to provide bright colours and crisp resolution, including the new Sericol Sapphire inks and the latest inkjet heads released by US manufacturer Spectra.

Longer production runs are said to be cost effective on the Spyder 150 as well as jobs consisting of only one copy.

With all job information handled digitally, changes and updates can be made at the last minute, or even during the print run.

These benefits are also proving attractive to industrial printers, where products such as panels, keyboards and displays can be printed efficiently.

The substrate is accurately positioned against a set of air cylinder operated register pins and held securely by a vacuum table made from aluminium honeycomb.

Where operators need to line up the substrate for reverse printing a second set of register pins is used to align the same lay edge.

The new Spyder was launched by Inca earlier this year at drupa along with the Columbia Turbo.

The Turbo is claimed by Inca to be the fastest flatbed inkjet printer in the world today, providing variable output speeds of up to 160 square metres an hour and a format size of 3.2 metres x 1.6 metres.

"The throughput speed of the Columbia Turbo makes it suitable for sectors such as packaging, where the high output makes UV-cure inkjet technology feasible for the first time.

We're extremely excited at the potential offered by these two latest Inca printers," said Manfredi.

All of Inca's flatbed printers use Sericol UV-curable inks.

These are printed directly on to the substrate, eliminating many of the finishing processes that are required when using solvent inks on rolls of flexible materials, such as mounting and sealing.

"Imas has worked closely with screen ink manufacturer Sericol for a number of years.

We are pleased that Imas move into digital output with Inca equipment has been so productive, and that it now wishes to have its own demonstration machine at its facility later this month," said Incas managing director Bill Baxter.

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