Inspiring New Trends in Signage and Display Graphics
By Michael Flippin
As a baseball fan (a Boston Red Sox fan, to be specific), I’m used to watching my team fall from the top of the leader board in late-September each year. But as an analyst and observer of the wide-format printing industry for Web Consulting Inc., I was somewhat surprised to see the same sort of rapid shakeout occur in the market for wide-format graphics during 2003. Last year was a time of significant change, both in terms of the technologies used to print large-format images, and, more significantly, in the mix of media on which graphics are being printed. And 2004 promises more of the same excitement
Output technology
We at Web Consulting define wide-format applications as those with print widths of 24 in. or more. Data we’ve collected indicates that, overall, the global market for wide-format graphics produced by all imaging methods is growing. But not all imaging technologies are enjoying a share of that growth. Whereas inkjet printing and offset lithography for wide-format graphics are seeing an increase in volume (square feet printed annually), other technologies are showing signs of decline--most notably screen printing and traditional photo imaging.
However, even among technologies enjoying market growth, we see stark contrast--while offset lithography’s output volume is growing by 2-4% a year, inkjet is experiencing an average growth in volume of 15% annually. Unfortunately, the value of inkjet output has not kept pace with its growing volume, and the revenue generated by the technology is not healthy. To put it simply, the value of wide-format inkjet output has reached a plateau.
Because the wide-format digital graphics market emerged and matured in less than ten years, the ability to differentiate products and services became critical very quickly. But most people who participate in this market would agree that competition, a surplus of output capacity due to the number of digital printers in the field, and a lack of differentiation between most digital printers available today make it difficult to carve out a competitive advantage. These factors hint that value-added resellers will play a vital future role in the marketplace as the number of machines and endless combinations of ink and media continue to overwhelm and confuse many users.
If machines are not offering huge differentiation, users must develop other capabilities that add value before and after printing, as well as methods to sell those capabilities. It is fair to say that in most areas of the wide-format graphics market today, the ability to print has become a commodity. The 600-dpi print resolution on aqueous inkjets that raised eyebrows in the mid- to late-1990s is now taken for granted on all inkjet output devices, including solvent-based wide and superwide machines.
At Web Consulting, our business is to follow, interpret, and analyze trends in the global wide-format graphics-printing market. And our research over the past year has revealed some interesting changes --especially in the market for inkjet printing. Media usage is changing, print segments are blurring, and as devices using solvent-based and UV-curable inks continue to capture a higher percentage of the market, they are significantly transforming the types of prints being produced and the finishing procedures these prints must undergo.
A changing landscape
It is interesting to note that in the early 1990s, almost all of the substrates used by drop-on-demand inkjet technology were paper-based. The market was dominated by photobase papers, which were, at that time, some of the only substrates able to handle the ink-receptive coating layers and to absorb the water in aqueous inkjet inks. A lower-cost alternative was introduced in the form of alternative photobase products. These media offered print quality similar to traditional photobase papers, but at a lower cost because they used less expensive base stock. Today, however, paper-based substrates are in the minority of wide-format inkjet media and losing ground rather quickly.
While, in many respects, inkjet printing has matured to a level that makes it apparent the technology is here to stay, its ever-changing dynamics (product upgrades, new printer introductions, new application opportunities, etc.) make this a truly fascinating area to observe. In the sections ahead, we’ll consider current trends based on the findings of Web Consulting’s recently released annual industry report, entitled 2003 U.S. Wide Format Inkjet Media Trends. This report focuses on US inkjet media usage, purchasing trends, and inkjet media brand perceptions, and it will be updated and published again in October 2004.
The markets for digital wide-format graphics were historically separated by four walls and a roof--there were indoor applications and outdoor jobs. Solvent-based grand-format and superwide machines served the market for outdoor-durable billboard and display applications. Aqueous--and, to some extent, oil-based--machines served the markets for indoor P-O-P, exhibition, and photographic images. Today, however, no barriers exist, and most machines can satisfy the requirements for both indoor and outdoor wide-format graphics. The changes in inkjet media usage support this phenomenon.
To understand the shifts in media usage, we must first understand how the markets and applications that are served by wide-format inkjet printing are changing. Remember that inkjet printing is only a relatively small part of the wide-format graphics industry. The global market for wide format graphics is over 38.5 billion sq ft (3.58 billion sq m). Web consulting estimates that wide and grand format inkjet printers today capture about 12% of that market volume. However, for those machines in the 24- to 87-in. output-width range, more and more of the output is moving toward outdoor applications and increased image stability.
This trend has introduced a corresponding shift in media usage that mirrors the base of printers sold into the wide-format inkjet market. Despite their lower productivity compared to most other inkjet technologies, Aqueous inkjets still dominate in terms of units sold and represent about 75% of total unit sales. The large installed base of aqueous inkjets explains why more than 80% of wide-format inkjet media consumed in 2003 was for aqueous machines. But the volume of media they use is projected to drop to only 60% within four years. This means that the media used by solvent-based inkjets not only will dominate in the grand-format market (machines with output widths of 100-in. or more), but also will capture more than 1/3 of the wide-format market previously dominated by aqueous inkjets.
This shift in media usage also affects ink usage and reflects how the market’s overall perception of quality is changing. For years, it seemed that the biggest and most important specification for a new machine and its related consumables was resolution. That is clearly no longer the case--nor was it ever, really. In 2003, roughly 1/3 of print-for-pay segments reported using aqueous dye-based inkjet inks. Over 60% of all applications were printed using pigment-based inks (aqueous and solvent-based), with oil-based and UV-curable inkjet inks capturing the remaining volume. We anticipate this trend toward ink systems that provide longer print life and durability will persist.
Based on annual research conducted by Vector Marketing (now Web Consulting Inc. in the US) and by Web Consulting’s UK office, the types and amounts of wide-format inkjet media being used in 2003 broke with old patterns of consumption. The amount of non-paper-based inkjet media purchased for the 24- to 87-in. wide-format sector became greater than that of paper-based media). And this change happened quickly. In 2000, about 60% of all wide-format inkjet media sold in the US was paper-based (coated bond or photobase products). In 2003, the share of the US market captured by paper-based media was only 41%. And the decline in the use of paper-based media is expected to continue.
Coated bond paper for both aqueous and solvent-based inkjets suffered the biggest loss of market share, falling almost 30% as a percentage of all media from 2002 levels. While the total volume sold remained unchanged, coated-bond had a smaller piece of the overall market. The decline in use of paper-based media will only worsen as solvent-based media continues to grow in popularity and capture an even larger share of the wide format market in the US.
It’s important to note that these changes in media use are not arbitrary or unexpected. They simply reflect the changing nature of the applications being served by inkjet technology.
The evolution of wide-format inkjet graphics
Application requirements are the main factors that influence what specific media types are selected for particular applications. These application requirements themselves are typically defined by the market the inkjet user is serving. Web Consulting identifies several primarly end-user segments for inkjet technology, including photo labs, digital printers, sign shops and screen printers.
Data collected for Web Consulting’s 2003 survey indicates that the importance of and reliance in wide-format inkjet printing is growing across all these segments. In other words, the revenue generate by wide-format inkjet printing represents an increasing share of a graphic producer’s overall business. Among shops interviewed for the survey, the percentage of sales generated by wide-format inkjet increased over 20% from 2002 to 2003.
So if application requirements are driving the new trends in media usage, what kinds of jobs are being produced to support these trends? The application area that showed the greatest growth from 2002 to 2003 was banners. Banners have nearly doubled as a percentage of the overall application mix in three years, from 13% of total applications by volume in 2000 to 22% in 2003. Signs shops appear to be the strongest segment for this growth. From an equipment standpoint, the rise in banner printing is reflected by the recent increase in the adoption of solvent-based inkjets, as well as eco-solvent or lite-solvent printers.
Interestingly, Web Consulting’s research indicates that P-O-P/retail-display jobs have fallen as the leading application-area for wide-format inkjet printing. There is no doubt that P-O-P still represents the largest piece of the wide-format graphics market overall (jobs produced with all imaging processes), but inkjet’s slice of the pie is getting smaller. In fact, P-O-P has declined from a high in 2000 of 27% of all inkjet-printed applications to 16% last year.
US ad spending has experienced challenging times for a few years, and, except for companies that use wide-format digital printing, all of the traditional print-for-pay segments have witnessed a production decrease in P-O-P/retail graphics since 2001. However, in tracking general ad-spending trends in the US and comparing them to the performance of the wide-format graphics market, Web Consulting identified a positive trend--an increase in the quarterly wide-format P-O-P/retail-display sales during the third quarter of 2003). The optimism seems to be contagious, as both the digital and screen-printing markets predict significant growth rates for this market beginning in the fourth quarter of 2003 and continuing into 2004.
Another bright spot that has emerged from the data we’ve collected is the market for outdoor graphics. In 2004, US advertising spending is predicted to grow by 3.6% while outdoor advertising spending is predicted to grow 4.0%. This should mean even better things for the growing non-paper-media market and for print shops that produce outdoor applications.
What’s the bottom line for media?
The changes that have occurred in the wide-format inkjet media market are significant. From a purchasing perspective, paper has become less important. Specialty media types are dominant and still growing. On a global basis, solvent-based inkjets are the fastest growing hardware segment, and banners produced on these machines have mirrored the trend by capturing the highest rate of growth of all wide-format inkjet applications. In many ways, the market for wide-format digital graphics is starting to look and act more like traditional printing markets.
Web Consulting identifies three general categories of media used in the production of wide-format graphics: paper and aqueous media, rigid media, and flexible plastics. Each of these categories represents roughly a third of the total volume of media used for wide-format inkjet printing. For its first 10 years, the wide-format inkjet market looked nothing like its analog cousin--paper-based media always dominated. Only a handful of printers could economically print onto uncoated vinyl. And, until very recently, getting digitally-printed graphics onto rigid substrates meant printing flexible media, then mounting it on rigid material.
But as the market for wide-format inkjet-printing matures, we see paper-based media losing share while vinyl and other flexible plastics gain in importance. The wild card here is the success and adoption of inkjet flatbed printers. Web Consulting predicts that a large piece of the future media market for wide-format inkjet imaging won’t be roll fed--it will be a mélange of rigid board, metal, glass and other high-value specialty substrates traditionally served by screen printing. This is not to say that inkjet technology will capture all of that market; it won’t. But it will satisfy an economical need with certain materials and applications.
Flatbed inkjet printing is not the answer to all low-volume or specialty printing applications. It is perfect for those applications that use high-value substrates because it allows companies to reduce inventory costs. But today’s flatbed inkjets are expensive, and it is very difficult to justify one of those machines if a shop is printing on paper. Higher-cost media means that graphics producers can charge more for their printed output, earn greater profits from the jobs they produce, and more quickly see a return on their investment in flatbed technology.
Many of the companies that will lead the market in the future are not leaders today. And we can expect consolidation, both among the printing companies producing inkjet graphics and among the manufacturers of equipment and supplies for wide-format inkjet imaging. The last few years have been an interesting period for the wide-format inkjet-printing market, and it’s likely that next few will be even more fascinating.
So What Happens After DRUPA?
By Stewart Partridge
As expected, DRUPA 2004 was a landmark event for the printing industry. In fact, with the massive increase in international visitors and decline in German visitorship – perhaps many smaller German printers were put off by the €30 daily entry fee, and yet others impacted by the poor state of the domestic German economy – DRUPA was more international than ever before.
Any visitor to DRUPA could not fail to be influenced by the strong emphasis given to digital printing. New front runners in printing included HP and Kodak, with HP’s 2002 acquisition of Indigo and more recently Kodak’s of Scitex Digital Printing (note: not Scitex Vision) to create its Versamark Division, propelling both of these companies into serious production printing solutions for the first time.
Despite this, screen printing and wide format digital printing have never been mainstays of the DRUPA Show, although the latter certainly increased its presence over its DRUPA 2000 showing. But for this article, I want to reflect on some hidden gems at DRUPA, and on the implications of another industry trend with origins closer to Photokina than DRUPA.
Ink Jet Printing is getting Fast
DRUPA 2004 certainly showed us that ink jet printing has come a long way since the last DRUPA. Fast, narrow width form or label printers could be seen from Kodak Versamark, Agfa and Miyakoshi and the UV-cure Flatbed Ink Jet Printer has certainly come of age, with leading established players such as Inca / Sericol, Zund, Durst / Sun Chemical and Vutek now joined at DRUPA by Lüscher, GandInnovation and soon Agfa/Thieme. Many of the other new flatbed platforms from USA, China and Korea were not visible, preferring to show their wares at the recent ISA exhibition in Orlando, Florida where more prospective purchasers might be found. But I shall decant to three items which attracted my particular attention.
The first was that Scitex Vision has now demonstrated that the Aprion inkjet printheads with their aqueous inks are now a reliable production platform, as shown by the developing success of the Superjet, CORjet and Reggiani DREAM platforms in the market, and their reliability at the Show. At last we can see some wide format aqueous inkjets capable of respectable productivity, around 150 m 2/hour, and with performance capabilities that can even challenge UV-curable systems for certain applications. As European environmental legislation continues to sharpen its teeth, we at Web Consulting still believe that UV-curing inks will take the lion’s share of the high productivity inkjet market, as pressure bites to reduce solvent emissions. However, aqueous inkjet will also be a strong supporting contender, with Scitex Vision likely to be a leading player.
One had to go searching to find the most interesting UV flatbed press at DRUPA, into the Print City section. The Inca FastJet, produced in collaboration with Sun Chemicals, demonstrated a capability for printing corrugated cardboard with reasonable print quality at up to 1,000 linear metres per hour. The machine specification should be capable of achieving almost 3,000 m 2/hour. Whilst the machine on show was a technology demonstrator and not in any sense a finished production machine, it does show us what is possible even today and with current UV-ink and printhead technologies.
Zund were responsible for my third selection, and you could easily miss the significance. Of the three new UV-flatbeds they showed at DRUPA, it was the competitively priced UVjet XY-Flat that attracted my attention. The XY-Flat uses UV-curable inks (probably Sericol’s) with Epson printheads, and to my knowledge, it is the first wide format printer to show this capability. Now whilst Epson have certainly made inroads in the wide format market in areas such as photoquality printing, proofing and fine art, in general they have had a limited impact on the predominance of Hewlett Packard in the wide format aqueous ink jet field. Nonetheless, after Lyson first converted Mimaki and Roland aqueous inkjet printers to become solvent platforms, and Roland and Mimaki responded with their own solvent solutions, it was not too long before Epson were introducing their own mild solvent ink solutions to be sold through these OEM channels.
The interesting issue for me is not that Zund have succeeded in getting UV-curable inks to print through Epson printheads, but to consider what Epson might later do as a consequence, and how Epson’s major competitors may then react.
Photoimaging Manufacturers to become Major Global Players in Printing Technology
2003 was a defining year for the photoimaging industry, a year when market leaders such as Kodak finally admitted what we had all suspected for some time – that digital cameras were beginning to eat into the traditional business of silver-halide films and papers.
For the large photofilm corporations, this means that one of their most profitable business areas is migrating from analogue to digital, from a market where they are dominant to one in which there are many new digital competitors producing the replacement technologies – new speciality media (inkjet, laser and thermal), inks and ribbons. At the same time, we the consumers may be taking more photographs, but we are getting less printed. Many photoimages are kept and transmitted in digital format, and never reach hard-copy output. The photoimaging pie is no longer the shared domain of Kodak, FujiFilm, Agfa and Konica – new companies which profit in this arena are as diverse as HP, Nokia and Vodafone.
Inevitably, global corporations of the size of FujiFilm ($22B), Kodak ($12B), Agfa and Konica will not sit idly by while a sizeable portion of their core business migrates into new technologies. It is also reasonable to assume that with their traditional market focus and understanding of photoimaging, pre-press and printing, these companies will tend to look for new business opportunities within their comfort zone.
The final factor is rate of change. In a period of slow or steady change, it would be entirely realistic for the photoimaging manufacturers to migrate their core technologies by fostering internal development and organic growth, and to be fair, these manufacturers are doing this. But in this instance, the rate of change is too fast. The only route by which these corporations can achieve a rapid and significant transition to digital imaging and printing is by a strategy of acquisition.
Hence it is no surprise to see corporations such as Kodak acquire EnCad, Scitex Digital Printing (now Kodak Versamark), Heidelberg Digital and Heidelberg’s 50% stake in NexPress Solutions. Recently, we have also seen Agfa buy digital printer manufacturer Dotrix, and announce a joint venture in UV flatbed inkjet with German screen machinery manufacturer Thieme.
Web Consulting predicts that these announcements and changes are just the early steps, and much more will follow. In fact, we may be at the dawn of a period of major restructuring of the global imaging and printing industry.
The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming
By Stewart Partridge
Many printers and signmakers already find the choice of digital printing equipment bewildering, particularly for ink jet printers. We are often asked the question "Which machine should I buy?". Our answer is usually "That depends - what is the application you want to use it for" A clear idea of the needs of your application and customers will always help to narrow the choice. As rationalisations and acquisitions have occurred in the digital industry, you might have thought that your choices would become simpler. Not so!
One reason for this has been the recent explosion of new manufacturers offering flatbed inkjet printers, with companies like Durst, Inca, L&P and Zund leading the charge, joined by Aprion, Scitex Vision, Vutek, soon NUR and others. Another reason is China.
As far as the more productive end of the digital printing industry is concerned, China is about to explode. Established names in superwide format inkjet such as Vutek, NUR and Scitex Vision and more recent entrants such as Mutoh and Océ will soon be joined by Chinese companies such as Yaselan, Runjian (Flora or Azero), Teckwin and perhaps many others. Web Consulting now knows of fifteen Chinese manufacturers of inkjet printing machines, and suspects that there may be another 5-10 we have not yet discovered. Not all will survive and grow, and certainly not all will export - but some will, or already are. The leading manufacturers are moving away from simply copying Vutek or Scitex products, and developing their own innovative designs. Flatbeds will soon follow their reel-fed machines.
There is a unique chemistry in China. Put together the world's largest population of 1.2 billion people, the world's largest outdoor advertising industry by volume (perhaps double that of the USA), the world's most consistent positive economic growth rate over the last fifteen years, plus a hard-working, well educated and relatively low cost workforce, and we will see fireworks (after all, they were invented by the Chinese!) China boasts the world's largest installed base of superwide inkjet printers, and they use them more often. A sizeable proportion of these machines are now made in China, using Xaar or Spectra printhead technology, and quality is improving every month.
China also boasts the lowest costs for grand format printed output, assisted by the lowest ink and media costs in the world. Quality is not yet up to Western standards - but just wait a while. And the digital printing sector in China has a unique status compared to "the West" - inkjet printing has been growing and developing alongside screen printing, not after it. In China, the market share of graphics printing taken by inkjet could become the highest in the world.
Over the next year, we will start to see the better among these Chinese superwide machines appearing at our European trade shows, as they find local distribution and service partners. Would you buy one? No? What if it produced adequate print quality, and was half the price of a competitive American or Israeli machine?
September 2002
Digital Textile Maze
By Chris Byrne
Textiles have long enjoyed a reputation as one of the most complex of industries. With a vast global supply base, a rich diversity of fibres, fabric types and end-uses, and an ever changing mix of fashion and performance requirements, it is an amazingly complex environment into which to introduce a new and rapidly evolving technology such as digital printing.
The range of textile materials printed today (mostly by direct screen techniques but also by transfer) includes natural fibres such as cotton and silk, synthetic fibres such as polyester and nylon, and coated fabrics covered in PVC or other polymers. Many fabrics are blends or combinations of two or more fibres - for example, cotton and polyester - while finished products such as T-shirts, caps and umbrellas may need to be printed in made-up, 3-dimensional form rather than as ‘flat’ fabrics. End use requirements can be as diverse as UV and weather resistance for textile banners to softness, wash and rub resistance for apparel.
Digital printing, for its part, is hardly less complex, both as a technology and an industry. Inkjet printing is now in the ascendancy for most textile applications but other digital techniques including thermal transfer and electrostatic toner-based printing still have an important role to play. For inkjets alone, several different ink chemistries are required to address the full diversity of textile materials and end-uses; they include reactive, acid and disperse dyes as well as pigment/binder systems.
Meanwhile, the range of printing widths required for textiles stretches from super-wide format (2.5-8 metres wide) for flags, banners, marquee fabrics and building wraps, down through bed covers, drapes and other household products, to narrow format (A3/A4) for garment transfers, and even extra-narrow tape or ribbon printing for garment labels.
Some key recent innovations from the machinery side have focused upon:
- improved materials handling, especially for lightweight and unstable fabrics
- reduction of the need for pre- and post-treatment of fabrics
- extension of the colour gamut
- improved overall economics and flexibility of use.
This article picks its way through the digital maze by focusing on machines and machine manufacturers who are, in some way or another, setting the pace of development in digital textile printing today.
Systems Approach
Stork, as befits its status as market leader in rotary textile screen printing, has based its offer to the digital market upon a complete ‘solutions-driven’ approach. Its entry-level Amber machine, based around the Mimaki print engine, is capable of printing pigment, acid and reactive inks onto cotton, viscose and silk, while its mid-range Zircon and Zircon II models have added the capability to print disperse dyes onto polyester and other synthetics. Stork’s top-of-the-range Amethyst machine is equipped with the company’s own continuous inkjet head development and is capable of significantly higher rates of production using reactive and acid dyes for cellulosics and silk.
Stork has always emphasised the breadth of its product range. In the case of the Amethyst, it also offers a steam fixation unit for developing and fixing prints onto natural fibre substrates. Its ‘Fabrics Unlimited’ business supplies specially pre-treated fabrics for use with all Stork printers. Not least, Stork has established a long term relationship with Lectra of France, market leader in all aspects of garment design, cutting and materials management in order to provide an integrated solution from design to end-products.
Given its continuing commitment to screen printing, Stork has emphasised an integrated role here too, developing its systems with an eye to the valuable design and sampling market and focusing on the compatibility between inkjet printed short runs and screen printed production runs.
Versatility …
Mimaki has enjoyed considerable success over recent years, latterly with its Textile Jet TX-1600S. This machine has become one of the ‘workhorses’ of the industry precisely because of its flexibility. It offers a full range of inks – reactive, acid, disperse and pigmented – and a 7 colour ink system to ensure a wide gamut of colours. Its Epson piezo head technology offers resolutions up to 720 dpi, and an improved fabric transportation mechanism allows direct printing to relatively lightweight fabrics without a backing sheet or liner.
Because of its versatility, the Mimaki has also proved a popular choice for other developers. In addition to Stork, at Heimtextil 2002, Rimslow Pty Ltd of Australia was demonstrating a continuous in-line steamer working in conjunction with a Mimaki printer. This innovation is intended to overcome the disadvantages of discontinuous batch steaming system for relatively short lengths of fabric (typically 30 metres at a time) offered by most other system suppliers.
… Versus Specialisation
Companies such as NUR, Océ Display Graphics Systems (formerly Gretag / Rastergraphics) and Vutek, best known for their wide and super-wide format digital graphics printers have focused in the past on the textile flag, banner and soft signage markets. NUR, with its established Salsa, Blueboard and Fresco printers, all capable of printing onto a wide variety of graphic media, has recently launched the Fabrigraph model aimed specifically at the textile market. Available in 1.5 metre (DS1500) and 3.5 metre (DS3200) widths, the Fabrigraph is based on the Salsa design (but without heaters and vacuum plate) and is adapted to print dye sublimation inks onto carrier papers at up to 40 square metres per hour. The images, with an apparent resolution of up to 600 dpi, are subsequently transferred by heat and pressure to any textile fabric containing a minimum of 50% polyester. NUR claim this to be the highest productivity level for any digital dye sublimation device on the market today.
Océ (Gretag) also markets a printer for dye sublimation ink transfers. The Carolina Textile Press is a piezo-based, six-colour inkjet printer which can print onto transfer media (300 dpi at 16 square metres/hour).
Vutek has not yet addressed the ‘mainstream’ textile market under its own brand, although its super-wide format machines such as the UltraVu 3360 are well suited to coated fabric, banner and building wrap applications. However, the DuPontArtistri 3210 system launched at Heimtextil 2001 is based on a Vutek engine.
Other key components of DuPont’s development are its enhanced Colour Control and Management System (CCMS), plus proprietary water-based pigment ink technology that is claimed to remove the need for special pre- or post-treatment. The Artistri was claimed at its launch to be the first fully integrated, production-capable system for the home furnishings market.
Later this year, DuPont is expected to launch a new system for apparel printing, based on an IchinoseToshin Kogyo engine and an as yet undisclosed piezo inkjet head. Although totally different in size and configuration to the 3210, the new printer will draw heavily on DuPont’s earlier experience with ink formulations and colour management.
What the Ichinose 2020 design brings to this new development is a sophisticated system for materials handling. As another major producer of conventional textile screen printing machinery where adhesive feed belts complete with belt washers to remove surplus ink have been employed for many years, Ichinose brought its knowledge of such systems to an inkjet printer which was also first demonstrated in Europe at Heimtextil in 2001. However, at that time, the printer was limited to a thermal inkjet printheads which were unable to deliver the flexibility or output required. The new configuration promises to be highly versatile, with the ability to handle a wide range of apparel fabrics, including unstable knitted materials or those containing elastomeric stretch materials such as DuPont’s own Lycra. The assurance that there will be no movement or slippage over an extended area of the fabric while it is being printed also freed Ichinose to introduce a more innovative configuration of print heads. When printing is undertaken at a single point of supported contact, as on many conventional roller feed designs, it is only possible to use a fairly restricted spacial array of jets, which in turn limits productivity and colour lay down, especially on narrower width textile substrates.
Colourwings of the Netherlands has aimed its Texjet 156 specifically at the flag market where direct printing of sublimation dyes onto polyester fabrics is most commonly required. Their two-stage print and heat fixation system produces 12 square meters/hour of durable flag or banner fabric with a durable finish. A proprietary Textile Anti Bleeding System (T-ABS) is claimed to produce razor-sharp lines and contours without special pre-treatment of the fabric.
Zimmer, another leading European producer of rotary screen textile printers and carpet tile printer, has also incorporated the use of an adhesive belt feed into its Chromotex digital printer, launched at ATME in the United States in 2001 and built by Jemtex using it’s latest continuous inkjet head technology. Able to use reactive, disperse and pigment inks, Zimmer emphasises that it is an ‘open’ system with refillable tanks allowing dyestuffs to be purchased directly from a range of dye manufacturers. This is in marked contrast to many inkjet producers who supply only factory-packaged ink which has been developed for and optimised to their own machines. There are potential problems with this approach (especially if inks are refilled under less than clean room conditions). In fact, with growing experience on the part of users and increasing availability of ‘grey’ market supplies of inks, more and more users are effectively moving to an open and more competitive supply situation.
As a consequence of this, Zimmer have also been able to advocate the greater use of ‘spot’ (i.e. premixed colours, as used in conventional textile printing) rather than ‘process’ colours (at their most basic, the four colour CMYK system). Apart from allowing a more conventional textile colour design and separation system to be employed, the use of spot colours and a greater inkjet to fabric spacing is claimed to allow the printing of textured fabrics at relatively low dpi resolutions which have the same appearance as higher resolution (and therefore less productive) CMYK process prints. Even the language they use in their brochures, quoting printing resolutions in terms of equivalent mesh screen sizes, is aimed at the existing textile printing sector rather than digital newcomers.
Also using the Jemtex continuous head are the two latest models from DPS, its 75T and 85T printers. Earlier DPS models used piezo heads but the new printers are designed to provide full flexibility for water-based pigment and dye systems as well as both process and spot colours. Jemtex is also manufacturing machines in its own right.
The established screen print machinery manufacturers are not the only ones to appreciate the benefits of more controlled fabric feed and take-up systems. The MacDermid ColorSpanDisplayMaker FabriJet XII emphasises its advanced fabric handling features, including measurement of fabric stretch and ambient humidity, used to set the optimum web tension and printing speed. A proprietary tension control system automatically compensates for the diminishing size of the supply roll and increasing size of the take-up roll. An adjustable printhead height allows the printer to accommodate a variety of fabric types and thicknesses. A 12-head print assembly can be customised in various configurations from 3 x 4 heads for rapid printing (28 square metres/hour) of the 4 basic process colours up to the use of 8 extended gamut colours at around 7 square metres/hour. The use of thermal inkjet technology places some limitations of the range of inks that can be used – ColorSpan supplies its own range of reactive dye inks – but is well suited to the printing of cotton, viscose, linen and other cellulosic fibres.
Other suppliers have also done much over the past year or so to improve the feed, uptake and onwards processing of textile fabrics from digital printers. Sophis, a leading systems integrator and software house now offers a much improved materials handling configuration for its latest Print Express machine which is based on an Oc é (Rastergraphics) engine. This has helped it to achieve far greater stability, even with delicate silk fabrics (the machine was earlier known as the Silk Express) and an output rate of 20-24 square metres/hour.
One of the more surprising new product launches of the past year or so has been the Virtu printer from L& P Digital Technologies. The parent company, Leggett and Platt, a leading global supplier of mattress components to the bed making industry, embarked on a radically new design based on UV-curable inks which was initially aimed at the low printing resolution, high output requirements of the mattress ticking market. Since then, considerable effort has been made to extend the range and versatility of the initial design, with resolutions of up to 720 dpi now claimed. For other textile applications, the aesthetics and handle of UV-curable inks remain a barrier to cross.
Garment Transfer Printing
Transfer printing is a likely to remain an enduring, if specialised, segment of the textile fabric printing market. At present, it accounts for 5-6% of all flat textile printing and is mainly aimed at the furnishing industry where polyester fabrics are widely used. In the case of made-up garments, however, transfer printing remains the dominant technology. Direct digital printing is still at a development stage and may take 5-10 years to achieve any great penetration.
For the time being, the digital garment printing market is likely to remain a rich mix of technologies. Inkjet transfer printing is limited by the fact that the major market, T-shirt decoration, uses predominantly cotton materials and is unsuitable for dye sublimation (disperse) inks. Various transfer systems are available which encapsulate conventional (non-textile) inks within a layer of polymer but their durability, washability and softness are all limited. Digital toner-based transfer systems such as those marketed by TheMagicTouch are enjoying some success at present, driven by the rapidly falling costs of colour laser photocopies and printers.
Thermal transfer printing, in which an image based on a pre-coated fusible coloured resin ribbon is imagewise transferred to a receiver sheet, can also be used for garment decoration. The image on the printed sheet can be heat onto a garment using a conventional heat press. The MatanSpark 1612 produces transfers from 5 up to 16 inches wide and can be used in conjunction with any material, natural or synthetic. Other systems used include thermal transfer printers from Roland, Gerber and Datametrics.
Conclusion
Many of the advances in digital textile printing today are, of course, not exclusively machine developments but involve the simultaneous improvement and optimisation of inks, colour management software and fabrics. More experienced users are already learning to mix and match their technologies to achieve more specialised performance or independence from high cost supply chains. However, the machine-level is where all these technologies are first brought together as a commercial offering for new entrants into the digital textile printing industry. This article has briefly reviewed some of the outstanding designs and developments which are driving the industry forward.
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