Flatbed cutters, Inks & Substrates SGIA 2011 · EFI Rastek H652 combo printer. rade Show Exhibitor List SGIA 2011 9 Fujifilm tends to display their Acuity version of the Oce Arizona

Trade Show

Flatbed cutters,Inks & Substrates

SGIA2011New Orleans

October 2011

Nicholas M. Hellmuth, Jose Melgar and Pablo Martinez

Wide-format Inkjet Printers & Reprographics

Printers

Trade Show SGIA 2011 1Exhibitor List

Wide-format Inkjet Printers& Reprographics Printers

Flatbed cutters,Inks & Substrates

SGIA 2011 New Orleans

Introduction to SGIA 2011

Every trade show is a preview of the next year’s trade show and innovations drive our industry. So what is unveiled at SGIA 2011 as a prototype is what will be a mature printer at SGIA 2012 in Las Vegas. So I consider this report as a preview of the exhibitor list of SGIA 2012 Las Vegas. But to see everything first, you have to get to SGIA 2011 here in New Orleans.


Booths at SGIA are larger than at any VISCOM

If you are a distributor from a foreign country, the SGIA expo has so much more to see than Viscom Milano or Viscom Germany. I enjoy Viscom Paris, Milano, and Germany every year. And I enjoyed Viscom Madrid before it disintegrated into the smallest printer expo in Western Europe about 2008. Viscom Paris has one of the most friendly Press Rooms of the world of wide-format inkjet printer expos. But in a single efi VUTEk booth at SGIA you will see as many printers as exhibited in all VUTEk booths at all four Viscom expos put together!

Same with HP: here at SGIA you can see serious production printers. At other trade shows they exhibit mainly the smaller printers.

The Durst booth at SGIA has their top-of-the-line printers, and more than one. Yet at the first three Viscom shows, all you saw was an Omega 1 (and not really any of the key people from Durst Italy or Durst Austria or Durst Canada).


At Viscom Duesseldorf, only one single solitary Chinese UV-cured printer. Here at SGIA you can see Flora RTZ and several other brands.

At SGIA the Agfa booth was of impressive size, and very cleverly on both sides of the main central aisle. Someone was innovative in this concept (a booth on both sides of the main walkway).

So now you can see why, for distributors around the world, SGIA is the best expo in the autumn season. In terms of size, ISA would be comparable for Spring.

Every trade show offers something unique (that is not available in that same season elsewhere). So the FLAAR Reports has a special report on printer trade shows in general, based on 14 years experience. Show mini-title of trade show report. You can order these reports via www.wide-format-printers.NET or via [email protected] by PayPal or credit card. Plus, you can request consulting services if you wish, during any major trade show anywhere in the world.

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Awards

FLAAR Reports would like to mention some well-deserved awards that we suggest:

• Best booth overhead decoration: Jetcol

• Nicest overall booth concept: KIP

• Nicest logo colors and design: SAI (Pixel Blaster logo)

• Most intriguing photo used as print sample: a remarkable image of a lizard in the booth of Seiki II.

Best booth overhead decoration: Jetcol


Nicest overall booth concept: KIP

Nicest logo colors and design: SAI (Pixel Blaster logo)


UV-cured printers at SGIA

Agfa :Anapurna M2540FB, a new dedicated flatbed.

Agfa :Anapurna M1600 with combo belt.

Agfa :Jeti 3020 Titan; dedicated flatbed with pull-over roll-to-roll.

The print samples in front of the new M2540FB were gorgeous. This printer was first shown in Viscom Paris and then at Viscom Duesseldorf.

Agfa booth.


Anderson Cojet Flatbed Hybrid Inkjet Printer

CET had a combo with transport belt, X-Press 500H. It is typical to call transport belt printers as hybrid, but we call these a combo. And a dedicated flatbed. Model X-Press 500 has one set of heads; model X-Press 1000 has two rows of heats.

A hybrid in our definition has pinch rollers with grit rollers (so like one of the Mimaki; and the new Acuity LED 1600).

Many people in the industry have commented that CET no longer rebrands printers from RTZ Flora. Since RTZ Flora has a booth at the same expo, you can compare and contrast their printers yourself.

In the TRENDs version of the FLAAR Reports on SGIA we discuss the manufacturer of the CET printers.

A warranty of less than one year may mean that by the time you pay repair costs, it may end up costing as much as a more reliable printer. A reliable printer should not fall apart during the first year, and therefore should have a full one year warranty, including printheads.

Dilli Neo Titan 1604D-WV, newDilli Neo Titan UV-1604DW

Dilli continues to come out with new printers. Each one has refinements over previous models.

Helpful tip

• Novus now offers three years’ warranty.

• Beware of warranties that do not include printheads for at least one full year.

• Beware of warranties that do not cover parts AND labor.

• Beware of any warranty less than one year.

Dilli exhibited two Neo-Titan models. Dilli has recently opened an office in Mexico.


EFI Vutek GS3250r UV printer.

Durst had its heavy-duty Rho 1000 and impressive Rho 500r on display.

Efi VUTEk tends to have their GS3250r, mammoth and robust GS5000r and you would expect their nice new LED printer, VUTEk GS3250lx on display. We have found a printshop that just installed one of the VUTEk GS printers and we will strive to find time to evaluate this system in-situ as soon as we are no longer flying back and forth between printer trade shows.

Efi Rastek H652 Rastek T1000, their US-made flatbed.

EFI Rastek H652 combo printer.


Fujifilm tends to display their Acuity version of the Oce Arizona UV flatbeds, but is also exhibiting their new Acuity LED 1600 uv hybrid printer which is not made by Oce (and not made my Mutoh, who make the solvent printers that Fujifilm sells Sericol ink for). The FLAAR Reports, TRENDs level, for Graph Expo and Viscom Duesseldorf identify the manufacturer.

“Hybrid” is indeed the correct name for a system with add-on tables associated with a feeding system based on grit rollers under pressure rollers; and the rollup-tables front and back are what help handle thick rigid material. ColorSpan was the best promoter of this concept, but HP dropped all hybrid style because grit rollers can’t move some heavy or other signage materials. However some printshops are content with a grit-roller system since they tend to cost a tad less than a transport belt. We discuss the pros and cons of grit-roller/pinch roller systems for thick material in the separate comparative tabulation version of this report (for each major level of trade show, we have three levels of reports• free, with list of printers, cutters, etc• moderate cost edition, with tabulations of specs and evaluation comments.• TRENDs level, for manufacturers, distributors, and for printshop owners and managers who wish to see the trends (which new inks will cause significant changes in the wide-format printer industry). TRENDs reports can be ordered by writing [email protected] and requesting an invoice. There are two price levels for TRENDs: the PDF by itself, or the PDF with Dr Hellmuth at your company to answer questions, in-person about what is happening behind the scenes in the wide-format printer industry.

Fujifilm tends to exhibit the impressive Inca Digital Onset S40 at the larger expos (such as Graph Expo and SGIA).

Gandy Digital Pred8tor is ready for big time. The Gandy Digital Pred8tor is now bi-directional (yet needs only one lamp). The prototypes shown at earlier SGIA and elsewhere were uni-directional.

HP Scitex FB7600 in HP booth.HP Scitex FB700 in Grimco.

UVISTRAR 2 at Fujifilm booth.


JETRIX booth.

HP Scitex FB500

JETRIX 2030FRK tends to be in The Oldham Group booth. InkTec is the parent company of JETRIX. This flatbed is pretty impressive quality engineering. The images produced by the JETRIX printer are consistently as good a visual quality as any flatbed at the expo.


JHF is a company with pleasant hospitable owner, managers, and staff. They have a flatbed UV-cured printer, F3000, and naturally traditional solvent printers. At trade shows in Dongguan (D-PES in early spring) and Shanghai (APPPEXPO in late summer) the JHF booth is one of the largest in the exhibit halls.

Lawson last year exhibited small-format flatbeds. So this year they again exhibited several models private branded from a Chinese manufacturer.

Mimaki has been showing its UJF-3042FX in addition to the original UJF-3042. They tend to exhibit their UJV-160. JFX-1615plus is the small version of their flatbeds.

Mimaki JFX-1615.


Novus has an experienced team but the brand is new. The beauty of their booth is to document that vision, dedication, hard work, and availability of capital, can all result in innovative projects. We discuss this brand, and their printer, more in the TRENDs version of this report.

Oce is the world’s leader in wide-format UV-cured flatbed printers, so you would expect their top-of-their-line models Oce Arizona 550XT and Oce Arizona 360GT.

Polytype is exhibiting its improved 5-meter roll-to-roll UV-cured printer: Polytype Virtu RR50. The SwissQprint Impala is distributed in USA by Polytype as well.

Roland has been featuring their hybrid and roll-to-roll UV models at trade shows in every continent. And starting this year they began to show their desktop unit. So the three UV-cured printers you see in the Roland booth are:Roland Versa UV LEF-12 (desktop sized). Roland LEJ-640 with hybrid tablesRoland LEC-330, dedicated roll-to-roll

Screen has been showing UV-cured at some expos, and then not appearing at other expos (or at Serigrafia in Brazil their printer was semi-abandoned for three days). Their Truepress Jet2500UV was a sophisticated system, many years ago, but so many other newer printers have appeared in the ensuing years. Since everyone asks me in the aisles, “what new printer have you seen” I would point to the new Polytype, the new Novus Imaging. Even the VUTEk GS5000r is more recent technology in 2011 than the nice Screen printer.

Teckwin has been showing their flatbed TS-300 and roll-to-roll TeckPro UV3200.

Roland booth.


Additional UV-cured printers will be in booths of distributors

You can expect an occasional Roland, HP (Scitex FB500), and Mimaki (UJF-3042) at booths of distributors such as Reece and others.

Flatbed cutters

Kongsberg i-XP in Agfa boothKongsberg in HP booth

Zund in Zund boothZund in booth of Screen

Kongsberg i-XP at Agfa booth.


Reprographics printers

KIP has a large booth though their printers do not occupy much space. But it seems that someone at KIP wants to make a statement.

KIP had a giant booth at Viscom Paris, but nothing at the other Viscom events. Yet at SGIA their booth is substantial (albeit the number of products is limited). But the amount of real estate they occupy shows their dedicated to the world of wide-format. Unfortunately, if MEMJET technology functions out in the real world, the market for the nice quality but expensive toner printers will evaporate overnight.

Especially since the MEMJET costs about half that of a KIP (and the MEMJET is about a thousand times faster!).

The Oce ColorWave 600 Poster Printer was shown at VISCOM Duesseldorf last week. The printer was at the front of the Oce booth for three days. Now the Oce ColorWave 600 Poster Printer is in North America.

Xante Excelagraphix 4200 with Memjet technology was exhibited earlier at Graph Expo in Chicago. There is a FLAAR Report on the history of Memjet; we hope it will be possible to “rewrite history” as the idiom goes, if this innovative concept functins effectively outside the lab and outside the demo room. We hope it does, as new technology helps printshop owners, managers, and helps distributors.

Plus, new technology nudges other companies to look into the future instead of depending on old technology of the past.

KIP booth.


Textile printers

There is a separate FLAAR Report on textile printers at SGIA.

Agfa AquaJet 3324

Digitex Gunsjet

Mimaki JV5-320 with J-Teck ink, in booth of Jetcol (Coldenhove transfer paper)

PrinterEvolution can upgrade your VUTEk 3360 to grayscale dye sub.

Splash of Color tends to have a Roland-based textile printer.

VUTEk TX3250r tends to be in the booth of the ink company, Hilord.

VUTEk TX3250r Textile printer.

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Heat transfer equipment

Klieverik, in booth of Hilord ink company (associated with a VUTEk TX3250r).

Solvent printers

Epson, Mutoh, Mimaki, and Roland had most of the solvent printers, but there were also several Chinese printers using solvent ink. There were more solvent printers from China than all Viscom Germany and Viscom Paris put together (where almost no Chinese printers are exhibited).

DX5 printers

Mimaki and Roland are designing most of their new printers with Ricoh, Konica Minolta or other non-Epson printheads. This is because Epson wants all the outdoor market for themselves. Of course what will happen is that gradually no one will use Epson printheads so the heads will be more expensive (since Mimaki and Roland are not using as many any more).

The only way Epson can keep up production of their heads is to have them used in Chinese printers. These are not direct competition for Mimaki, Mutoh, or Roland.

At most expositions there are many brands of printers with DX5 printheads; some brands with DX7, and rarely DX6. At SGIA I noticed (other than Mutoh etc) onlyDigitex GunsjetSID Triton-S210

Mimaki UJV-160 UV P


Latex ink printers

For many weeks now the new HP Designjet L26500 has been openly discussed on dozens and dozens of web sites around the world. Thus I do not understand why the new HP Designjet L26500 is being shown only in a “back room” the previous weeks and only to people who sign an NDA.

In past years I always had an NDA with HP so could not write about their printers (until the official release date), but I do not look at HP printers under NDA any more. And you can find discussions of the HP Designjet L26500 all over the Internet for over a month.

But if the old L25500 is not able to be upgraded to the improved features of the new L26500, this is perhaps why there has been a spurt in sales of mild-solvent printers recently.

The latex ink printers of all the other manufacturers we discuss by brand name in our TRENDs reports. HP is clever to launch their new models before all the other resin and latex ink printers appear.

Since resin and latex ink actually works better in piezo printheads, you can expect many improvements in the other brands (who use piezo printheads). But of course latex ink does indeed work in thermal printheads, and this includes Canon bubblejet heads.

HP L255000 latex printer.


Inks

Once SGIA opens we will have a complete list, but to start with here are some of the ink companies that we know.

AT Inks had an attractive boothPemla exhibited their ink in a booth of appropriate designSam Ink had a nice booth with their bright cheerful yellow logo-colorTriangle INX had a booth of their traditional sizeVan Son had a basic booth with no significant exhibit design concept

Sam Ink makes their own ink: I have been in their factory twice.AT Inks makes their own ink: I have been in their factory.Pemla is considered to make their own ink (have not been there)I would estimate that Triangle has inks made themselves.

But be aware that in today’s world, not all “ink companies” make their own ink. So in today’s world, merely because an ink has a European name, is no guarantee that they make their own ink.

Sam*Ink booth.


Lots of T-Shirt Printers

There were T-shirt printers everywhere. A few were old-fashioned screen printing systems. But most were desktop units. Since there are so many T-shirt printer brands, it would be unrealistic to evaluate each one (since to evaluate requires visiting the factory, visiting end-users, and getting feedback about the company). But it is worth mentioning that more T-shirt printer distributors and manufacturers exhibit at SGIA than at most other printer expos.

It was helpful to have screen printing all in one part of the expo hall

Ten years ago there were so many screen printing machines that you got sick from the ink fumes after a few minutes in the exhibit hall. Today either the stink is not as bad or the screen printing companies are not printing as much during the expo.

SGIA = Screen Graphics International Association. Obviously they got rid of the word “Screen” several years ago, and now call themselves Speciality Graphics…. But screen printing is still alive and well. And fortunately most of the screen printing booths were all in one location towards one end of the hall.

It is very helpful of SGIA to concentrate screen printing booths in one location.

Screen printer at GSG booth.


Topics by alphabetical order

Solvent Printers

Booth #Epson 1201Gunsjet 3435Jhf 2931Mutho 2133Paradigm/SID 1757Roland 1945Seiko 2245


Textile printers Booth #Agfa 935DigiFab 2619Eastsign 1531Expand Systems 307Graphics One 3201Hilord 401Kliverik 1927Novus Imaging/Printer Evolution 2119Splah of Color 2031

CNC Flatbed Cutters Booth #Agfa 935Anderson Group 2701Colex 823EskoArtwork, Kongsberg 2433Gerber 2663HP 919MCT/BW Cutter 457Multicam 1845Oce 1519Screen 2511Summa 1409Vytek Laser Systems 301Zund 1235


RIP Booth #Caldera 635Ergosoft 3053Onyx 1909Wasatch 1053

Laminating and Coating Booth #AGL 2015D&K 113Drytac 1631GBC 2335Graphic Laminating 2301Neschen/Seal 723Quality 1937RS Royal Sovereing 2551


Ink Companies Booth #Alphachem 2803American Inkjet 2455AT Inks 1325Chimigraf 1465ColorMatch 2650Fortuna 2824GCPS (jetbest) 2558Graf Inks 124Hutsman 2921ICC Internatinal Chemical 1763Ink Mill 2155Inktec America 2729Inx Digital/Triangle 733J-Teck 1209Nazdar 609Pemla Ink Technology 1756Premier Digital 2711Red Giant 2124Sam Ink 245Sawgrass 3045Siesient 2255Sts. Inks 445Ultraflex 419Van Son 224


Media Companies Booth #3A 23113m 1437Aurora/Northern Lights 1832Avery Dennison 3057Azuna 1262Bantex 312Beaver Papier 2645Calsaik Plastics 2915Catalina Graphics/Mojave Digital Media 2419Cham Paper Group 2932Clear Focus 1655Clingz 2913Contravision 1351Converd 2227Coroplast 2919Creative K Solution/Hidro Sol 144Curbell 1919Dazian 408Dream Scape 759Encore 319Falcon Board/Pregis 2606


Farco Plastic 105Fisher Textile 1509Flexcon 2837Flexmag 1931Fredrix 2210General Formulation 1801G-Floor Graphics 3147Goldpalm 761Graphical 2132Heytex 106Huifeng Zhejiang Hui Feng New Material 2208Innova 1558IntPro 255Jetcol 3035Jin Kwang Chemical 2725KK Leabel 765Laird Plastic 1733Lintec 426M1 Media One/a berge/kaspapir 1057Mactac 2227Magic 129Marabu 1453Master Magnetic 1427N. Glantz & Son 2430NAR 2521Natura 1419Neschen 726New Force Magnetics 465Oracal 1309Pacific Coast Fabrics 957Palram 1721Piedmont Plastic 2302Plaskolite 204Ritrama 2633Röchling 1052SMI 2427Soyang 1253Starflex 1060Sulu Sabic 1713The Gilman Brothers Company 648Transilwrap 2805Top Value Fabrics 619Tubalite 1731Ultraflex 419Value Vinyls 545Verseidag 1915Visual Magnetic 653Vycom 2201Xcel Products 645


Helpful comment for printshop owners and staff

How do printshop owners, managers, and printer operators get spare parts when the distributor drops one brand and jumps to another brand?

In some cases the former manufacturer is unlikely to provide spare parts to a distributor who has jumped to another brand.

Yes obviously the distributor may have a few spare parts still available, but in reality their interest shifts to the new brand.

And the new distributor is caught because they did not sell the old printer to the end-user.

Who holds the warranty? Not under the law, but out in the real world: who can and will be able to, assist the customer with tech support? We have seen this headache in Australia several years ago, and also in Eastern Europe.

So increasingly FLAAR Reports is studying distributors (and manufacturers), to get a better idea of which are standing by their clients.

We understand the reality of human nature, and business. But our goal is to assist as many people as possible to have a good relationship with their printer, ink, media: and distributor and manufacturer. We wish all businesses, both printshops and the supply chain, are successful.


Missing at SGIA

I wish all the brands could exhibit, but the business reality of the world around us results in some brands being absent. GRAPO is one, which is especially unexpected since they had such a nice booth at earlier SGIA expos.

GCC has CO2 laser cutters but no wide-format printers. Whether KIP has one in their booth we can know when SGIA opens.

Too many booths missing from the Exhibitor List Catalog

With digital printing surely the exhibit catalog can be printed late enough to be sure that everyone is included. Too many booths were not included. Yes, of course, usually it was a late sign-up.

But nowadays, a trade show organizer should be happy that companies are willing to have a booth at all. It would be a courtesy to include a company in the catalog if the company made the investment.

Pregis (Falconboard) is one of many examples.


New Orleans is an iffy city for a trade show

The convention center is gigantic. There are hotels right across the street (so is better than any expo at Duesseldorf, where there are zero hotels across the street and not many more even within miles). But New Orleans appears semi-abandoned during the day. At night everything is over-priced and the food two years ago was a rip-off at the prices asked.

Orlando and Las Vegas are much nice places. Plus do not have the heat of New Orleans. It will be nice that SGIA returns to Las Vegas. Although St Louis is my family home city, I definitely don’t recommend dull cities, nor cities with high crime rates like Atlanta (not to mention the crime rate of New Orleans).

Inappropriate noise

New Orleans is great place for jazz. So it is nice that someone thought of putting some jazz or blues or other music groups playing for attendees.

But please, leave this for the French Quarter. KEEP MUSIC OUT OF THE TRADE SHOW.

Music is loud, unnecessary, not called for, and is disturbing for people in adjacent booths.

Music, live or recorded, is inappropriate at a printer expo.

If your booth has so little to attract people that you need to put topless hostesses, or a music group, then you should not bother to exhibit. Keep the music to a bar, disco, or anywhere else in New Orleans, but NOT inside the exhibit halls.

Music is okay for 5 pm to 6 pm, for receptions on the trade show floor (in Europe you are allowed to have a reception in your booth for about an hour after closing time; here at SGIA the person on the PA system rudely tells everyone to get out of the expo hall as quickly as possible).

At closing time, the message is rude, and inappropriate

It would be more appropriate for the lady who announces it is closing time to thank people for taking the time to come to SGIA; thank people for having booths; and have a pleasant friendly message.

Demanding that people “leave as soon as possible” is why people stop coming to trade shows and thus why some companies don’t want to spend the money for a booth any more.

If this is the Convention Hall owners (and not SGIA) then best never to have another SGIA expo in New Orleans. The message at closing time was rude during SGIA two years ago also.


Don’t forget to download the floor-plan version of our

report.

Internet service was almost unusable

Even 4G service was almost unusable. We had outages every few seconds, and from all services (hotel and our own). It is no wonder that China is a world power: even in Shanghai or Beijing there was better Internet service than in New Orleans.

I would never recommend any trade show in a city with such inadequate Internet access. The New Orleans Hotel (Holiday Inn actually), across street from convention center, had outages with their pathetic Internet access, both wireless and hard-wired, the first two days we were in the hotel. And my 4G modem (not related to hotel) was almost useless because the signals in the city were so poor.

First posted October 17, 2011, two days before the expo opens. Updated October 18 as we met people around the outside of the convention center. Even walking back to our hotel, and in our lobby, we were fed information constantly.

Once SGIA opens we will provide photographs and complete lists-by-subject (such as inks, media, etc). But by providing lists before the expo opens we hope to attract more visitors to reconsider and realize that there are advantages to attending SGIA expo.

Where to contact the FLAAR staff in 2012

Graphics of the Americas 2012 is now back in Miami (much better place for distributors and end-users flying up from Mexico, Central America, and South America.

FLAAR will be at the two huge Chinese shows in the same week as FESPA Barcelona, in Guangzhou. We will have staff at all three expos. If you wish to have a meeting with Dr Hellmuth or have a consulting session, please contact [email protected]. This e-mail is not for general questions; it is only to request a consulting appointment, either at a trade show or at your company headquarters (anywhere in the world, Nicholas was on airplanes over 414,000 kilometers in 2010 and about the same in 2011).

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Flatbed cutters, Inks & Substrates SGIA 2011 · EFI Rastek H652 combo printer. rade Show Exhibitor List SGIA 2011 9 Fujifilm tends to display their Acuity version of the Oce Arizona