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Dilli Neo Titan UV 1 - Wide Format Printers

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1. Chinese UV Chinese UV UV Printers UV Printers List of UV Printers Inki et Printers 2008 Manufactured in Manufactured in vets R nO ke 4 Korea 2009 KOREA 2008 AP E Comprehensive FLAAR Inventory Trends Markets amp Applications Comprehensive Complete FLAAR Inventory
2. The current winter 2007 version of the Dilli has a motorized registration gate In other words this system is improved over what was offered previously 31 Where is the registration gate located At the back Under the carriage Or in the front The registration alignment gate is not at the back is not under the carriage area instead the gate is up front The reason for placing it here is so that you don t have to walk around to the back of the printer every time you load a 1 x 1 meter board or comparable intermediate size 32 Does the drop down gate have moveable features to assist in registering materials Yes there are two moveable adjustors They offer about 1 cm of alignment surface They do not have any side arm 33 Does the drop down gate have features to facilitate placement of multiple small materials against it No this you only get on the very expensive Durst Rho 800 or ColorSpan 9840uv ROLL FED 34 How is media held flat Vacuum table Pinch rollers Roll fed media is held flat by vacuum table Every hole in the table is tested by Dilli by sticking a pin through the hole 35 If there are no pinch grit rollers is the media held by tension Although the media is moved by the transport belt roll fed me dia does have two single roller tension bars one at the feeding side the other at the take up side 36 How is the roll held at the feeding position Ona spindle Ona saddle This printer uses a spindle A saddl
3. tension regulating bolt etc Rear view of the conveyor belt It sticks out a little bit Aon TM f ne LAcACA D D J All conveyor belts are consumables You might need to replace it twice a year at mo piano wire through the ends to attach it to itself This is typical also of the belts for the quarter million dollar VUTEk combo style UV flatbeds 7 LA fb Compared with other manufacturers Dilli has supplied its new belt at a lower price to market amp FLAAR Reports DilliNeoTitanUV 9 m TWH 4 TI A nt s e VALS vw OMM LL PTTL ELLE LU AS aaah muro 1 ten at P Transport belt A wrench is used to regulate tension through this bolt LAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitanUV 10 Transport belt adjustment system Dilli factory 2007 Transport belt Dilli factory 2007 amp FLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 11 26 What does the transport belt area of the printer look like under the belt The belt is completely flat under the printer there are no auxiliary rollers to create a tri angular arrangement see the next ques tion and answer 27 How many rollers control the belt is the path of the belt horizontal or triangular You should expect at least one drive roller and one driven roller one at the front the other at the back In between is a rectangular horizontal vacuum bed essentially the same kind of bed you get on a dedicated flatbed pr
4. based printers but almost unknown and unavailable on printers less than 104 inches The Durst Rho 351R offers an option to allow printing on two different rolls simultaneously This feature is not expected on any printer costing less than 250 000 Front view Spindle e and tension bar f 46 For handling ink that passes through the weave of fabrics or mesh is there a trough Or other mechanism to catch the ink A trough is possible only on a printer with a fixed platen there is no easy way to put a trough on a combo style printer If you need to print on fabric or mesh with a UV combo printer you need a liner or you need to put an intermediate sheet onto the surface of the conveyor belt or clean up the ink that passes through the weave 47 Is there a cutter Is it manual or automatic Most combo style printers have no on board cutters The Durst Rho 351R has a manual cutter since this is a dedicated roll to roll printer meaning it has no moving conveyor belt So roll to roll systems are more likely to have an appropriate location for a cutting element and even potentially a cutting slot 48 Is there a knife guide a slot where you can draw your knife down and across the width of the substrate Most combo style printers have no area to put such a knife slot I LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 15 STRUCTURE Miscellaneous 49 Does the printer have levels built into the structure of the printer Yes what appears to be a
5. Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller companies and individuals who seek help on which printers to consider when they need digital imaging hardware and software A modest portion of our income comes from our readers who purchase the FLAAR series All income helps continue our tradition of indepen dent evaluations and reviews of inkjet printers RIPs media and inks 52 Dilli Neo Titan UV 53 amp FLAAR Reports These are some of the most Recent FLAAR Reports 2007 2009 nters NET You can find these and more reports at www wide format pri Introduction to UV Curable Inkjet Flatbed Printers LULAAR Reset ie T LAAR Rapih AFLAAR Reports L TLAAR Reports TLAAR Reporh ae eee Serene it m AO UEM Clacsificatinn How to Buy a UV Cured Classifications of Inkjet Flatbed Printer UV Glossary more than 60 UV Cured Printers FAQs for UV Printers B ios Fined Premera amp TLAAR Reports ATLAARR GPLAAR Reports UV Lamps T OPE IE Tips Info Help for flatbed Inkjet Printers Introduction to Documentation UV Cured Inks on Piezo Printheads Used in UV Cured Inkjet Printers amp LAAR Reports Brief History of the Development of UV Cured Inkjet Printing EE S 2 Wr p FAZA including Cationic UV Ink Most recent UV Printers b LAAR Reports HP Scitex FB61 FLAAR Riu ty Entry Level Hybrid UV Roll to Roll Bib rane amp FLAAR Reports Roll to Roll UV Printers 8 Roland LED UV Curin
6. MAINTENANCE 110 What daily procedure is required at start up in the morning Clean out the caps in the capping station then purge and wipe 111 What daily maintenance is required at night Quick purge wipe cap You can elect whether to fill the caps with cleaning solution or not Takes about 3 minutes all together 112 How do you clean the transport belt You can remove wet uncured ink with alcohol 113 How complex is it to align the printheads There are two head alignment adjustment bolts on the carriage This is a manual procedure The instructions are helpful and provide details even that you need to use an insulated screwdriver to prevent causing an electrical short out 114 Is there a sleep mode Should the machine ever be turned off Does this entail having a UPS unit to guaran tee it is on all the time You can turn the printer off completely amp FLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 27 SAFETY amp HEALTH CONCERNS 115 How many emergency stop buttons are there Where are they located Only two one in the front operator s area one on the back feeding area 116 Is the machine enclosed or exposed Since there is no hood at all the printing area is completely exposed a PME Both stop buttons are easily accessible 117 Does the hood close down completely to seal the system or are there a few inches open at the bottom The hood on any hybrid or combo system must allow space for boards to pass through so
7. a demo room It would also be helpful to visit the fac tory in Korea So far have inspected the Teckwin UV factory in Shanghai one of the factories making the Infiniti UV in China IP amp in Korea several days VUTEk three times this year already Gandin novations NUR twice this year already Zund two days about four times at the MacDermid ColorSpan factory Inca Digital Sun factory Sun Chemical Fast Jet Sun LLC NEO LED uv printer several days etc If you need more information about Dilli please contact K H Park Most recently updated January 2009 Updated February 2008 based on spending two days in the factory and Dilli company facilities north of Seoul in December 2007 Updated January 2008 First issued August 2007 As soon as you have your UV flatbed printer your printshop will desire to have a cutter or trimmer First you need to trim Simple cutting of the edges of your board so the edges are neat and clean Then of course some clients will ask if you can do contour cutting This means you can offer additional services and earn additional income The best way to learn about trimmers is to ask a distributor who has more than one brand This way they do not push their house brand and denigate brands that they do not carry Also you want a real person that actually has experience Otherwise you get a box push er who is simply an Internet sales person who does no
8. actually updated There is a free PDF that describes the UV curable inkjet printer Sub scription system Subscriptions are available only for UV related wide format printer publications FLAAR Reports on UV curable roll to roll flatbed hybrid and combo printers are updated when new information is available We tend to update the reports on new printers on printers that readers ask about the most and on printers where access is facilitated such as factory visits demo room visits etc Dilli Neo Titan UV 45 Reports on obsolete printers discontinued printers or printers that not enough people ask about tend not to be updated FLAAR still publishes individual reports on solvent printers and on giclee printers but subscriptions on these are not yet available these FLAAR Reports on solvent eco solvent and water based wide for mat printers have to be purchased one by one Please Note This report has not been licensed to any printer manufacturer dis tributor dealer sales rep RIP company media or ink company to distribute So if you obtained this from any company you have a pirated copy If you have received a translation this translation is not au thorized unless posted on a FLAAR web site and may be in violation of copyright plus if we have not approved the translation it may make claims that were not our intention Also since this report is frequently updated if you got your ver sion from somewhere e
9. amp FLAAR Reports Nicholas Hellmuth January 2009 Mid Range UV Combo Printer an ET itan UV TLAAR Reports Please Note This report has not been licensed to any printer manufacturer distributor dealer sales rep RIP company media or ink company to distribute So if you obtained this from any company you have a pirated Copy Also since this report is frequently updated if you got your version from somewhere else it may be an obsolete edition FLAAR reports are being updated all year long and our comment on that product may have been revised positively or negatively as we learned more about the product form end users To obtain a legitimate copy which you know is the complete report with nothing erased or changed and hence a report with all the original description of pros and cons please obtain your original and full report straight from www large format printers orqg Your only assurance that you have a complete and authentic evaluation which describes all aspects of the product under consideration benefits as well as deficiencies is to obtain these reports directly from FLAAR via www wide format printers NET Copyright 2009 Dilli Neo Titan UV THE BASICS THE BASICS PURCHASING STRUCTURE OF THE PRINTER Vacuum STRUCTURE OF THE PRINTER Media Path STRUCTURE OF THE PRINTER Transport Belt LINING UP FLAT MATERIAL to help it feed straight ROLL FED STRUCTURE Miscellane
10. by local laws in your community There may well be hazardous chemicals or outgassing that we are not aware of Be aware that some inks have severe health hazards associated with them Some are hazardous to breathe others are hazardous if you get them on your skin For example some chemicals such as cyclo hexanone do not sound like chemicals you want to breathe every day Be sure to obtain read and understand the MSDS sheets for the inks media and laminates that you intend to use Both solvent eco solvent and UV curable inks are substances whose full range of health and environmental hazards are not yet fully revealed It is es sential you use common sense and in general be realistic about the hazards involved especially those which are not listed or which have not yet been described FLAAR is not able to list all hazards since we are not necessarily aware of the chemical components of the prod ucts we discuss Our reports are on usability not on health hazards Most inks are clearly not intended to be consumed Obviously these tend to be solvent inks and UV curable inks Yet other inks are edible seriously they are printed on birthday cakes Indeed Sensient is a leader in a new era of edible inks Therefore the user must assume the entire risk of ascertaining information on the chemical contents and flammability regulations relative to inks media or laminates as well as using any described hardware software accessory service techn
11. carpenter s type level is built into the middle of the gantry structure An actual built in level is rare and is a nice added feature There are also two other built in levels one on each side of the media exit area 50 Does the printer have leveling supports How many and how strong Leveling any UV printer is crucial Indeed at the NUR factory once the structure is leveled in the assembly room rather than roll it from stage to stage all construction stages take place with the printer not moving from stall to stall The Dilli has four silver colored leveling screws on the main body 51 Does the printer have wheels How many and how strong Four red wheels are separate from the four levelers The printer also has two extra wheels for the ink station at the right end 52 Is the motor a linear motor or a stepper motor Both the carriage motor and the feed motor are AC servo motors A total of 4 leveling supports and 6 wheels can be found in the printer 6 BAVAN Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 16 TABLES for Combo or Hybrid Flatbed 53 What is the approximate size of the table The main table is quite short barely 2 but it has a novel flip up extension of about 16 so the overall table is more than a yard over a meter 54 What is the design of the take up table Horizontal roller bars the full width of the table Horizontal roller bars with rigid supports in the middle and or elsewhere too Separate flat bars with row
12. it s hood can never close down tightly onto the platen area The design must allow space this space should be closed off with a skirt Some printers use flaps or rubber like material other printers use skirts of brush like material 118 What kind of skirt exists along the bottom of the hood to prevent light leakage There is a skirt to prevent light leakage 119 What system of ventilation or exhaust system is built into the printer Or if not required what would com mon sense dictate Is it adequate to clear the work area of gasses and fumes The Dilli manual provided by ACCI states clearly For the comfort and health of the operators a ventilation system may be used to exhaust ink fumes and heat from the working area would recommend changing may be used to should be used 120 What is the noise level primarily of the fans for the vacuum never heard any unacceptable noise level 121 How easy is it to obtain the MSDS of the ink It is rare that the MSDS of the ink is easy to obtain If the MSDS is an auto download from the company website this is how it should be But most companies do not wish the end user to know which brand of ink is being used so hiding the MSDS is not necessarily an attempt to hide the dangers but may be to hide the source of the ink ARMAYAN AT Ter Dilli Neo Titan UV 28 PRINTHEAD TECHNOLOGY 122 Which brand printhead is used KonicaMinolta printheads are used The same brand is used in
13. make any combo style conveyor belt systems at present only hybrid and dedicated flatbeds Our interview with one Teckwin owner indicated that he had not experienced any major breakdowns or even any continuous issues or head aches If we can inspect such an installation in person to reconfirm this Teckwin may be the first Chinese made printer that might pass a FLAAR inspection So far owners and operators of printshops with Flora Infiniti and DuPont printers have tended to point out the consistent and persistent breakdowns as parts wear out or simply won t hold up to being used 8 hours a day Running most Chinese printers multiple shifts is either not possible or risky No printer is perfect not even those made in Switzerland or Japan but our antennae indicate that the Teckwin UV printers may be the first Chinese made UV flatbed printer that functions acceptably But all Korean UV printers Dilli DYSS IP amp I and Lotte are better designed and more reliably constructed than even the best Chinese printer People would also consider an entry level printer from ColorSpan However they were recently purchased by HP and it may take a while for that take over to be effective amp TLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 42 SUMMARY Image Quality Issues General 199 Is text sharp or fuzzy What is the smallest text that you can easily read On some materials 4 pt text is legible 200 Can the system produce glossy finish To what degree is
14. potential For example you will most likely need a color management system which implies color measurement tools and software To handle ICC color profiles you may need ICC color profile generation software and a spectrophotometer since often the stock pre packaged ICC color profiles which come with the ink media printers and or RIPs may not work in your situation Not all RIPs handle color manage ment equally or may work better for some printer ink media combi nations than for others Be aware that some RIPs can only accept ICC color profiles you quickly find out the hard way that you can t tweak these profiles nor generate new ones So be sure to get a RIP which can handle all aspects of color management Many RIPs come in different levels amp LA AR Reports You may buy one level and be disappointed that the RIP won t do everything That s because those features you may be lacking are available only in the next level higher of that RIP often at consid erable extra cost Same thing in the progression of Chevy through Pontiac to Cadillac or the new Suburbans A Chevy Suburban simply does not have all the bells and whistles of the Cadillac Escalade ver sion of this SUV Don t blame us besides that s why we are warning you This is why we have a Survey Form so we can learn when you find products that are inadequate We let the manufacturers know when end users complain about their products so that the manufacturers can
15. printer This Success Story was featured in a major US trade magazine It was written about the same time as more than 35 of this same brand of printer were being rejected by owners at a time when probably a quarter of the dealers who had sold this printer gave up because the printer broke down too often and in a year that several lawsuits were filed by print shop owners to get their money back Another Success Story in the same major trade magazine lauded a printer without mentioning its downsides visited the owner of the identical brand and model of printer The owner told me that this printer broke down repeatedly and that he felt like a guinea pig with an unfinished beta stage printer So sorry but Success Stories are not realistic indeed they may be misleading and potentially seriously so This FLAAR Report is not intended to lure you into buying this or any other brand of UV printer FLAAR is a research institute at a university Our interest is to learn which UV printer we should consider to acquire for our own printing needs As ex pected of a research professor go out and work hard at learning about as many of the over 101 printers from more than 45 different manufacturers Since we do all this research anyway we issue the FLAAR Reports so we can share our findings with printshop owners managers printer operators and with other university departments of print management People sometimes ask why some of our Reports are more c
16. resolve the situation when they next redesign the system Most newer printer models tend to overcome deficiencies of earlier models It is possible that our comparative comments point out a glitch in a particular printer that has been taken care of through an improvement in firmware or even an entirely new printer model So if we point out a deficiency in a particular printer brand the model you may buy may not exhibit this headache or your kind of printing may not trigger the problem Or you may find a work around Just remember that every machine has quirks even the ones we like It is possible that the particular kind of images resolution inks media or other factors in your facility are sufficiently different than in ours that a printer which works just fine for us may be totally unsatis factory for you and your clients However it may be that the specific kind of printing you need to do may never occasion that shortcoming Or it may be that your printer was manufactured on a Monday and has defects that are atypical show up more in the kind of media you use which we may not use as often or at all during our evaluations Equally possibly a printer that was a disaster for someone else may work flawlessly for you and be a real money maker for your com pany So if we inspect a printer in a printshop a site visit case study and that owner operator is content with their printer and we mention this don t expect that you will automati
17. such as Agfa would expect more restraint from a European company LAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitan UV 41 196 Do certain parts of the printer need to be repaired or accessed so often that you have to remove safety plates or protective plates to make access easier This is mainly with Chinese made printers 197 How often do people return this printer and say they want their money back This is mainly with Chinese made printers COMPARISONS WITH OTHER PRINTERS 198 When people are considering buying this printer what other printer s are they also looking at IP amp l 1606 was first shown at the same SGIA 06 trade show as the Dilli Titan 1606 The Flora F1 180uv is also a combo style at a lower price but comes from a factory with many years track record of producing printers that don t always work adequately the first two generations of DuPont printers had to be recalled and junked Most of the first generation Flora printers for Raster Printers were rejected both by dealers and end users Although current Flora printers are substantially improved they still suffer from low bid mentality and have not yet impressed either end users or distributors or resellers We are considering visiting their factory to see how far they have progressed and for 2008 their printers may be improved enough to be acceptable for low price entry level experimentation EU IP amp I 1606 at ISA 07 Flora 180UV at FESPA 07 Teckwin does not
18. tech support per sonnel at their expense also But unfortunately both the hybrid UV printers are still abandoned in the warehouse of the distributor they were still there in January 2009 But Teckwin has the highest rating of any Chinese company for interest in quality control and realization that it is not good PR to abandon a client or reseller or distributor all together Recently we have heard many reports of issues of getting parts from manufacturers in other countries not Asia So just because you printer is made in an industrialized country if you are in the US and the manufacturer is X thousand kilometers or miles away the wait may be many days or weeks Lack of Tech Support Personnel is increasing The book of sales in the third quarter of 2008 resulted in many tech support problems The recession resulted in even more some manufacturers may need to skimp on quality control during a recession or switch to cheaper parts suppliers Plus they are not hiring enough tech support during a recession So the bigger and more successful the company in some cases the worse these particular problems may be Any new compiled printer may take a few months to break in Any new printer no matter who the manufacturer or how good is the engineering ane electronics will tend to have teething issues Until the firmware is updated you may be a beta tester This does not mean the printer should be avoided just realize that you may have som
19. 00 We thank Mimaki USA for providing a JV4 and then a Mimaki TX 1600s textile printer and Improved Technologies ITNH providing their Ixia model of the Iris 3047 giclee printer We thank 3P Inkjet Textiles and HP for providing inkjet textiles so we could learn about the different results on the various textiles IJ Tech nologies 3P Inkjet Textiles ColorSpan Encad HP Nan Ya Pepa Oracal Tara and other companies have provided inkjet media so we can try it out and see how it works or not as the case may be several 50 amp LA AR Reports inkjet media failed miserably one from Taiwan the other evidently from Germany We thank Aurelon Canon ColorGate ColorSpan ErgoSoft HP PerfectProof PosterJet Onyx Ilford CSE ColorBurst ScanvecAmiable Wasatch and many other RIP companies for pro viding their hardware and software RIPs We thank Dell Computers for providing awesome workstations for testing RIP software and content creation with Adobe Photoshop and other programs We also appreciate the substantial amount of soft ware provided by Adobe As with other product loaned or provided courtesy of ProVar LLC especially the 23 monitors which makes it so much easier to work on multiple documents side by side We thank Betterlight Calumet Photographic Global Graphics West cott Global Imaging Inc Phase One and Bogen Imaging for helping to equip our archaeological photo studios at the university and its archaeolo
20. Is there a warning before actually being out of ink Same as with the waste container being full when the ink is near empty an alarm sounds and also a message is displayed on the LCD But the sound for the ink being out is a different tone than the sound of the waste container being full 169 Can you hot swap the ink refill with ink while the printer is running Since the operator s manual says Make sure the printer power is OFF before pouring in new ink this suggests you cannot hot swap the ink But when asked was told you can hot swap ink So this needs to be double checked INK Supply System Tubing Filters etc 170 How is new ink added Pouring into the on board container Switching the container to the new ink con tainer Use a funnel to pour ink into the main tank 171 What is the situation with the ink gelling Ink gels from heat not from UV light since in theory the inside of the printer will have black ink lines so no UV light can reach the ink But overall heat will cause UV ink to gel But if you have some circulation within the tank and if the ink is far from the heat gellation will not be as much an issue 172 How long does it take to heat the ink in the morning at startup The overall start up time from a cold start in the morning is less than 10 minutes FLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 37 INK Longevity 173 What about solvents such as cleaning solvents Do they mar dull or wash away the i
21. Mark Spandorf owner and president mark imagetechdigital com or 510 238 8905 If you are in Europe or the rest of the world you can contact BARBIERI directly at BARBIERI electronic snc info BARBIERIelectronic com www BARBIERIlelectronic com Tel 39 0472 834 024 Fax 39 0472 833 845 amp LA AR Reports Reality Check Being a university professor for many years does not mean we know everything But intellectual curiosity often leads us to enter areas that are new to us So we do not shirk from entering areas where we are obviously not yet expert If in your years of wide format print ing experience have encountered results different that ours please let us Know at ReaderService FLAAR org We do not mind eating crow though so far it is primarily a different philosophy we practice because since we are not dependent on sales commissions we can openly list the glitches and defects of those printers that have an oc casional problem FLAAR and most universities have corporate sponsors but FLAAR web sites do not accept advertising so we don t have to kowtow to resellers or manufacturers We respect their experience and opinion but we prefer to utilize our own common sense our in house experi ences the results from site visit case studies and comments from the more than 53 000 of our many readers who have shared their experiences with us via e mail the Survey Forms Licensing Information If you wish to distribute this r
22. ailable No on line training is available for most inkjet printers Dr Nicholas Hellmuth and the CEO of Dilli Dr Geun Soo Choi outside the new D G I factory and headquarters TECH SUPPORT amp WARRANTY 94 What is the original warranty period One year warranty 95 Does it include parts labor printheads Printheads have a warranty for six months 96 What are the hours of tech support If support is from eastern time zone hours should be at least 8 am through 8 pm to cover users on the West Coast ACCI provides tech support from 8 30 am to 5 pm Central time zone 97 What happens if the tech support from your local distributor is uninspired or inadequate Can you telephone the manufacturer directly If so will be manufacturer actively assist you or only begrudgingly MacDermid ColorSpan was good at providing direct manufacturer s tech support Whether this will continue under HP owner ship is not yet known Dilli also can provide manufacturer s tech support if absolutely needed Some other manufacturers simply don t provide tech support themselves or only begrudgingly they expect their dealers to provide support We have several instances in Australia of poor tech support for GRAPO printers and the printshop owner rated the backup from the manufacturer in the Czech Republic as unsatisfactory that s putting it about as politely as can the situa tion was quite unbearable for two UV printer owners in Australia 98 Can t
23. ance to spend several days learning more about their RIP As a result there is now a FLAAR Report photo essay on this software Most recently have seen Caldera RIP at the Shanghai printer trade show in China at DRU PA in Germany at FESPA Digital in Geneva SGIA 08 and Viscom Italy 08 When visited a large printshop in Maribor northern Slovenia they were using Caldera RIP and the manager of technical services for this company said Caldera does a good job This company in Slovenia has about eight UV printers about five of them from Durst and an equal number of large solvent printers They originally used a GretagMacbeth color man Caldera also offers a highly regarded spectrophotometer e from Barbieri the leading color management company in Italy they are headquartered in the same city as Durst the manufacturer of Rho UV cured printers agement system but switched to BARBIERI because the BARBIERI spectrophotometer can read more efficiently and can handle tex tiles backlit wood and other materials that are either awkward or difficult on other brands of color management instruments You can learn about the BARBIERI equipment either from their headquarters in Brixen or their distribu tors worldwide For further information on Caldera contact Joseph MERGUI mergui caldera fr If you have questions about color man agement if you are in the US you can contact ImageTech at www ImageTechDigital com
24. and one Epson Yet we know other users who had better results maybe ours came down the assembly line on a Monday or Friday afternoon when workers were not attentive One costly color management soft ware package was judged incapable by two reviewers one from the university second was an outside user who had made the mis take of buying this package So it s obvious that providing products or even a grant is no shield from having your products fail a FLAAR evaluation The reason is clear the end user is our judge The entire FLAAR service program is to assist the people who need to use digital imaging hardware and software If a product functions we find out and promulgate the good news If a product is a failure or more likely needs some improve ment in the next generation we let people know If a product is hyped by what an informed user would recognize as potentially false and misleading nonsense then we point out the pathetic discrepancies very clearly This is what you should expect from an institute which is headed by a professor Actually most of our reviews are based on comments by end users We use their tips to check out pros and cons of virtually every product Dilli Neo Titan UV we discuss You can t fool a print shop owner whose printer simply fails to function as advertised And equally a sign shop owner who earns a million dollars a year from a single printer brand makes an impact on us as well We have multip
25. asily scratch off certain materials Realize that all statements must be judged based on how long the ink has been on the material and the surface nature of the material Not all fluted plastic material is the same and six months later the adhesion could theoretically be different based on conditions of display and the nature of the surface of the material FLAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitanUV 33 APPLICATIONS 153 Can you print fine art photos giclee or d cor You can definitely print d cor you can print on pre stretched canvas 154 Can you print on textiles or fabrics How do you handle the ink that gets through the weave There are two issues with printing on fabrics first the ink goes through the weave and ends up on the table or transport belt or platen Second the fibers from fabrics or mats can get onto the printhead nozzle plate and sometimes up into the nozzles amp BRAVAN e Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 34 TLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 35 155 Is there a specialink for flexible material and another ink for rigid material What other inksets are available Is there any choice in inks Only one general purpose ink is offered at present 156 Is an extrudable or thermal formable ink available from the printer manufacturer At present only Mimaki and Gandinnovations offer a special heat formable UV cured ink 157 How many colors are used to produce output four six or eight Six 158 Wh
26. between 18 and 28 degrees C at 25 75 relative humidity But based on interviewing end users with other brands even more important is that whatever temperature and humidity is present that it not vary during the day cool in morning hot by 11 am hotter by 2 pm The new Dilli manual from ACCI recommends 69 to 85 degrees F and 20 to 8096 humidity 82 What about dust and cleanliness of the air Dust in the printing environment is an aspect that is often neglected It is crucial that if a sign shop that no sanding sawing or grinding operations be nearby The dust and debris from sawing and comparable operations are extremely unhealthy for a UV printer In other words you need to ventilate away more than ozone and ink odors you need to ventilate away everything else that is already in the printshop environment 83 What is the connectivity Network SCSI FireWire USB or other TCP IP 84 What air pressure is required to be provided to the printer Is this for a vacuum table or other purposes such as ventilation You must provide a source of pressurized air This is for vacuum table and other systems 85 What is the size and weight of the printer 3 5 x 1 52x 1 6 meters approximately 136 x 60 x 63 inches The printer weighs 620 kg 86 How many boxes arrive Two boxes arrive the main box with the printer then a second box with the tables etc The printer comes in one piece The only features that come detached from the ma
27. cally get the same results in your own printshop In some cases a product may work better on a Macintosh than on a PC RIP software may function well with one operating system yet have bugs and crash on the same platform but with a different oper ating system Thus be sure to test a printer under your own specific work conditions before you buy And if a printer RIP media or ink does not function return it with no ands ifs or buts Your best defense is to show an advertising claim that the printer simply can t achieve Such advertising claims are in violation of federal regulations and the printer companies know they are liable for misleading the public But before you make a federal case just be sure that many of the issues are not user error or unfamiliarity It may be that training or an additional accessory can make the printer do what you need it to ac complish Of course if the printer ads did not warn you that you had to purchase the additional pricey accessory that is a whole other issue Our reviews do not cover accessories since they are endless as is the range of training or lack thereof among users The major causes of printer breakdown and failure is lack of main tenance poor maintenance spotty maintenance or trying to jerry rig some part of the printer The equally common cause of printer breakdown is improper use generally due from lack of training or experience Another factor is whether you utilize your prin
28. capa bilities at several trade shows in a row At each of those same trade amp TLAAR Reports shows another brand had over 30 of their printers in booths in virtu ally every hall each one producing museum quality exhibits Not our fault when we report what we see over and over and over again One of our readers wrote us recently Nicholas last month you recom mended the as one of several possible printers for our needs we bought this It was the best capital expenditure we have made in the last several years Just wanted to tell you how much we appreci ate your evaluations FLAAR is a non profit educational and research organization dedi cated for over 36 years to professional photography in the arts tropi cal flora and fauna architectural history and landscape panorama photography Our digital imaging phase is a result of substantial funding in 1996 from the Japanese Ministry of Public Education for a study of scan ning and digital image storage options This grant was via Japan s National Museum of Ethnology Osaka Japan That same year FLAAR also received a grant of 100 000 from an American foun dation to do a feasibility study of digital imaging in general and the scanning of photographic archives in particular The FLAAR web sites began initially as the report on the results of these studies of scanners Once we had the digital images we began to experiment with digital printers People began to comment
29. ded in the printer itself The printer comes with a separate vacuum motor that sits on the floor alongside the printer But you need to provide compressed air for the negative vacuum in the printhead 12 Is itrecommended or required to buy a spare parts kit Or extra printheads The spare parts kit is neatly packed into two suitcase like containers But these are for the dealer or distribu tor and are not generally bought by the end user 13 Or do the dealers prefer that customers not try to make their own repairs The end user is not encouraged to take the printer apart and do repairs on their own This policy varies by manufacturer Interest in doing their own repairs varies by the end user and by the printer operator A few operators like the opportunity to take service training at the factory and thereby to be piri NeoTitan 1606 at SGIA 07 able to do basic repairs on their own Most manufactur ers discourage this but some manufacturers do allow end users to take advanced service training 14 How does the total cost compare with other UV printers Dilliversion Base price chassis and print engine 120 000 At distributor this is an advantage less chance to be disturbed by e mail etc eee fables inde LAAR Reports DilliNeoTitanUV 6 Spare parts kit container Dilli factory visit 2007 LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 7 PURCHASING 15 Are dealers national mos
30. e downtime and a few headaches Of course the worst case sce nario for this was the half million dollar Luscher JetPrint so being Made in Switzerland was not much help Counterfeit parts are a problem with many printers made in China Several years ago many UV printers made in China and some made elsewhere in Asia had counterfeit parts No evaluation has the fund ing available to check parts inside any printer to see if they are from the European Japanese or American manufacturer or if they are a clever counterfeits Be realistic and aware that not all materials can be printed on equally well Many materials don t feed well through hybrid pinch roller on grit roller systems or combo UV systems with transport belts Banding both from poor feeding and from bi directional lawnmower effect are common on many UV curable inkjet printers It is typical for some enthusiastic vendors to claim verbally that their printer can print on anything and everything But once you unpack Dilli Neo Titan UV 49 the printer and set it up you find that it requires primer on some materials on other materials it adheres for a few weeks but then falls off And on most hybrid and many combo printers some heavy thick or smooth surfaced materials skew badly Since the claim that the printer will print on everything is usually verbal it is tough to prove this aspect of misleading advertising to a jury Not all inks can print on all ma
31. e for us to fly to their headquarters so we can inspect their manufacturing facili ties demo rooms and especially when the companies make their research engineering and ink chemistry staff available for discus sions When received my education at Harvard was taught to have a desire to learn new things This has guided my entire life and is what led me into wide format digital imaging technology it is con stantly getting better and there is a lot to learn every month Thus actively seek access to improving my understanding of wide format printer technology so that we can better provide information to the approximately quarter million readers of our solvent and UV printer web site www large format printers org and the over half a million who read either our wide format printers org site or our roughly half million combined who read our digital photography org and www FineArtGicleePrinters org sites Barbieri electronic color management Caldera RIP ColorSpan DEC Durst Gerber Grapo IP amp I Mimaki USA Mutoh Dilli GCC NUR Oce Shiraz RIP Sun Teckwin VUTEk WP Digital Xerox Yuhan Kimberly Zund have each brought FLAAR staff to their head quarters and printer factories Bordeaux InkWin and Sunflower ink have brought us to inspect their ink manufacturing facilities and demo rooms We have visited the world headquarters and demo rooms of HP in Barcelona and received informative and helpful technology briefings We are
32. e is formed of two rolls with a slight space between them You rest your roll of substrate on the saddle created by the two adjacent rolls You don t need to run a spindle through the roll You don t need to fumble loading the end of the spindle into two holders one at each end Loading a saddle is quicker as a result But a saddle is primarily used on heavy duty industrial print ers 3 2 meters or wider where the weight of a roll may cause a spindle to sag Plus it s a headache to thread a spindle through a 5 meter long core 37 Is there an air pressure core system Air core spindles tend to be used only on grand format printers costing over a quarter of a million dollars Rear view Spindle a and tension bar b LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 13 38 How is the roll media handled at feeding position For example is there a dancer bar There is a tension bar at the output side but not both This tension bar goes up and down but it is not a dancer bar which goes diagonally 39 Is the feeding area for roll fed material physically attached to the printer or is it out in front and not attached as on the GRAPO Octopus The roll feeding attachment is physically attached Rear view Spindle c and tension bar d 40 If a combo system does the media feed directly onto the transport belt or is there an intermediate roller bar out in front Intermediate bars tend to be found only on cheap Chinese printers and g
33. e s situation Some media may be more affected by static charges than others 148 What happens in very dry weather low humidity especially in winter with central heating During dry periods with low humidity static problems may increase With a high static charge such as with PVC materials the ink is attracted to charged areas of the material This results in overspray ink laydown in unintended areas SUBSTRATES Cleaning Priming Preparation 150 Do you have to brush off or otherwise clean each sheet of incoming material by hand before you print on it Generally yes The need to clean incoming materials is typical of any printer Some materials have more detritus or dust or issues than other materials And some suppliers offer better materials than others 151 Which substrates ought to be laminated top coated or otherwise post treated Realize that top coating a UV clearcoat may be useful on some materials and even possibly required on some applications This may require an additional machine space training and further ventilation considerations You are not protecting against the sun you are protecting against the ink rubbing off slippery surfaces such as glass or marble Lamination can also serve to provide a glossy finish on a material that is naturally matte SUBSTRATES General Concerns 152 Although this printer prints on almost all materials what is the adhesion rate with most materials Does the ink e
34. eat from the lamps while they are parked Shutters test Dilli factory 2007 LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 40 RIP SOFTWARE amp Printer Software 192 Which RIPs are featured Dilli features Wasatch SoftRIP and Onyx PosterShop RIPs COLOR MANAGEMENT FEATURES 193 What color management sensors or measuring tools are on board ColorSpan has color management tools built into its UV printers but otherwise this feature is not yet available on other brands PRODUCTIVITY amp ROI Return on Investment 194 What is the level of productivity high medium low This is not a speed demon but then again it does not cost a quarter of a million dollars either NEO TITAN OS ag Fear ae E Eur n G ADVERTISING CLAIMS 195 How does the actual printer compare with what was claimed in the ads The Agfa brochure waffles a bit on print speed by using the word up to It is unclear whether photo sign quality is the high est quality it is also unclear whether this is uni directional or bi directional Most printer ads are misleading with respect to speed and quality which is a shame For example on the front page it talks about how impressive the quality is but then uses the speed output figures for the lower poster quality not the actual photo quality Again this is the traditional manner of doing it but end users get upset and find this inappropriate especially of a large and generally respected company
35. en dation of that printer In your local temperature in your local humidity with the dust that is in your local air with your local operator and with disorientation of the insides of a printer during rough shipment and installation we have no knowledge of what conditions you will face in your own printshop We tend to inspect a printer first in the manufacturing plant demo room no disjointed parts from any ship ment since this printer has not been lifed by cranes and run over a rough pot holed highway or kept in smeltering heat or freezing cold during shipment Taking into consideration we do not know the conditions in which you may be using your hardware software or consumables neither amp LA AR Reports the author nor FLAAR nor either university is liable for liability loss or damage caused either directly or indirectly by the suggestions in this report nor by hardware software or techniques described herein because Availability of spare parts may be a significant issue Chinese printers tend to switch suppliers for spare parts every month or so So getting spare parts for a Chinese printer will be a chal lenge even if the distributor or manufacturer actually respond to your e mails at all Fortunately some companies to have a fair record of response Teckwin is one based on a case of two problematical hy brid UV printers in Guatemala The distributor said that Teckwin sent a second printer at their own expense and sent
36. enerally for hybrid designs There is no intermediate bar for the Dilli printer 41 At the front is there an extra roller bar s near the platen or transport belt Is it a bar to roll under the media or over the media or are there both in addition to pinch roller grit roller arrangement No I LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 14 42 How is the roll media handled at take up position For example is there a dancer bar There is a tension bar that can move up and down but not a full dancer bar 43 Describe the overall path of the media through the system In general the roll feeding and handling system on this printer is relatively sophisticated as you would or should expect from a company with many years expe rience designing and manufacturing roll fed solvent based inkjet printers 44 How much media is wasted during loading and feeding With some brands of printers you suspect that they are deliberately designed to waste ink and media since this is how those companies get their profits Media is moved too far out before you can cut it resulting in media being wasted before and after cutting etc There is less waste on a dedicated flatbed printer be cause there is no material used in loading or feeding up to the point it is printed upon 45 Can you print on more than one roll of substrate simultaneously Being able to print on several different rolls of material simultaneously is common on grand format solvent
37. eport to other people within your company please obtain a site licensing agreement for multiple copies from FLAAR by contacting ReaderService FLAAR org Substantial discounts are available for licensing to distribute with in your company we call this a subscription The advantage of a subscription license is that you can opt for automatic updates You may have noticed that FLAAR reports tend to be updated as additional information becomes available In some instances a license would be available to distribute out side your company including in other languages To distribute this report without subscription license violates federal copyright law To avoid such violations for you and your company you can easily order additional copies from www wide format printers NET Update Policy Starting in 2008 updates on UV curable wide format inkjet printers are available for all individuals and companies which have a sub scription or to companies who are research project sponsors If you are a Subscriber or manager in a company that is a research sponsor you can obtain the next update by writing ReaderService FLAAR org If you are neither a Subscriber or a research sponsor simply order the newest version via the e commerce system on www wide format printers NET Please realize that because we have so many publications and many are updated so frequently that we have no realistic way to notify any reader of when just one particular report is
38. ere are the printer s ink containers located Front back or sides The main ink tanks are located at the right end of the printer They can be easily accessed without first having to open a cabi net door amp Lm Ic Y M C K INK White amp Varnish 159 Is white ink available White ink is available on the larger Dilli UV printer but not on the Titan 160 Is spot varnish available Not on this model INK Cost 161 Does the refill container of ink come in cartridge bottles or bulk How large are the ink containers for this replacement ink Ink comes in bottles 162 How many liters of ink does the on board ink container hold in the main tank 1 8 liters per color 163 What is the cost per container What is this cost translated to liters Ink costs 150 per liter 6 TLAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitan UV 36 164 How much ink does the waste ink container hold 1 5 liters 165 How often does the waste container need to be emptied About every two months though obviously this depends on how often you use the printer and how often you purge 166 Do you have to drain the on board container manually Or just remove one bottle and place an empty bottle in it s place You have to manually drain the container through a petcock valve into a disposal container 167 How do you know when the waste container is full An alarm sounds and also a message is displayed on the LCD 168 Is there an out of ink alarm
39. erstone of American individualism and technologi cal advancement FLAAR also covers its costs of maintaining the immense system of 8 web sites in three languages and its facilities in part by serving as a consultant such as assisting inkjet manufacturers learn more about the pros and cons of their own printers as well as how to improve their next generation of printers It is especially useful to all concerned when manufacturers learn of trends what applications are popular and for what reasons For example manufacturers need to know whether to continue designing software for Mac users or concentrate software for PC users So the survey form that you fill out is helpful to gather statistics You benefit from this in two ways first you get the FLAAR reports in exchange for your survey form Second your comments bring hopefully change and improvement in the next generation of printers When we do survey statistics then the names addresses and telephone numbers are removed completely A survey wants only aggregate num bers not individuals However if you ask about a specific brand of printer and do not opt out we forward your request to a pertinent sponsor so you can obtain follow up from that brand since we ourselves do not have enough personnel to respond to each reader by telephone But we do not provide your personal information to outsiders and our survey form has an opt out check off box which we honor FLAAR also serves as consultants to
40. g amp Varnish um LED Curing Teckwin TeckStorm z pear VersaUV Print amp Cut i Mimaki UJV 160 E romeri NUR tempo uv Aatbedi Ga ndinnovations Jeti 3348 UV JetSpeed LEC 300 6 BAVAN A Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 54 These are some of the most Recent FLAAR Reports 2007 2009 You can find these and more reports at www wide format printers NET Comments on UV Inkjet Printers at Major Trade Shows 2007 2009 amp PLAAR Repo S TLAARR oF V Print a Se lied UV Printer Tre nds UV Printers Flatbed amp Roll to noi NES UE fa in UV Flatbed Printer Trends 2008 UV Printers UV Flatbed Printers i MMR Raparii LAR Hinati LILAAR Hearts amp TLAAR Rapai oe gata 872 _ documented at SGIA 08 SGIA 08 DRJ PA 2008 PART I Part II f uv Market mu 1 wl IAS 48 m B T E _ HE Analysis One by One LR lc f UV cured printers at o the UV cured printers Observable at Analysis One by One of FESPA Digital J the Uv cured printers a ISA 2009 Europe 2009 FESPA Digital Europe force TET RM b LAAR Reports UVCOMBO Ere eupsiN HYBRID UV Roll to roll uM E STRUCTURE UV PRINTERS UV Flatbed Printers NT Fe an TA TRENDS it Det uted Peche Pornos Fring at APPPEXPO Shanghai 09 Observable at Shanghai 09 Shanghai2009 shanghai 2009 Shanghai 2009 UV Printers Manufactured in China Korea and Taiwan LAAR Reports amp TLAAR Report amp LAAR Reports amp LAAR Reports
41. gy museum in Guatemala Heidelberg Scitex CreoSci tex now Kodak and Cruse both in Germany have kindly provided scanners for our staff to evaluate We really liked some of the results whereas some of the other prod ucts were a bit disappointing Providing samples does not influence the evaluations because the evaluators are students professors and staff of Bowling Green State University These personnel are not hired by any inkjet printer company they were universities employ ees as was also true for Nicholas Hellmuth The testing person for the HP ColorPro desktop printer said he frankly preferred his Epson printer When we saw the rest results we did not include this Heweltt Packard ColorPro printer on our list of recommended printers but we love our HP DesignJet 5000ps so much we now have two of them one at each university Sometimes we hear horror stories about a printer The only way we can tell whether this is the fault of the printer design or lack of training of the operator is to have the printer ourselves in house Of course some printer manufacturers don t understand the reasons we need to have each make and model they are used to loaning their demo units for a week or so That is obviously inadequate for a seri ous review Some of the media provided to us failed miserably Three printers failed to meet common sense usability and printability standards as well HP 1055 one older desktop model HP Color Pro GA
42. he front outside cover if we updated everything instantly the cost would be at commercial rates and it would not be possible to cover these expenses At the end of most FLAAR Reports there is additionally a list of how many times that report has been updated A report with lots of updates means that we are updating that subject based on availability of new information If there is no update that is a pretty good indication that report has not been updated With 101 models of UV printers several hundred solvent printers and scores of water based printers we tend to give priority to getting new re ports out on printers about which not much info at all is available elsewhere So we are pretty good about reporting on advances in LED curing But glitches in a common water based printer will take longer to work its way through our system into an update especially if the glitch occurs only in certain circumstances for example on one type of media With several hundred media types we may not yet have utilized the problem media While on the subject of doing your own research be sure to ask both the printer operator and printshop owner or manager you will generally get two slightly different stories A printer operator may be aware of more glitches of the printer than the owner If a printer is no longer a prime model then there is less interest in that printer so unless a special budget were available to update old reports it is not realistic to
43. he manufacturer itself Obviously we take their viewpoints with a grain of salt but often we learn tips that are worthy of being passed along FLAAR has no way of testing 400 specifications of any printer much less the over 101 different UV printers from more than 46 manufac turers Same with hundreds of solvent printers and dozens of water based printers We observe as best we can but we cannot take each printer apart to inspect each feature And for UV printers these are too expensive to move into our own facilities for long range testing so we do as best as is possible under the circumstances And when a deficiency does become apparent usually from word of mouth or from an end user it may take time to get this written up and issued in a new release Another reason why it is essential for you to ask other printshop own ers and printer operators about how Brand X and Y function in the real world is that issues may exist but it may take months for these issues to be well enough known for us to know the details Although often we know of the issues early and work to get this information into the PDFs access to information varies depending on brand and model Plus with over 300 publications the waiting time to update a specific report may be several months Plus once a printer is considered obsolete it is not realistic to update it due to the costs involved For these reasons every FLAAR Report tries to have its publication date on t
44. he manufacturer remotely diagnose the printer NO amp FLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 25 99 What is the native language of the tech support person English if you buy your printer in the US Other languages if you buy your printer elsewhere 100 Who does repairs Dealer manufacturer distributor or third party Distributor CLEANING amp MAINTENANCE NEEDS 101 How is head cleaning accomplished purge suction manual other The heads are cleaned by sucking ink out of them hoping that the movement of the ink will dislodge any obstructions in the nozzle channels But then you can also do a nozzle test which makes the nozzles jet ink for three seconds In other words there are two manners of purging 102 To what degree is purging automatic once you press a button and to what degree is it manual Purging and suction are done by the printer once you tell it to by pressing the square blue purge button 103 To initiate a purge where is the control or button Is it software generated or do you have to press a button Is the button on the outside of the printer or inside on the carriage Purging with ink is easy just purge with ink But if you need to purge with flush liquid you have to fill the line with flush liquid first e Manually turn the valve on each ink line to S for cleaning by forcing a solution through the system Then the solution valve itself Push the purge button this flushes the heads with clea
45. head has its own voltage recommended by printhead manufacturer Using the Function keys on the LCD screen you can increase or decrease the head voltage But be aware that you need to understand the pros and cons of this before you try it PRINTHEAD Life Expectancy 137 What does each printhead cost to replace Price of the printhead and especially the service cost to install it vary by the local distributor SUBSTRATES 138 What sizes of material can be printed on Max width is 62 875 inches 139 What is the difference between media width and actual print width We have this entry because some printers are called 3 2 because they accept substrates that are 3 2 wide but the printer can actually print only 3 1 meters In such a case the model name is misleading and incorrect in a sense have even seen some model designations claiming 3 3 when they only hold media 3 2 meters So there is a bit of misleading advertising out there Printwidth Material width Claimed by how the model is named 1 58 m 62 inches 1 6 m 63 inches 1606 model designation means 1 6 meter material with 6 printheads LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 30 140 What about edge to edge printing borderless It claims borderless printing but not at full media width since there is half an inch border on both sides since the printer can actually print only 62 inches across lt gt j Dr Nicholas Hellmuth and Dilli personnel showing bo
46. ight ads We are quite content with the majority of the specific printers RIPs media and inks we have in the FLAAR facilities We would obviously never ask for hardware software or consumables that we knew in advance would not be good However even for us a product which looks good at a trade show sounds good in the ad literature and works fine for the first few weeks may subsequently turn out to be a lemon Or the product may indeed have a glitch but one that is so benign for us or maybe we have long ago gotten used to it and have a work around And not all glitches manifest themselves in all situations so our evaluator may not have been sufficiently affected that he or she made an issue of any particular situation Yet such a glitch that we don t emphasize may turn out to be adverse for your different or spe cial application needs Equally often what at first might be blamed on a bad product often turns out to be a need of more operator experience and training More often than not after learning more about the product it becomes pos sible to produce what it was intended to produce For this reason it is crucial for the FLAAR team and their university colleagues to interact Dilli Neo Titan UV 46 with the manufacturer s training center and technicians so we know more about a hardware or software Our evaluations go through a process of acquiring documentation from a wide range of resources and these naturally include t
47. in body are the tables FLAAR Reports DilliNeoTitanUV 23 INSTALLATION OF THE PRINTER 87 Is there a glossary in the User s Manual No and as in most printer literature there is use of the word hybrid to describe the fact that it can do both flatbed and roll fed material A hybrid can do this via pinch rollers with grit rollers a printer with a moving transport belt is a combo not a hybrid So this Dilli Titan printer and all current models of Dilli printers are all combo printers not hybrids Manuals at Dilli headquarters December 2007 88 What is the native language of these guides Is the translation acceptable The original language of the User s Guide is Korean The translation is acceptable but has some words that are translated in a literal manner Literal translations are common for manuals translated from Korean Chinese and Japanese There are at least two typographical errors spelling but this is about the average even for manuals written in native English 89 How hard or easy are the manuals to obtain BEFORE you buy the printer was shown all manuals at the Dilli headquarters every single manual including the master part s list that the engineers use to construct the printer I was allowed to have the User s Guide Service manuals are very technical and FLAAR does not tend to keep these in our library since there are over 101 models of UV printer and the service manuals change every time one par
48. inter The IP amp I Revo has three rollers the IP amp I Cube260uv has four rollers that control the transport belt have not yet seen inside the DYSS printer but reportedly it may have more than two rollers 9596 of all other UV combo style printers have only a front drive roller and a back driven roller so two rollers is standard 28 Which is the drive roller for the transport belt where is the motor and what kind of motor turns the transport belt The front roller is the drive roller The motor is at the left end of the roller Drive roller is the one at front LINING UP FLAT MATERIAL to help it feed straight 29 What kinds of raised guide bars along the side of the table exist Left or right How long There are no raised bars along either side 30 Is there a registration gate that is lowered across the back printing area Most printshops report that most rigid media is crudely cut and rarely are the edges really at 90 to each other So you don t really want to align a corner you want to align one side or one end Thus not having an alignment feature on the side is not necessarily a plus or minus amp FLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 12 The summer 2007 version of the Dilli had a registration ruler you place it manually into slots so that it goes across the width of the table You align your material s end against this When you are not using this measurement alignment bar it rests into a slot set into the table
49. ique or products We have no idea of your client s expectations What students on our campus will accept may not be the same as your Fortune 500 clients In many cases we have not ourselves used the products but are bas ing our discussion on having seen them at a trade show during visit ing a print shop or having been informed about a product via e mail or other communication Results you see at trade shows may not be realistic Be aware that trade show results may not be realistic Trade shows are idealized situations with full time tech support to keep things run ning The images at a trade show may be tweaked Other images make be faked in the sense of slyly putting on primer without telling the people who inspect the prints Most UV inks don t stick to all ma terials many materials need to be treated Or the UV prints may be top coated so that you can t do a realistic scratch test Booth personnel have many standard tricks that they use to make their output look gorgeous In about half the cases you will not likely obtain these results in real life in most cases they are printing uni directional which may be twice as slow as bi directional Trade show examples tend to be on the absolutely best media When you attempt to save money and use economy media you will quickly notice that you do not get anywhere near the same results as you saw in the manufacturer s trade show booth or pictured in their glossy advertisement Fi
50. job done this will result in low quality Check with other people in your area or in the same kind of print business that you do Don t rely on references from the reseller or manufacturer you will get their pet locations which may be unrealistically gushy find someone on your own Factors influencing output Heat humidity static dust experience level of your workers wheth er they are new or have prior years experience these are all factors that will differ in your place of business as compared with test results or demo room results Actually you may have people with even more experience than we do since we deliberately use students to approximate newbies FLAAR is devoted to assisting newcomers learn about digital imaging hard ware and software This is why Nicholas Hellmuth is considered the Johnny Appleseed of wide format inkjet printers Therefore this report does not warranty any product for any quality performance or fitness for any specific task since we do not know the situation in which you intend to use the hardware or software Nor is there any warranty or guarantee that the output of these products will produce salable goods since we do not know what kind of ink or media you intend to use nor the needs of your clients A further reason that no one can realistically speak for all aspects of any one hardware or software is that each of these products may require ad ditional hardware or software to reach its full
51. le owners of ColorSpan printers tell us that this printer is their real money earner for example We know other print shops where their primarily income is from Encad printers Kinkos has settled on the HP 5000 as its main money maker production machine and so on Yet we have documentation of several print shop companies whose business was ruined by specific brands that failed repeatedly It is noteworthy that it is always the same brand or printer at both loca tions one due to banding and printheads then simply no longer print ing one color the other brand due to pokiness of the printer simply not being competitively fast enough Same with RIPs we have con sistent statements of people using one RIP and only realizing how weak it was when they tried another brand which they found sub stantially better Thus we note that companies which experiment with more than one brand of product tend to realize more quickly which brand is best This is where FLAAR is in an ideal situation we have nine RIPs and 25 printers Hence it is logical that we have figured out which are best for our situation Grant funding sponsorship demonstration equipment and training are supplied from all sides of the spectrum of printer equipment and software engineering companies Thus there is no incentive to favor one faction over another We receive support from three manufactur ers of thermal printheads Canon ColorSpan and HP and also have multiple printers fro
52. lse it may be an obsolete edition FLAAR reports are being updated all year long and our comment on that product may have been revised positively or negatively as we learned more about the product from end users If you receive any FLAAR Report from a sales rep in addition to being violation of copyright it is useful to know if there is a more recent version on the FLAAR web site because every month new UV printers are being launched So what was good technology one month may be replaced by a much better printer elsewhere the next month To obtain a legitimate copy which you know is the complete re port with nothing erased or changed and hence a report with all the original description of pros and cons please obtain your origi nal and full report straight from www FLAAR org Your only assurance that you have a complete and authentic evaluation which describes all aspects of the product under consideration benefits as well as deficiencies is to obtain these reports directly from FLAAR via www wide format print ers NET Citing and Crediting A license from FLAAR is required to use any material whatsoever from our reports in any commercial advertisement or PR Release If you intend to quote any portion of a FLAAR review in a PowerPoint presentation if this is in reference to any product that your company sells or promotes then it would be appropriate to ask us first FLAAR reports are being updated every month sometimes and o
53. m three manufacturers of piezo printers Epson Seiko Mutoh and Mimaki This is because piezo has definite ad vantage for some applications thermal printheads have advantages in different applications Our reviews have universal appeal precisely because we feature all competing printhead technologies Every printer RIPs inks or media we have reviewed have good points in addition to weaknesses Both X Rite and competitor GretagMacbeth provided spectrophotometers Again when all sides assist this pro gram there is no incentive to favor one by trashing the other Printer manufacturer ad campaigns are their own worst enemy If a printer did not make false and misleading claims then we would have noth ing to fill our reviews with refuting the utter nonsense that is foisted on the buying public It is not our fault if some printers are more user friendly print on more media than other brands It is not our fault that the competing printers are ink guzzlers are slow beyond belief and tend to band or drop out colors all together We don t need to be paid by the printer companies whose products work so nicely in both our universities on a daily basis The printers which failed did so in front of our own eyes and in the print shops of people we check with And actually we do try to find some redeeming feature in the slow ink gulping brands they do have a better dithering pattern they can take thick media that absolutely won t feed through a
54. more than 3396 out of the 70 days that the owner reported to me Output of the Dilli Titan did not show much splatter at edges of text and edges of solid color If you use a lupe you can always see splatter but with your own eye you don t want noticeable splatter when you are close to the im age So overall quality can be judged as good which is what you expect from a KonicaMinolta printhead A major pro of the Titan is that the head of the company Dr Geun Soo Choi has a PhDin piezo inkjet printhead technology How many other printer manufacturers have a president with this experience Parts that arrive at the plant are actually tested would be surprised if this hap pens to parts at a Chinese factory Parts used by Dilli are predominantly made in Korea Most parts are NOT from China The registration alignment gate for rigid boards is up front not at the back Be ing up front means that you can load small and intermediate size materials from the front you don t have to always walk around to the back Downsides The printer itself has no full sized moni tor in this sense it is comparable to the Mimaki JF 1631 and JF 1610 The printer has no hood Even ColorSpan recognized that a hood was necessary to protect your retinas from light and to help protect from misted ink Comments amp Suggestions In order to evaluate the other features and capabilities of this printer will need to spend a day testing it in
55. mps 1020 watts each UV lamp 180 What wave length do the lamps cover 365 nm 181 What is warm up time Six to eight minutes 182 What brand of lamp is used The lamp itself is from Integration Technology but evidently not the entire UV curing system 183 How many lamps does the printer use Two is the usual number of lamps Some cheap Chinese printers use only one lamp Mimaki uses one lamp on several of their narrow format UV printers to avoid the lawnmower effect that is caused by bi directional printing bi directional print requires two lamps one for each direction of ink laydown by the printer carriage The Luscher JetPrint due to its ber dimensional size may also have needed more than two lamps whatever it had did not function fully adequately 184 What shuts the lamps off For example after so many minutes of not being used or if they overheat The lamp system is arranged so the lamps can stay on as long as needed This is different than systems such as that of ColorSpan where the lamps turn themselves off relatively quickly in order to escape overheating 185 Is the lamp fan filter a user replaceable item How often should this be cleaned or replaced If the filter gets clogged with dust then it is less efficient in keeping down heat Heat build up is not good for the overall carriage area 186 What is the true drying curing time of the inks used with this set of lamps What factors influence the true t
56. n HP So we do work hard at finding the beneficial features even of printers are otherwise get the most critique from our readers Over one million people will read the FLAAR Information Network in the next 12 months 480 000 people will be exposed to our reports on wide format printers from combined total of our three sites on these themes You can be assured that we hear plenty of comments from our readers about which printers func tion and which printers fail to achieve what their advertising hype so loudly claims An evaluation is a professional service and at FLAAR is based on more than 11 years of experience An evaluation of a printer an ink a software laminator cutter or whatever part of the digital printing workflow is intended to provide feedback to all sides The manufac turers appreciate learning from FLAAR what features of their printers 51 amp TLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV need improvement In probably half the manufacturers FLAAR has dealt with people inside the company did not themselves want to tell their boss that their pet printer was a dog So printer software and component manufacturers have learned that investing in a FLAAR evaluation of their product provides them with useful return on investment Of course if a printer manufacturer wants only a slick Success Story or what we call a suck up review that simply panders to the manufacturer obviously FLAAR is not a good place to dare to ask for such a
57. n is not a major plus point absence of a beacon is not a significant minus point CONSTRUCTION BUILD QUALITY 71 What kind of testing is done in the factory of the incoming parts Yes parts are tested indeed would rank Dilli as one of the better Asian manufacturers in this respect Actually this Korean company is so sophisticated they make their own testing equipment Their sister company D G I also makes wide format inkjet printer testing equipment doubt you would find anything like this with any Chinese printer manufacturer or at least not at this level of expertise or dedication 72 What is the solid ness of the construction of the outer body Is it plastic Metal Heavy gauge All Korean UV printers from all Korean manufacturers are solidly made 73 Describe the design and construction of the carriage area The carriage area has dual rails to keep the carriage movement even one on top the other on the front 74 Is there both a front hood and a back hood This is an open design so there is no protective hood whatsoever I LAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitan UV 21 75 How would you describe the overall workmanship of visible parts Clean Swiss made or flimsy and uneven several Chinese made printers Workmanship is what you would expect in a European manufacturing plant 76 Does the printer wobble back and forth when printing There is no noticeable wobble AESTHETICS 77 How would you describe the desig
58. n of the printer Well designed 78 Can you easily distinguish which is the front and which is the back Yes you can distinguish the front from the back I call the front the area where the LCD and operator panel s are situated This usually means that the other side is where you feed the material in l call that the back But many printer companies call the feed ing area the front It makes no difference as long as you define what you mean in advance FLAAR calls the back the area where you load the material SET UP OF THE PRINTER PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 79 What are the electrical requirements of this printer This means will the building have to be rewired Single phase 220 50 60 Hz Larger printers such as those of Gandinnovations require a three phase electrical system which in many printshops would require rewiring 80 Do you need to budget installing a ventilation or room exhaust system All UV printers need room ventilation for everything from ozone to misting ink to general odor Increasingly ozone production is surprised this has led some companies to claim that no ventilation is needed Such a claim is dangerous especially in a country like the US where litigation is so common I LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 22 81 Are there any special temperature or humidity requirements or preferences of this printing system Temperature and humidity are indeed crucial This printer prefers temperature
59. ning solution 104 Is purging done with ink or with a flush solution If you wish to purge with flush solution you have to first open the main flush control then turn the toggle switch to the flush position on each printhead one by one 105 The ink that is purged where does it go Into a drain waste bottle or into a drip tray Purging is done at the right Ink goes into a drip tray and from the tray into its tube down to a waste bottle 106 Is there a capping station Yes the capping suction station is at the left it is protect ed by a cover There is a capping cover switch to have the cover slide away to expose the capping station Acapping station can be used to cap the printhead nozzle plate area when the printer is not in use Or a capping sta tion can be used as a sucking station to purge the inks Capping station amp FLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 26 107 Where is the parking area home Home is at the right This is clearly indicated in an annotated view of the printer provided by ACCI 108 Is the service area the same as the parking area No they are on different sides of the printer 109 Does this printer spit or weep flash at regular intervals No Dilli printers do not weep spit Printers that are retrofitted solvent printers especially those from China such as those by Flora tend to still have a spit ting function remaining Capping station is at left
60. nk or change the sur face quality especially on vehicle wrap Ammonia in Windex and comparable cleaning liquids Acetone Cleaning alcohol Gasoline Soap and water with sponge Soap and water with a broom frequently used to clean vehicle wraps in Latin America for example e Scotch tape pull off test INK Color Gamut 174 Which colors print best Blue in general e Red raspberry colors e Purples Nuts Wood colors Grays are all excellent 175 What about silver or other metallics Metallic colors such as watches print nicely as is typical of almost all UV curable inkjet printers except badly calibrated machines from China 176 Is the color gamut what your clients need for their logos and products How about red Does it turn out more orange Is red bright enough in saturation to satisfy clients Or are the colors overall a bit dull Yellow and green are better than about half of the other competing UV printers Color gamut print sample 6 BAVAN Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 38 THE UV CURING LAMPS 177 How many different sets of lamps are there Is there pinning first and then curing later This printer uses the traditional curing system of one lamp on each side of the printhead carriage 178 What technology is used in curing lamps microwave continuous mercury arc LED or flash pulsed Xenon This printer uses normal mercury arc UV lamps for cur ing 179 How many watts are the la
61. o cite the rest of the review which pointed out the features of the printer which did not do so well For them to correct this error after the fact is rather embarrassing So it is safer to ask before you quote a FLAAR review on your product Legal notice Inclusion in this study by itself in no way endorses any printer media ink RIP or other digital imaging hardware or software Equally exclu sion from this study in no way is intended to discredit any printer Advisory We do our best to obtain information which we consider reliable But with hundreds of makes and models of printers and sometimes when information about them is sparse or conflicting we can only work with what we have available Thus you should be sure to rely also on your own research especially asking around Find another trustworthy end user of the same make and model you need to know about Do not make a decision solely on the basis of a FLAAR report because your situation may be totally different than ours Or we may not have known about and hence not written about one aspect or another which is crucial before you reach your decision The sources and resources we may list are those we happen to have read There may be other web pages or resources that we missed For those pages we do list we have no realistic way to verify the ve racity of all their content Use your own common sense plus a grain of salt for those pages which are really just PR releases or outr
62. oTitan UV 18 Table attachment system GraphExpo 07 Table supports GraphExpo 07 I LAAR Reports DilliNeo Titan UV 19 Miscellaneous 60 What moves the flatbed platform the printhead area e only the material fed by roller table then gripped and fed by the printhead area mechanism as on a regular printer or both For example on the Inca Columbia the flatbed itself moves in and out for every line of print The 3M Leggett amp Platt machine is unique in that it has two options for movement both the material and the head assembly in X Y directions 61 If the objects you are printing are not as wide as the full width of the printer does the printing carriage still have to cross the entire space or can the printing assembly hover just over the area of what has to be printed and thereby be a bit faster Yes most sophisticated printers can hover But this may cause too much heat build up over one part of the printer So your soft ware also needs to be able to modify the hovering position if so desired OPERATING THE PRINTER 62 In the main area for operation is the ma chine software based touch screen or with physical control buttons Or both There are both physical control buttons as well as a small LCD panel with function buttons 63 Do you get an LCD screen in the printer or a real computer monitor How big is the screen or monitor You don t get an actual keyboard there is no com puter monito
63. omprehensive than others it s very simple when we can inspect the printer in the factory when we can undertake tests in their demo room when all manuals are available then it is more realistic to have a complete and comprehensive FLAAR Report on a specific brand and model This is an ample report because it has been possible to spend two days inside the factory and demo room at the world head quarters of Dilli north of Seoul Korea Dilli provided access to all their manuals including their design and parts descriptions THE BASICS 1 Brand name model The full name is Dilli Neo Titan UVT 1606 2 If there are two or three or more widths of this printer what differences exist other W EES ds than the width Dilli NeoPlus Of this platform here is only one size It s the Dilli Neo Plus that has two different sizes these are a dif ETTEETATTU NEED ferent Dilli platform that we discuss in a separate FLAAR Report one on the Dilli original series cr mem e TN 3 What is the nature of the company Is this company the manufacturer distributor or rebranding a machine made by someone else Dilli is the manufacturer of all of these printers in Korea Dilli and D G l are owned by two brothers D G l makes the solvent printers Dilli makes the UV printers 4 Is this same model s rebranded and sold under other names Dilli has supplied some portion of Neo Titan under other name on OEM basis Since the two printers are es
64. otal drying time The ink does not necessarily totally cure within seconds Some colors depending on how thick the ink is laid down may cure instantly But several factors may result in a cure that takes 24 hours 48 hours or weeks If you set the print mode for glossy this reduces the lamp intensity These prints will outgas for weeks LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 39 UV LAMPS Cooling 187 Are there shutters Yes each of the UV lamps has a shutter Shutters help control light leak and save from having to turn the lamps off So the lamps last a bit longer and you can be more productive not having to wait for the lamps to cool down and then warm up all over again 188 How often do the shutters stick The Dilli factory and R amp D department is more sophisticated than other UV printer factories in the sense of the amount of testing equipment that saw One item of testing equipment was for counting how many times you could open and close the shutters 189 How are the lamps cooled Air Fans Water cooled The UV curing lamps are cooled by fans 190 How many settings do the lamps have Or are the fans just Off and On High and Low and naturally off and on 191 In the areas at left and right of the printing area is the surface specially protected against the extreme heat of the UV lamps when they carriage is parked Yes at both the right end and also at the left end there are special open grills to help dissipate the h
65. ous TABLES for Combo or Hybrid Flatbed Miscellaneous OPERATING THE PRINTER CONSTRUCTION BUILD QUALITY AESTHETICS SET UP OF THE PRINTER PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS INSTALLATION OF THE PRINTER TRAINING TECH SUPPORT amp WARRANTY CLEANING amp MAINTENANCE NEEDS MAINTENANCE SAFETY amp HEALTH CONCERNS PRINTHEAD TECHNOLOGY PRINTHEAD DPI amp Features Bi DIRECTIONAL VS Uni DIRECTIONAL PRINTING PRINTHEAD Positioning PRINTHEAD Associated Features PRINTHEAD Life Expectancy SUBSTRATES SUBSTRATES Issues SUBSTRATES Cleaning Priming Preparation SUBSTRATES General Concerns APPLICATIONS INK INK White amp Varnish INK Cost INK Supply System Tubing Filters etc INK Longevity INK Color Gamut THE UV CURING LAMPS UV LAMPS Cooling RIP SOFTWARE amp Printer Software COLOR MANAGEMENT FEATURES PRODUCTIVITY amp ROI Return on Investment ADVERTISING CLAIMS COMPARISONS WITH OTHER PRINTERS SUMMARY Image Quality Issues General Conclusions Contents N N Nae a CO 11 12 15 16 19 19 20 21 21 23 24 24 25 26 27 28 28 28 29 29 29 29 31 32 32 33 35 35 35 36 37 37 38 39 40 40 40 40 41 42 42 amp TLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV Dilli Neo Titan UV UV Flatbed combined with Roll fed Virtually no outside reports exist on UV printers other than Success Stories in trade magazines The Success Stories that leave the most impact on me include one on a Chinese made
66. r either You only get a small LCD panel This kind of small LCD panel is also the tradition on the Mimaki flatbed printers and is a feature that we prefer to be replaced by an actual LCD with a normal computer keyboard You get a small LCD screen in the control area It is fixed to the printer vs therefore not user adaptable 64 Is the position of the LCD screen or monitor d user adaptable Not adjustable ee MUR TE Ses ee 54 F 65 Where does the computer keyboard sit There is no keyboard for the printer itself 66 Where does the operator stand or sit Front right 67 What aspects of the printer can you operate from behind the loading area At the back left you find the main Off On switch vac uum switch and media set switch Otherwise most of the switches are on the front Because a computer is not included laptops have been used to operate the printer at tradeshows I LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 20 68 What controls are on either end There are no controls at the left end this means none on the outside door of the cabinet At the right end is the ink cabinet and ink level indicator Full or Empty 69 Is a foot pedal included for operating aspects of the printer have not yet noticed any foot pedal 70 Is there a pole with beacon lights Dilli was among the first to use a vertical pole with beacon lights Most other printers do not have such a beacon Presence of a beaco
67. rderless samples LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 31 141 How about maximum roll diameter or weight 36 cm 14 17 inches appears to be the maximum roll diameter 142 Can you adjust the rate of media feed You need to adjust the rate of feed to remove banding lines caused by media feed that is slightly off This is not the fault of the printer but a result of the fact that each different kind of material feeds slightly differently 143 What thickness can this printer handle From 1 mm up to 4 5 cm which is 1 75 inches 144 Can you measure the height of the material with a sen sor or is it manual A small sensor sticks out from a lift as you lower it when the sen sor touches the material this registers the material s height at this point the sensor snaps back up into its protective position SUBSTRATES Issues 145 Can you print on mirrors In theory you can print on mirrors but it s always a risk that the UV light may reflect back up inside the printhead nozzle and solidify the ink inside the nozzle Usually this kind of solidified ink cannot be dislodged by purging 146 Heat concerns will the heat generated by the UV cur ing lamps cause adverse effects to some delicate forms of heat sensitive media Which materials might curl distort or discolor from the heat Heat sensitive materials would include polyethylene polypropylene shrink wrap very thin and thermal sensitive papers plastic coated carton
68. re we would consider it All other entry level printers are hybrids meaning they have pinch rollers pressing on grit rollers A hybrid system has no moving transport belt NEO TITAN fit 1 h BERBER mi d oM gp Fr 4 e 1 2 Z F i T V z v F mrs pe BEEN i zi 3 a 325 4 m Dilli Neo Titan 1606 at ISA 07 6 When and where was this model first introduced First shown to the public at Kosign 2006 November Seoul First introduced internationally at ISA 07 in April 7 Is this printer mature or still in alpha stage or beta stage This printer is out of beta stage and is fully functioning 8 List price List price for Dilli Titan is 120 000 In Europe and other parts of the world the price will vary by currency and the local distributor 9 What accessories are extra charge Are these same or similar accessories included with other printers at no extra cost The printer comes complete from Dilli what you see is what you pay for and is what you receive 10 Does a complete set of full sized ink cartridges come with the new printer or merely a starter set that is not as full as a regular set Minimum amount of ink that comes with the printer when it is installed is 1 liter per color amp FLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 5 11 Is an air suction system needed to be installed as a separate item or is all the vacuum table or other vacuum requirements already inclu
69. review In several instances it was FLAAR Reports that allowed a company to either improve their printer or drop it and start from scratch and design a new and better one And naturally end users like the opportunity to learn about various printers from a single source that covers the entire range from UV through latex through all flavors of solvent We have also learned that distributors often prefer to accept for distribution a printer or other product on which a FLAAR Report already ex ists We turn down offers of funding every year These offers come from PO Box enterprises or products with no clearly visible point of manufac ture Usually the company making the offer presumes they can buy advertising space just by paying money But that is not what our readers want so we politely do not accept such offers of money Contributions grants sponsorships and funding for surveys studies and research is however open to a company who has an accepted standing in the industry It is helpful if the company has a visible presence at leading trade shows and can provide references from both end users and from within the industry Where possible we prefer to visit the company in person or at least check them out at a trade show Obvi ously the product needs to have a proven track record too Competing companies are equally encouraged to support the FLAAR system We feel that readers deserve to have access to competing information Competition is the corn
70. rved by Spandex Dr Hellmuth shows a sample processed by the Gerber M Gerber M Series cutter at ISA 08 Series cutter exhibited at GraphExpo 08 ERR AVAN Reports id FLAAR Report amp LAAR Reo Books and Publicatians on Color Management ICC Color Profiles for wide format printers digia carmes A peanta Dilli Neo Titan UV 44 TLARE Report Glossary of terms on Color Management amp ICC ino eB qon Yee Lees Bep oth Ged er Ghee anal ele Per These reports on RIP software and Color Management for serious UV Muss are free ES on all FLAAR web sites follow the link to free downloads http www wide format printers net reviews reports evaluations free download php Once you have a serious UV curable wide for mat printer you may prefer to have an equally serious RIP software and color management equipment The RIP software for simple water based print ers such as Canon Epson and HP may not be the same RIP software that could be most effective and productive on a UV curable flat bed or UV cured roll to roll production printer first noticed Caldera RIP on Gandinnovations UV printers several years ago then saw Cal dera being used at the Mutoh Europe factory demo room in Belgium When was visiting the Durst factories in Eu rope again noticed that they were using Cal dera RIP software So requested access from Caldera so could visit their world headquarters in Strasbourg Fr
71. s PVC and aluminum foil www dotprint com fgen prod1297 htm Oce lists several other common signage materials as sensitive to the heat of UV lamps For these reasons we have a separate FLAAR Report on applications and materials Heat can build up when the printhead carriage hovers over a small area to print a narrow job Heat can build up inside the printer as materials especially metal absorb heat and hold it and then radiate it out for a long time So heat is not only an issue from the obvious and immediate heat of the UV lamps Residual heat can be an issue as well 147 What about build up of static electricity What kind of materials cause this Do some materials generate static electricity which cause the media to attract ink in areas not supposed to be printed on How is it mani fested You do need to be aware of how to prevent static electricity build up No carpets or rugs on the floor Indeed you should consider anti static tiles or carpet Use a humidifier during winter months to avoid dryness e Learn which media are susceptible to gathering a static charge Consider a printer that has specific anti static features Grounding Static bar s 6 AVA A Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 32 Most printer reps suggest this is more an environmental issue than a printer or ink issue They say you can t have carpet and you must maintain a high humidity They admit that the static electricity situation varies depending on each sit
72. s it takes to achieve specific quality levels So they create modes that are a combination of passes and possibly other features that result in a specific quality level 131 How does the resolution of this printer compare with other brands or other models of the same brand Many UV curable printers nowadays use essentially the same KonicaMinolta printheads so the resolution they achieve is roughly comparable Bi DIRECTIONAL VS Uni DIRECTIONAL PRINTING 132 What is the direction of uni directional printing From right to left or left to right or both From right to left 133 Is printing bi directional or uni directional What are the different results in speed in quality At the trade show ACCI was printing primarily in uni directional mode In the Mimaki booth they were trying with bi directional their result was excessive lawn mower banding problems I LAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitan UV 29 PRINTHEAD Positioning 134 Are the printheads in a straight row or staggered The printheads are staggered in a triangular wedge shape you can see the layout of the printheads by looking at the positions of the capping station Show photo of the capping station to show layout of the printheads 135 Do you raise the heads manually with click stops or motorized Motorized Dilli Neo Titan UV 1606 Capping station PRINTHEAD Associated Features 136 What is the firing frequency voltage of the printheads in KHz Yes Each
73. s of tiny rollers Solid flat table with small roller bars Solid flat table with ball bearings Another design The table has 5 widely spaced vertical bars each with 16 closely packed white rigid plastic rollers per bar 55 If there is a row of rollers set into a bar can you slide the individual bar to a new position Not really 56 Does the table stick out with cantilever support only Or does the front have legs for added support The front of the table has legs for added support 57 Are there only two legs at the front or are there four supports There are four supports on the floor but they are under the front of the table the back of the table is supported by being at tached to the printer 58 Is the table physically attached to the printer Or just rolled up close to the printer There is a good latching system to attach the table firmly to the printer 59 Does the table fold up and wheel away folded up Yes the table has two sections at the top one folds down to the right the other folds down to the left E pm E i F n E The table is composed by five bars containing a set of rigid plastic rollers c Four supports are placed at the front of the table d amp FLAAR Reports at Table folding structure GraphExpo 07 L X L h The bars contain 16 rollers tightly placed GraphExpo 07 Dilli Neo Titan UV LE 3 TIULE y UUM m E 17 I LAAR Reports Dilli Ne
74. sentially identical the FLAAR Report on each are similar One difference is that we have spent two days inspecting the Titan in Korea So the report on the Titan is longer than the report on the other version amp FLAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 2 Dilli has Total square meters of the entire building all floors including assem bly R amp D and sales amp marketing space At the address of 542 2 6 424 m At the address of 542 3 4 958 m Dill presently has gt 25 workers work ing on the assembly line but there are plenty of capable new people in the area that could be hired to in crease manufacturing capability amp FLAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitan UV 3 Dilli has gt 12 research workers in R amp D gt 6 Sales Representatives work in marketing amp sales keep in mind presently probably 75 of their production is OEMed so the company for which they OEM has their own worldwide gt 27 workers are elsewherein the Dilli company spent several days in their factory have visited their R amp D facilities and seen their sales and marketing areas e nam ii r1 27 7 y ee Dilli Neo Titan UV Combo Printer amp FLAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitan UV 4 5 What other printers of other brands are comparable The IP amp 1606 is the closest other brand of combo style printer The Flora F1 180uv is another combo style but it is Chinese is unproven and needs to be evaluated befo
75. sity in past years and for funds to allow us to attend all major international trade shows which are ideal locations for us to gather information We thank Sun LLC Caldera Raster Printers EFI Rastek DEC LexJet DigiFab Barbieri electronic Seiko Mutoh Europe IP amp I Dilli Yuhan Kimberly GCC Grapo Durst and WP Digital for providing funds so that we can make more of our publications free to end users During 2000 2001 we had grants to cover all the costs of our publications and all FLAAR Reports were free in those early years As that early grant naturally expired after a few years we had to begin charging for some of our reports to cover costs Now in 2009 we are seeking corporate sponsorship so we can gradually make another 20 of our publications free to our readers Since 2006 we do a major part of our evaluations at a factory and headquarters demo room Since the university does not fund any of Dilli Neo Titan UV these trips it is traditional for the manufacturer to fund a research sponsorship In the US this is how most university projects are initi ated for decades now and it is increasing In fact there is a university in Austria that is not an edu but is a GmbH funded by the chamber of commerce of that part of Austria In other words a university as an educational institution but functioning in the real world as an actual business This is a sensible model It has been helpful when companies make it possibl
76. surface glossiness an issue Can you select glossy or matte or do you get what the system provides and that is all If you get only one or the other which is it you get Everyone defines glossy in a different manner The output also varies depending on what material you print it The Oce Arizona 250 has an ink with a nice semi gloss but this printer has other issues you really need to check the FLAAR Reports first The ColorSpan 5440 produces an attractive gloss output on some materials The Inca Spyder 150 produces the best gloss of all but can t print matte So you need to decide what you and your clients prefer since it s not recommended to switch ink to another brand After market ink is common with solvent printers but not done as often with UV printers 201 Do you need Pantone markers to do touch ups If you use Pantone markers or other markers for touch ups you run the risk that these areas will fade faster than the original UV ink Conclusions Pros Intelligently designed robust engineer ing competently manufactured Most products from Korea are well built Ko rean cars and printers are not like cheap Chinese low bid models Chinese print ers simply don t hold up parts wear out and the cheaper Chinese made printers fall apart this is based on checking two Infiniti printers and one DuPont Cro maprint 22uv We also have reports on a Yaselan UV printer in Australia which was either broken down or being re paired
77. t companies or regional Roland allows a dealer to operate only within a limited regional area Does a buyer have any choice in dealers Dilli dealers in the US are about six in number The dealer we know the most is ACCI they have many years experience selling the Zund 215 and the Zund 250 Not many other dealers have this level of experience specifically with UV printers STRUCTURE OF THE PRINTER Vacuum 16 Is there a vacuum function Yes There is a vacuum 17 Is the vacuum created by simple fans or by an air pump Lower priced printers use simple fans to create a light vacuum so the GCC StellarJet 183uv uses fans To generate a better vacuum requires an air pump this is what the Dilli LL printer uses a pump VACUUM 18 In how many sections am The entire bed is one section Printers that costs twice as much quarter million dollar U range have their vacuum in more than one section 19 Just Off and On Or variable Just off and on Printers that are expensive have variable capability STRUCTURE OF THE PRINTER Media Transport Mechanism amp Media Path 20 Was this printer made originally as a UV curable ink printer or is it retrofitted with UV curing If retrofitted what was the original brand or model This is not a retrofitted Chinese solvent printer This printer was made from the ground up to handle UV curing Plus Dilli has many years prior experience designing and building UV printers 21 Is there a mo
78. t know trimmer from dimmer The person we suggest is Mike Lind because his company Reprographic Designs han dles all leading brands KeenCut Neolt Meteor Metoschnitt RotaTrim etc You can con tact him at 1 281 492 2714 or malind msn com His company is also the Master Distributor for Cruse reprographic scanners in the US and adjacent countries XY Cutter Options In a period of economic recession printshops will tend to ask about options that are priced lower than high end prices Thus we suggest a possible solution at mid range price Gerber M class cutters have inspected two huge factory complexes of Gerber Scientific in 2008 especially their cutters for fabrics and will be visiting their facilities again in 2009 To contact Gerber Phone US 800 222 7446 email cservice gspinc com Fax 800 227 6228 or 860 648 8064 Phone Intl 860 648 8028 email gspinternational gspinc com When you acquire a UV curable wide format printer you will eventually learn that an XY flatbed cutter is a useful accessory for thick rigid materials The advantage of having an XY cutter is that you are selling not just the print but a finished work To stay ahead of the competing printshops in your city it helps to offer your clients a solution for every step of the printing workflow We have seen Gerber cutters at work during major trade shows both in Europe and in the US Gerber has dealers all across the US and Canada and in Europe is se
79. t of the printer is changed But we do have a reference library of as many user s manuals as possible Our reference library of user s manual is one of the largest in the world This reference library is for our use in evaluating the printers Since these manuals belong to the manufacturer we do not reproduce them share them or in any other way provide access to them However a few user s manuals are totally available from the manufacturers this was the policy of MacDermid ColorSpan for many years 90 Is installation included in the purchase price Installation is included in the purchase price in the US and in most parts of the world I LAAR Reports Dilli Neo Titan UV 24 TRAINING 91 Is training included in the purchase price If so what kind of training is offered When you purchase this printer from ACCI the training is in their facilities in Minneapolis This is an easy city to reach since it s a hub for Northwest Airlines as well as being served by many other airlines Getting around the city is easy and hotels are a reasonable cost The training itself is included in the purchase price ACCI says that training is more effective when the operator s is away from his desk away from the dis tractions of his place of work 92 Is factory training available Yes if you wish to visit the factory north of Seoul you would be welcome Normally however training is done by the distributor 93 What on line training is av
80. ter all day Dilli Neo Titan UV 48 every day Most solvent and UV printers work best if used frequently If you are not going to use your printer for two or three days you have to put flush into the system and prepare it for hibernation even if for only four or five days Then you have to flush the ink system all over again Also realize that the surface of inkjet prints are fragile and gener ally require lamination to survive much usage Lamination comes in many kinds and it is worth finding a reliable lamination company and receiving training on their products Also realize that no hybrid or combo UV printer can feed all kinds of rigid materials precisely Some materials feed well others feed poorly others will skew Although we have found several makes and models to work very well in our facilities how well they work in your facilities may also depend on your local dealer Some dealers are excellent others just sell you a box and can t provide much service after the sale Indeed some low bid internet sales sources may have no technical backup what soever If you pay low bid price you can t realistically expect special maintenance services or tech support later on from any other dealer they will tell you to return to where you paid for the product This is why we make an effort to find out which dealers are recommendable Obviously there are many other dealers who are also good but we do not always know them To protect yo
81. terials And at a trade show many of the materials you see so nicely printed on the manufacturer may be adding a primer at night or early in the morning before you see the machine printing on this material We feel that the pros and cons of each product speak more than adequately for themselves Just position the ad claims on the left put the actual performance results on the right The unscrupulous hype for some printers is fairly evident rather quickly Be sure to check all FLAAR resources Please realize that with over 200 different FLAAR Reports on UV printers you need to be sure to check the more obscure ones too If a printer has a printhead issue the nitty gritty of this may be in the FLAAR Report on printheads The report on the model is a general introduction if we discussed the intimate details of printheads then some readers might fall asleep And obviously do not limit yourself to the free reports The technical details may be in the reports that have a price to them Our readers have said they prefer to have the general basics and to park the real technical material in other reports that people can buy if they really want that level of information So it may be best to ask for personal consulting The details of the problems with the ColorSpan 5400uv series are rather complex namely the center row of the Ricoh printheads This would require an expensive graphic designer and consultants to show the details And the design of
82. that our reports were unique and very helpful So by 1999 we had entire sec tions on large format printers FLAAR has existed since 1969 long before inkjet printers existed Indeed we were writing about digital imaging before HP even had a color inkjet system available In 2000 FLAAR received an educa tional grant from Hewlett Packard large format division Barcelona Spain for training for equipment and to improve the design and navigation on the main web sites of the FLAAR Network This grant ran its natural course and like all grants reached its finishing point in this case late 2005 In some cases the sponsorship process begins when we hear end users talking about a product they have found to be better than other brands We keep our ears open and when we spot an espe cially good product this is the company we seek sponsorship from It would not be wise of us to seek sponsorship from a company with a sub standard or otherwise potentially defective printer So we usu ally know which printers are considered by end users to be among the better brands before we seek sponsorship After all out of the by now one million readers we have heard plenty about every single printer out there We thank MacDermid ColorSpan now part of HP Hewlett Packard Parrot Digigraphic Color DNA Canon Gandinnovations and other companies for providing funding for technology training for the FLAAR staff and our colleagues at Bowling Green State Univer
83. the IP amp I UV printers 123 Which model of printhead is used Dilli clearly states that the heads are KM512 124 How many other printers utilize the same printhead Have they shown any problems Several other UV curable inkjet printers use KonicaMinolta printheads They are considered a good printhead albeit not very fast 125 How many printheads per color One 126 How many total number of printheads Six PRINTHEAD DPI amp Features 127 What is the drop size in picoliters 14 pl This is roughly the drop size of an HP Designjet 5000 or HP 5500 128 Is there variable droplet capability No variable droplet sizes 129 How many passes can this printer achieve 2 to 8 passes are possible Most people use 4 passes for 720dpi or 8 passes for 1440dpi 130 Does the software use passes or modes to describe quality levels Increasingly most printer companies are not listing the passes that their printers run back and forth The definition of a pass is not consistent in any event FLAAR defines a single pass as the movement of the printer carriage while jetting ink from one side to the other There is a difference between single pass and one pass but that needs an entire article one pass means a page width row of non moving printheads Mutoh describes one pass as a complete back and forth movement FLAAR defines that as two passes Most printer manufacturers would rather avoid having to state clearly how many actual passe
84. the printhead would probably be altered by the time we did any of this anyway So it is essential to talk with people with other end users and with FLAAR in person on a consulting basis Acknowledgements With 12 employees the funding has to come from somewhere so we do welcome project sponsorship research grants contributions that facilitate our educational programs scholarships for co op interns and graduate students and comparable project oriented funding from manufacturers The benefit for the end user is a principle called academic freedom in this case The freedom of a professor or student to speak out relative to the pros and cons of any equipment brought to them to benchmark The freedom to design the research project without outside meddling from the manufacturer Fortunately our budget is lean and cost effective as you would expect for a non profit research institute As long as we are not desperate for money we can avoid the temptation to accept payment for reprinting corporate PR hype So the funding is used for practical research We do not accept nor believe and certainly do not regurgitate corporate PR For example how many manufacturer s PR photos of their prod ucts have you seen in our reports or on our web sites Besides it does not take any money to see which printers and RIPs function as advertised and which don t We saw one hyped printer grind to a halt malfunction or otherwise publicly display its in
85. under NDA as to the subjects discussed but it is important that we be open where we have visited Mimaki Europe has had FLAAR as their guest in Europe to introduce their flatbed UV printer as have other UV curable manufacturers again under NDA as to the details since often we are present at meetings where unreleased products are discussed Xaar has hosted an informative visit to their world headquarters in the UK You don t get this level of access from a trade magazine writer and can assure you we are provided much more detailed information and documentation in our visits than would be provided to a magazine author or editor Com panies have learned that it s a lot better to let us know up front and in advance the issues and glitches with their printers since they now know we will find out sooner or later on our own They actually tell us they realize we will find out on our own anyway Contributions grant sponsorships and project funds from these companies are also used to improve the design and appearance of the web sites of the FLAAR Information Network We thank Canon ColorSpan HP ITNH and Mimaki for providing wide format printers inks and media to the universities where FLAAR does research on wide format digital imaging We thank Epson America for providing an Epson 7500 printer many years ago and Parrot Digigraphic for providing three different models of Epson inkjet printers to our fa cilities on loan at BGSU 5500 7600 78
86. update old reports As always it is essen tial for you to visit printshops that have the printers on your short list and see how they function in the real world But even when we like a product and recommend it we still can t guarantee or certify any make or model nor its profitability in use because we don t know the conditions under which a printer system might be utilized in someone else s facility For ink and media espe cially after market third party ink and media it is essential that you test it first under your conditions We have no way to assure that any ink or media will be acceptable for your specific needs in your specific print shop As a result products are described as is and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or of fitness amp LA AR Reports for a particular purpose Any such statements in our reports or on our web sites or in discussions do not constitute warranties and shall not be relied on by the buyer in deciding whether to purchase and or use products we discuss because of the diversity of conditions materials and or equipment under which these products may be used Thus please recognize that no warranty of fitness or profitability for a par ticular purpose is offered The user is advised to test products thoroughly before relying on them We do not have any special means of analyzing chemical con tents or flammability of inks media or laminates nor how these need to be controlled
87. ur comment on that product may have been revised as we learned more about the product from end users Also we noticed that one company cited the single favorable comment we made on one nice aspect of their printer but neglected to cite the rest of the review which pointed out the features of the printer which did not do so well For them to cor rect this error after the fact is rather embarrassing So it is safer to ask before you quote a FLAAR review on your product The material in this report is not only copyright it is also based on years of research Therefore if you cite or quote a pertinent section please provide a proper credit which would be minimally Nicholas Hellmuth year www FLAAR org If the quote is more than a few amp LA AR Reports words then academic tradition would expect that a footnote or en try in your bibliography would reference the complete title Publisher would be www FLAAR org If you intend to quote any portion of a FLAAR review in a PowerPoint presentation if this is in reference to any product that your company sells or promotes then it would be appropriate to license the report or otherwise notify us in advance FLAAR reports are being updated every week sometimes and our comment on that product may have been revised as we learned more about the product from end users Also we noticed that one company cited the single favorable com ment we made on one nice aspect of their printer but neglected t
88. urself further always pay with a level of credit card which allows you to refuse payment if you have end up with a lemon A Gold American Express card allows you to re fuse payment even months after the sale This card may also extend your warranty agreement in some cases check first Most of the readers of the FLAAR Reports look to see what print ers we use in our own facilities Readers realize that we will have selected the printers that we like based on years of experience and research Indeed we have met people at trade shows who told us they use the FLAAR web site reports as the shopping list for their corporate purchases Yes it is rather self evident that we would never ask a manufacturer to send a product which we knew in advance from our studies was no good But there are a few other printers which are great but we simply do not have them in our facilities yet So if a printer is not made available by its manufacturer then there is no way we can afford to have all these makes and models in our facil ity Thus to learn about models which we do not feature be sure to ask around in other print shops with IT people in other corporations at your local university or community college Go to trade shows but don t use only the booth ask questions of people in the elevator in line at the restaurant anywhere to escape the smothering hype you get in the booth Realize that a FLAAR Report on a printer is not by itself a recomm
89. ve years ago we noticed Epson was laminat Dilli Neo Titan UV 47 ing prints to show glossy output because their pigmented inks could not print on actual glossy media The same equipment inks media and software may not work as well in your facility as we or you see it at a trade show All the more reason to test before you buy and keep testing before you make your final payment Your ultimate protection is to use a gold American Express credit card so you can have lever age when you ask for your money back if the product fails Images printed at trade show may be in uni directional mode so you may not realize the printer has bi directional curing banding defects until you unpack it in your printshop Bi directional curing banding is also known as the lawnmower effect Many printers have this defect sometimes certain modes can get rid of it but are so slow that they are not productive You absolutely need to do print samples with your own images and the kind provided by your clients Do not rely on the stock photos provided by the printer ink media or RIP manufacturer or reseller They may be using special images which they know in advance will look fabulous on their printer Equally well if you send your sample images to the dealer don t be surprised if they come back looking awful That is because many dealers won t make a serious effort to tweak their machine for your kind of image They may use fast speed just to get the
90. ving transport belt combo style or a stationary platen hybrid style This is a combo style printer with a conveyor belt As in most cases the conveyor belt of the 1606 UV is continuous and has a rough surface to transport whatever material that is put on top LAAR Reports Dilli NeoTitan UV 8 STRUCTURE OF THE PRINTER Transport Belt gt he D 3 Praee 5 p a EE Zack at The transport belt is made of a D E a p pu a 7 gt oo V M r re A pi y AV M WR The conveyor belt sticks out both front and back on the larger Dilli printer but on this model it does not sitck out appreciably at the front and only a bit at the back gil A at the transport belt from either side Have the lighting shine on the belt so that you can see the horizontal sec tions What you want to see is whether the woven aspect ofthe belt remains straight or whether it has shifted from stress and strain There is a belt tension adjustment procedure listed in the manual To see if there is any skew place a piece of tape on the vacuum table along and slightly under the edge of the belt Mark this tape vertically along the edge of the belt and mark the belt with a horizontal line as a rotational reference Then run the belt for 2 3 min utes while looking to see if the belt gradually drifts to one side or the other The belt would move toward the side that was more loose Then adjust the belt rotational

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