Attendance to this year’s Visual Impact Image Expo surpassed last year’s figures report Carlos Martinez and Wayne Robinson
Agfa had two wide format presses on the stand, the Anapurna M2 and Mw. Steve Taylor, national wide format manager says the M2 has a fast throughput of 24sqm an hour, virtually double the speed of the original M series. Taylor says the M2 is aimed at the signage market, and at commercial printers looking to diversify. The M2 uses UV inks for their brilliance and durability, and is available as a combination feeder with both flatbed and roll to roll. The Anapurna Mw is similarly a combination feeder, and will lay down a white, in fact the eight colour printer has two whites as well as CMYK and light magenta and light cyan, and is also aimed at signage and commercial print markets.At the show Australian Visual Solutions showcased its range of pressure sensitive and point of purchase media, which the company says suits either short-term signage and displays or applications of up to five years. AVS highlighted its range of Concept media, which the company says is ideal for interior or exterior signage, POP displays, photo related graphics, product ID labels, name plates and decals.
At the Roland DG stand attendees got their first glimpse of the new Soljet XC-540MT, which was launched at the show. The company claims it is the world’s first inkjet printer/cutter with metallic silver ink, with the first sale made only minutes after the exhibition doors opened. John Wall, marketing manager at Roland DG says, “Any printer would be interested in the new Soljet. By merging unattended printing and automated contour cutting into a single device the XC-540MT streamlines the production process for labels, decals, POP, banners signs and vehicle wraps.”
HP launched its new Latex L25500 wide format printer at the show, which the company says has indoor quality with outdoor durability. The Latex does not refer to rubber, but is a more generic term used in scientific circles to describe the chemistry. However the printer has been designed with the environment in mind, there are no solvents, all ink and stock is fully recyclable. The printed stock needs no lamination of further protection to withstand the outdoor elements. Quality is enhanced with an on board spectrophotometer.
Fujifilm Australia’s Sericol division showcased a range of products at the show including software solutions, printers, inkjet technologies, media, colour management systems, cutting and finishing devices and display systems. A highlight on the Fujifilm stand was the Mutoh ValueJet 1618, which the company claims can reach speeds of up to 40sqm per hour in production mode. Fujifilm says the new Valuejet is perfect for durable graphics on coated and uncoated substrates up to 1625mm wide with a maximum media weight of 30kgs as standard.
Océ had its new ColorWave and an Arizona plus cutting table on the stand. The Colorwave has already been installed in more than 70 Australian printers, in just nine months since it was first released here, half of whom are commercial printers, half inplants, corporates and government agencies. With a 50sqm an hour output and ease of operation as the watchwords ColorWave is clearly hitting a nerve. Océ says its Arizona is currently the world’s biggest selling flatbed wide format printer, the company was showing it next to the ProCut automated flatbed cutter.
Showcased on the Ricky Richards stand was a range of solvent, UV curable and aqueous inkjet printed media samples. Launched at the show was the new Innogreen recyclable media, which is a 100 per cent PVC free recyclable banner media. The company says the Innogreen, which comes in both UV print grade and solvent print grade is compatible with solvent and UV printers and features premium aesthetic qualities, outstanding durability and identification labelling for ease of recycling.
Anitech had the new UV Jetrix range of wide format printers on show. Manufactured in Korea, and according to Barry Grant, Anitech’s managing director, capable of producing high quality product with white and spot varnish. Anitech was showing the 4’ x 8’ flatbed version, it also comes in 5’ x 10’ format. Anitech also had a high speed Seiko printer on show and a GCC hybrid UV printer, hybrid in that it converts from roll to roll to flatbed.
A highlight on the Avery Dennison stand at the show was the new Supreme Wrapping Film, which the company claims is the ultimate long-life, conformable wrapping film, which includes the patented Avery Easy Apply RS adhesive technology for a no-hassle, bubble-free finish. Avery carried out a number of demonstrations on stand while the Supreme film was applied to a Mercedes kompressor. Mark Canavan, business manager for Avery Dennison Graphics ANZ says the Supreme film is designed to optimise the time taken to achieve a quality and durable result.
GBC had a wide range of products on show with the company marketing its wide format solutions as a sign shop in a box. As well as its range of large format printers – including thermal, solvent, UV, flatbed and multi-substrate – the company also showcased its large format scanners, trimmers, laminators, rips, media and inks. Raj Dang, managing director of GBC says, “We have a new range of media and we are the only Australian company with its own brand of rip software.”
Corel, a market leader in graphics and productivity software, had the latest addition of its illustration and design software CorelDraw at the show. The company says with vector illustration, page layout, photo-editing and tracing software, CorelDraw Graphics Suite X4 is ideal for professional and occasional designers tackling any type of graphics project.
A head turner on the Mutoh stand at the show was the new ValueJet Hybrid 1608 Printer, which the company says incorporates Mutoh’s Intelligent Interweaving technology and a new generation variable drop wide model 1440 nozzle print head to deliver high quality outputs up to 1440 dpi. Prints on the ValueJet 1608 are dry when they come off the printer due to the integrated dual media drying system, which includes three built-in heating elements inside the printer body for roll media and a heated air knife system next to the print head for quick drying of rigid prints. Marcus Fantl, business development manager at Mutoh says, “We did a lot of marketing before the Visual Impact show so most people were coming just to chat on the specifics. The 1608 has generated a lot of interest because of its capabilities as well as being half the price of UV.”
Display equipment importer SAS had its major products on stand at the show including its new aluminium/plastic composite panel, which is available in a range of colour and sizes. The company also says it stocks more than 100 display items including a large range of roller banners as well as a portfolio of media, which covers both inkjet and solvent inks.
DGS Mimaki had a batch of printers on show including the UJV-160 using breakthrough UV LED curing technology, which the company says eliminates all problems associated with printing on PVC and vinyl. Mimaki’s first roll-to-roll inkjet printer using UV LED technology does not emit infrared rays which are the cause for thermal deformation of PVC. As only the relevant UV-rays are emitted. This new UV LED curing technology enables problem free printing on PVC and other heat sensitive materials. Mimaki also showed its new CJV30-100 for fast integrated printing and cutting of the popular A0 Poster format (84,1 x 118,9 cm) and POP displays. With the fast drying solvent ink, cutting is performed immediately after printing. The CJV30 series is ideally suitable for businesses requiring both high quality and quick response.
The Celmac stand featured a range of hardware and consumables directly related to the digital UV, solvent, aqueous as well as HP’s latex print technology. Wayne McIntyre, director of Celmac says the company experienced enormous interest in the new HP L25500 latex printer with many orders taken, and more expected to come. He adds that strong interest was also shown for the Triangle range of third party ink cartridges, the Onyx rip, MACtac vehicle wrap media amongst many others. McIntyre continues, “Our alliance with HP is going very well and the new HP L25500 latex printer has been well received. The show has enabled us to reinforce our position in the market place demonstrate to our customers the latest technology and materials available to them.”
GJS exhibited its portfolio of dye sublimation and textile heat transfer solutions at the show. The company says it offers solutions for screen printing, plastisol heat transfer, dye sublimation heat transfers and digital solvent printing. Michael Davis, digital sales at GJS Machinery says, “The show has been great, we sold two machines in the first day alone. It has allowed us to get our name out and it also lets people see that we are active and are keeping up with changing industry.”
At the show Halifax Vogel Group displayed substrates from Alcan Composites including Dibond Digital, Dilite, Forex Classic and Forex Smart as well as other substrates including Imageboard, polycarbonate, PETG and the new Zenolite coloured acrylic. Visual Impact was also the stage for the launch of Re-board, the new engineered flute cardboard offering patented sandwich construction, which the company says is durable, lightweight, strong, water resistant and eco smart. Naomi Donohue, national product manager for HVG says, “Many of our products offer customers reduced costs, good quality printing as well as recyclability.”
As the Asia Pacific distributor of Fotoba cutters, Budde International Technologies demonstrated the capabilities of automated print trimming at the show. Peter Maginn, managing director of Budde says the ability to trim prints to size in real time eliminates the aggravation and the bottleneck in finishing digital print runs. He says, “The Fotoba Rollcut WR enables you to have complete control of the trimming process but does not require a skilled operator and it finishes absolutely perfectly, while drastically increasing the speed of finishing. Printing is not the bottleneck. It’s the finishing which can lower productivity.” As well as performing demonstrations of Roland DG wide format printers on its stand, Graphic Art Mart also used Visual Impact to market its new online shopping service, which it claims is efficient and user friendly. Graphic Art Mart partners with industry manufacturers including Avery Vinyl and Digital Media, MultiPanel, Aslan, Sihl, Fletcher Trimmers, ALC Laminators, Pantone, Banner Ad, Transferite, R-Tape and Holdon.
On its busy stand at the show Project Engraving & Digital demonstrated products including Roland Print/Cut, Roland Heatwave, Agfa UV Curable printing system, Epilog Laser, Vision Engravers, Rowmark Plastics, Hexis ImageMax Media and other printing consumables.
The company outlined its solutions, which include the large format integrated DFP70 direct to fabric printer for both dye sublimation and natural fibres direct printing. Its portfolio also includes a range of metal marking systems with Vision’s 2550 Stainless Steel High Performance Engraver, Epilog’s new Galvo, Fibremarker and CO2 lasers range of using Thermark and Cermark laser marketing paste.
