Manufacturing: skin deep?
Back in Israel, part of my itinerary this week is to pay a return visit to the home of Scitex and its manufacturing plant. When one considers how difficult it often is to see what exactly goes on under the bonnet at the production plant for many wide-format machines, it makes a refreshing change to be able to get up close and personal to everything, from a naked chassis, to the highly organised spaghetti of wiring and cabling, and to all the other components which go to make up solid engines. When we see hosts of gleaming machines at trade...
read moreMood Indigo goes wider
The first morning of HP’s pre-drupa conference has already shown how, in reality, new products and innovations are based more on common sense than on the wow factor. In a world where, for many years, we’ve almost been relying on some pretty whacky announcements before a major exhibition, it makes a pleasant change laced with reassurance to discover that the current approach is based on pragmatism and practicalities. But we’ve just had a nice surprise. You could say it’s not new, but it’s one of those logical additions which...
read moreRoad testing…
At FESPA’s Print Shop Live event in Barcelona the textile printer we were demonstrating on the stand was a machine from Mutoh’s current portfolio of solutions. The ValueJet 2628TD is the larger of a duo of systems which are designed to print direct to polyester fabrics or via dye-sublimation paper. As its name suggests, this is a 2.6m printer with a decent throughput speed, and one that offers workhorse capabilities for this market sector. This is the first paragraph of the full road test I’ve written for Output. If you’d...
read moreFESPA Digital 2012
Those doubting the validity of holding a FESPA Digital event in a drupa year should have had their fears dispelled in Barcelona. True, the May exhibition in Düsseldorf slightly hung over the Fira like a kind of digital shadow but it is certainly fair to say that visitors wanting specifically to view ink-jet products are going to take the easier option and go to a specialist show. No-one expected stands bristling with new products but there were some interesting additions to existing portfolios. But, perhaps for the first time, the...
read moreAlternative inks
Did it come as a surprise to HP when Mimaki announced its alternative ink, and called it latex? In truth, it shouldn’t have done because, after all, latex is a word which has been in the dictionary for many generations with two distinctly different meanings. Firstly, it’s associated with natural rubber but, of more relevance to what we’re talking about here, is its role as a synthetic dispersion of polymer particles. When HP announced its Designjet L65500 back in 2008, the machine was tagged with the description of ...
read morePrint Shop Live
Planning an event like Print Shop Live, which is taking place during FESPA Digital in Barcelona, is an interesting exercise. You’d think that, by now, most people would understand how a wide-format workflow functions. But no – judging from the response of people wanting to take a tour of Stand S10, there’s still a large proportion of existing and potential users who want to find out more and have signed up to spend an hour with either me or Juan Diaz Diaz. Print Shop Live is running for the duration of FESPA Digital, and ...
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