“We came close last year, within a day, to placing an order for another wide-format inkjet printer and then we saw the press release about the Seiko ColorPainter 64S,” says Roberts. Since they had never seen anything about the printer previously, they made it a point to get a closer look at the ISA Show.
...When it finally came time for The Sign Factory to purchase a wide-format printer, the decision had been a long time in coming. Founded in 1982, the wholesale, custom electric sign manufacturer based in Houston, TX was no stranger to the technology—even though they had never owned a wide-format digital printer previously.
...“We are very pleased to have been selected as the beta site,” says Diaz. The printer, installed May 8, 2004, was up and running by May 10. “Scitex Vision has helped us a lot and the GOjet has worked like a dream for us since the day it was installed. We’ve had no problems with it—it is a great, great machine. For us, as a start-up shop, it has proven very simple to operate and maintain because the new design eliminates unnecessary complexities. It is a compact machine that feeds and delivers from the same side which meant we could save on the size of the facility we needed to acquire in order to have adequate operating and storage space.”
...For Damaso Diaz, president of Hialeah, FL-based Printer’s Cove, when it came time to start his wide-format printer business, the opportunity to become the North American beta site for Scitex’s GOjet was one he couldn’t pass up.
..."We purchased our first vinyl cutter in 1997 and from that point on we have been sold on the Roland brand," Wittkamp says. "Roland products are reliable, precise and extremely easy to use. We take full advantage of the print/cut capabilities which allow us to keep pace with the tough demands of our clients
To print these bigger-than-life ads, Above and Beyond utilizes the Roland AJ-1000, which they added to their printer mix last year. With a top production speed of 968 sqft/hr,
The Daytona H700UV is a 72-inch wide hybrid production printer with top photo quality output comparable to 2400 dpi images. The printer uses Toshiba Tec's CA4 gray scale print heads with drop sizes ranging from 6 pL to 42 pL. The H700UV is said to produce the finest detail and gradients in highlights and the most saturated solid colors. "The gamut of the inks is amazing, the colors really pop," says Donnie Massari, the shops' general manager.
Future Film and Graphics specializes in wide-format printing. "We serve the Northern California area in wide array of printing needs. Our clients range from printers, brokers, marketing firms to artists and photographers.," says co-owner Joe Cole.
...Major advances in UV digital flatbed inkjet printing technology has opened up new opportunities in the wide-format printing market to more diverse print providers such as commercial offset shops and quick printers. One large commercial shop that recently added digital wide-format printing to their service mix is Buhl Press, located in Berkeley, IL—a western suburb of Chicago.
“We are a land surveying firm, but we do wide-format plat-to-survey exhibits, colormaerial photos, color digital pictures of projects in the field,” he explains.
