Cutting the cost of posters
At Print 2 Media we aim to keep abreast of the latest in wide format print technology. As such, we have recently swapped out our flat-bed and roll printers for the latest and greatest the industry has to offer.
These new machines greatly increase our production rates, especially for roll media. This means we are geared up to print material off-the-roll in higher volumes at a keener price. This is especially useful for longer runs of posters.
The new printers have enabled us to introduce new prices and new quantity breaks for our poster products. If you have an up and coming advertising campaign and you need great value posters turned around quickly give us a call.
Our high production, UV-LED roll printer can print blue-back posters, budget indoor paper posters, premium indoor paper posters and outdoor polyprop posters that are fully waterproof. You can order any of the standard A paper sizes or choose a completely custom size that we will trim to your specification.
So give us a call, or shop online for our range of posters that are greatly reduced in price with huge discounts for ordering in volume.
Printer nerd out
The quality of the final printed product is the most important thing to our customers. You may not be so interested in how we achieve a perfectly printed product.
However, if you do want to know more about the print technology we use at Print 2 Media, read on…
All UV, all the time
It’s well established that UV cured print is the gold standard in the wide format industry. UV curing printers lay down an ink that is suspended in a solvent that is instantly cured under UV light.
There are many benefits to UV cured print:
- Instantly cured (no drying time and no post-print gassing off of solvents)
- Curing at ambient temperatures (other processes require high levels of heat to cure the ink, which warps the media)
- Ink is cured on the surface, so can be printed to the widest range of media and substrates
- Highly robust and scratch-resistant
Wide format flat-bed printers have always utilised UV print technology – it’s really the only method that works with rigid substrates. This is because the ink is cured right on the surface and doesn’t have to sublimate into the material as it does with other print processes.
However, historically, there has been a dearth of dedicated UV roll printers. The UV print process is highly sophisticated and so UV printers are a much greater investment. The roll printer market is comprised of many smaller companies and so roll printer technology has been dominated by cheaper eco-solvent and (more recently) latex printers, as small print firms couldn’t justify the greater cost of a UV machine.
Traditionally, UV printers have used high-power UV lamps to cure the ink. In more recent years, UV LED technology has evolved to the point where it is strong enough to cure ink, even at high production speeds.
Print 2 Media was an early adopter of lower power, more eco-friendly UV LED. We bought the first-to-market Fuji Acuity UV LED roll and rigid media hybrid printer. From there we progressed to a dedicated UV flatbed with traditional lamp UVs in the form of a Canon Océ Arizona 360XT. However, we still relied on a mix of the Fuji UV LED and an HP latex printer for roll media.
Our new investment sees us upgrade the Canon Océ Arizona to the latest 1260XT and replace both roll printers with a single, high production Canon Océ Colorado 1640.
A new type of ink
The Colorado is something special. There are still very few dedicated roll printers using UV technology. And the Colorado uses the latest in UV LED tech that is streets ahead of the competition.
Canon Océ have developed an entirely new form of ink to work in combination with the UV LEDs. Completely unique to this printer, and revolutionary in the print industry, the inks used in the Colorado are a gel, rather than a liquid.
The combination of a more viscous gel, plus UV LED curing, means the Colorado can operate at much greater speeds than other UV printers (roll or flatbed). The cured ink is also much tougher than a cured liquid ink (which is pretty tough anyway). It’s really, really hard to scratch the ink off something printed by the Colorado.
And as if that’s not enough, the gel inks are much better at conforming around difficult shapes without cracking.
Better print for you
All this means you get a better product. And because of the savings we’re able to make in energy usage and through increased production speed, we can offer an improved product at an even better price.
So check out our new prices on posters or shop online for super durable banners, foamex signs or dibond signs.
If you want any more information about our printers or to learn about the range of products we can print and make, give us a call on 01579 340985.
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