Grand Format prints - any new solutions?

[Waker]

Odds are, we're unlikely to see any of the wide-format printer manufacturers make a printer for art repro or archival production any time soon, unless it happens by accident (as with the old Iris printers). The fact of the matter is that it's just too small a market compared to the investment that would be involved.
It's the same reason that Epson/Canon/HP don't release wider versions of their photo printers, they'd be too expensive. To make an 84" version of those printers, the rail that the head rides on would have to be beefed up to support the wider span. The added length would mean longer cabling/tubing, which would add weight, which means a bigger drive motor, which means more vibration, which means a heavier carriage... and so on.
Basically, there are reasons a 48" photo printer costs a few thousand dollars, while an 84" wide-format printer costs a few hundred thousand, and most of them come down to engineering for scale.

Hmm, not sure I buy that argument.
Currently in the USA, comparing like with like: a 44" printer (P10000) is $5495 a 64" printer (P20000) is $8995. Hardly a big hike.

Even if an 84" one was $20,000 I could personally tell you 5 companies/ individuals locally who would buy one tomorrow.
The heads and hardware already exist at 64". Some longer tubing and a rail are minor costs, its more about the quantity that the development would be spread over. But the reward in getting XL printing ink and paper profits would be worth it.

All imho, of course!

[aaronchan]

The JHF Mars 8R from China is a 8 color UV printer that prints 5m wide.
I have seen the result, very good!
If you can find a good substrate that comes in 5m, yeah, this might be a solution.
The price for this printer is around $300k USD.......

aaron

[Alistair]

Just to add a little to the original point of this post; here is a company that is doing fine art on lack lit textiles:
https://www.instagram.com/la_chrome/
Not very large but nonetheless a fair representation of the quality possible.

[Lessbones]

By far the biggest limiting factor in size terms comes down to paper coating lines.  There just do not exist any aqueous inkjet coating lines larger than 64".  Even 64" is incredibly hard to come by (as you'll find with the extremely limited selection of papers that come with that extra 4".  It's an insanely expensive venture to create a larger coater, and most papers actually come from the same few mills to begin with...

Otherwise, it would be relatively trivial to convert any larger "solvent" inkjet printer into aqueous-- they pretty much all use epson heads anyway.  Just get a 77" or 104" Mimaki, Mutoh, or other printer and load it with aqueous inks instead of solvent based ones.

The only company I know of that produces a paper larger than 64" is Innova, and they only make an uncoated (like, ultrasmooth matte) paper which can be special ordered up to 96".

Otherwise, you're in vinyl world, hence the push towards reverse printing on plexi with UV curable....

[Ernst Dinkla]

By far the biggest limiting factor in size terms comes down to paper coating lines.  There just do not exist any aqueous inkjet coating lines larger than 64".  Even 64" is incredibly hard to come by (as you'll find with the extremely limited selection of papers that come with that extra 4".  It's an insanely expensive venture to create a larger coater, and most papers actually come from the same few mills to begin with...

Otherwise, it would be relatively trivial to convert any larger "solvent" inkjet printer into aqueous-- they pretty much all use epson heads anyway.  Just get a 77" or 104" Mimaki, Mutoh, or other printer and load it with aqueous inks instead of solvent based ones.

The only company I know of that produces a paper larger than 64" is Innova, and they only make an uncoated (like, ultrasmooth matte) paper which can be special ordered up to 96".

Otherwise, you're in vinyl world, hence the push towards reverse printing on plexi with UV curable....

All correct ....  only Epson heads are not that common anymore in the wide formats for the sign or interior market. There are up to ten inkjet head manufacturers busy in that market segment. Konica Minolta, Ricoh, Seiko (mother company of Epson but has its own heads), FujiFilm (former Spectra heads etc), Xerox, Kyocera, Toshiba. Xaar.  Canon + Océ and HP use their own heads mainly but purchase heads of the other list for certain models.

I guess Sihl and Felix Schoeller are capable of producing wider heavy papers + coating them. It probably has more to do with who can buy 10 tons of the stuff in one order. Most of the wider rolls are made on Foudriniers anyway as cylinder mould machines that wide are rare.  Lana has a hybrid paper making machine (cylinder/flat sieve) that is more than 2 meter wide, one of the few. Foudriniers can be 10 meter wide.

Edit: It looks like Felix Schoeller can coat up to 2 meter wide, info of 2012. Done with the Coater 6, claimed to be the biggest in the world. For art printing FS has paper qualities available that go up to 310 gr/m².
https://www.felix-schoeller.com/fileadmin/mediathek/documents/Felix_Schoeller_in_International_Contact_07_2013_English.pdf


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[Alistair]

By far the biggest limiting factor in size terms comes down to paper coating lines.  There just do not exist any aqueous inkjet coating lines larger than 64".  Even 64" is incredibly hard to come by (as you'll find with the extremely limited selection of papers that come with that extra 4".  It's an insanely expensive venture to create a larger coater, and most papers actually come from the same few mills to begin with...

Otherwise, it would be relatively trivial to convert any larger "solvent" inkjet printer into aqueous-- they pretty much all use epson heads anyway.  Just get a 77" or 104" Mimaki, Mutoh, or other printer and load it with aqueous inks instead of solvent based ones.

The only company I know of that produces a paper larger than 64" is Innova, and they only make an uncoated (like, ultrasmooth matte) paper which can be special ordered up to 96".

Otherwise, you're in vinyl world, hence the push towards reverse printing on plexi with UV curable....

Yes, good points on the availability of paper wider than 1600mm.

Regarding wider printers, as discussed earlier in the thread, prices jump significantly above 1900mm.

[virojarvi]

Artproof advertises up to 2x5m Latex prints for fine art.

https://mailchi.mp/5347696ee6ba/artproof-news-winter-3618653

[Alistair]

Artproof advertises up to 2x5m Latex prints for fine art.

https://mailchi.mp/5347696ee6ba/artproof-news-winter-3618653

Wow, their material handling facility is impressive. 5mx2m piece of perspex with diasec! But I am not so happy with the printing technology. Six colour latex at 12pl would be small gamut and not so good at detail rendering.