Need Help Need Feedback: UV Printing Photos On Acrylic - How To Scale?

[johntech]

Hi everyone,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I was wondering if some of you seasoned pros could offer me some much need advice...

I'm looking to build a business that prints photos directly onto acrylic; no separate step with printing on paper first and face-mounting to acrylic. So just UV printing direct to acrylic.

I've been researching the different brands of UV-LED Printers, and I think I'm leaning towards the Mimaki flatbeds. Obviously if someone has an opinion for a different brand, I'm all ears.

My concerns are: photo print quality and speed/production capacity.

To keep things simple, let's say I'm primarily printing 8 inch x 10 inch acrylic photos.

If you were going to be printing many of these, how would you structure your equipment setup?

For example, the Mimaki UJF-3042 has an 11.8"x16.5" print area and so could print TWO 8x10s at the same time. The Mimaki UJF-6042 (at nearly twice the price) has a 24"x16.5" print area and so could print FOUR 8x10s at the same time.

Aside from redundancy, which is always nice to have, is there a reason to go with (1) UJF-6042 in this example instead of buying (2) UJF-3042s? I would assume if they both have similar print speeds they can produce at about the same rate, but the UJF-6042 could print FOUR 8x10s in one job at the same time.

So I guess that's my initial question... is it smarter to SCALE this production by simply adding more and more UJF-3042s? Or does it make more sense to use the budget towards multiple UJF-6042s? I guess once you have redundancy (and can afford it) you should scale with more of the larger capacity machines, i.e. the 6042s in this example. Is there any reason not to?

And if we need to print a few hundred of these 8x10s a day, is it better to just get something like the JFX200-2513 big flated? It has a 98.4"x51.2" print area which by my calculations would be about (60) 8x10s at the same time.

From my understanding, some of the Mimaki UV printers can do white and color at the same time, so this type of application (photos on acrylic) I would assume that saves time rather than need a separate pass at the end to do a layer of white over the entire reverse printed image which is what I believe other UV printers would need to do? I would think would be much faster.

So speed is definitely a concern rather than loading one or two pieces to be printed on and having to wait 5-10 minutes for them to be printed. We'd need much faster capacity than that.

I would sincerely appreciate any feedback! Thank you.

 

[iPrintStuff]

This is a great question that I’ve been pondering recently too (not quite the same reason as you, but a similar idea). Though we went for huge capacity for that we probably didn’t need at the time and have caught up with the printer now lol, though there’s not much room to go for us so we’ll have to look at another printer over upgrading the one we have.

Honestly this all depends on budget. There probably won’t ever be a time that you regret buying a giant flatbed, load up all the pieces and then print them all at once compared to having to load a smaller printer 15 or 30 times. Naturally this is a bigger investment but could save a LOT of time.

BUT, a true flatbed means you need more space, and might need to spend more money on a tech if you need one, though I believe you may save on the inks/time so it probably evens out.

It also adds room to print larger panels which in turn can make you more money. Also means you can grow into the capacity rather than get too many orders you too quickly and you’re working till 3am.

Then from what I remember, the smaller flatbeds aren’t *that* cheap compared to just going all out and getting an 8’ x4’ flatbed. Buy three or four and you could have had a decent sized one.

As far as I’m aware, most flatbeds nowadays can do the white and colour in one pass. Though this does usually slow the speed down considerably so you’d need to probably get in touch with a dealer and see the speed comparisons between the smaller ones and a giant flatbed. That’s probably my biggest recommendation here. Get your print sample images and go see a dealer. Get the stopwatch out and make sure you’re happy with the speed/quality that they can produce.

*never trust the speeds on the websites, they always tend to show the fastest speeds and you probably wouldn’t be happy enough with the quality.

As far as actually going with mimaki, the JFX seems like one of the better entry level printers. They appear to be very popular and most people I see appear to be happy enough with the time:quality ratio.

 

[yannb]

The UJF-3042 MkII, 6042 and JFX200 range are good printers. We sell them in my country, and print quality is very good. You can get excellent results on all of them. For smaller jobs, the 3042 and 6042, will be a tad sharper than the JFX200. Of course two 3042 still won't be able to print a single 60x42cm job which the 6042 can. Keep in mind that putting a lot of small panels onto the JFX200 can be time consuming as well. If you are printing borderless, keep in mind that you can't place different acrylic panels side by side with zero margin on the table because you need some space to print over the egde of each acrylic panel. To aid placement, you can make use of so called jigs in which you position your acrylics, and make use of the jig function of Rasterlink (Mimaki's rip). This means when one jig is printing, you can prepare the next one to be put in the printer.
For small prints, an ink set like CMYK Lc Lm W W would be good. The 3042/6042 have the capability to print on objects up to 15cm thick, and have an LD mode function which enables you to print on uneven surfaces with good quality.
In our demo room, we don't print every day with these machines, but still they require little maintenance and rarely have missing nozzles.

 

[johntech]

This is a great question that I’ve been pondering recently too (not quite the same reason as you, but a similar idea). Though we went for huge capacity for that we probably didn’t need at the time and have caught up with the printer now lol, though there’s not much room to go for us so we’ll have to look at another printer over upgrading the one we have.

Honestly this all depends on budget. There probably won’t ever be a time that you regret buying a giant flatbed, load up all the pieces and then print them all at once compared to having to load a smaller printer 15 or 30 times. Naturally this is a bigger investment but could save a LOT of time.

BUT, a true flatbed means you need more space, and might need to spend more money on a tech if you need one, though I believe you may save on the inks/time so it probably evens out.

It also adds room to print larger panels which in turn can make you more money. Also means you can grow into the capacity rather than get too many orders you too quickly and you’re working till 3am.

Then from what I remember, the smaller flatbeds aren’t *that* cheap compared to just going all out and getting an 8’ x4’ flatbed. Buy three or four and you could have had a decent sized one.

As far as I’m aware, most flatbeds nowadays can do the white and colour in one pass. Though this does usually slow the speed down considerably so you’d need to probably get in touch with a dealer and see the speed comparisons between the smaller ones and a giant flatbed. That’s probably my biggest recommendation here. Get your print sample images and go see a dealer. Get the stopwatch out and make sure you’re happy with the speed/quality that they can produce.

*never trust the speeds on the websites, they always tend to show the fastest speeds and you probably wouldn’t be happy enough with the quality.

As far as actually going with mimaki, the JFX seems like one of the better entry level printers. They appear to be very popular and most people I see appear to be happy enough with the time:quality ratio.

Great insights, thanks for the comments!

 

[johntech]

The UJF-3042 MkII, 6042 and JFX200 range are good printers. We sell them in my country, and print quality is very good. You can get excellent results on all of them. For smaller jobs, the 3042 and 6042, will be a tad sharper than the JFX200. Of course two 3042 still won't be able to print a single 60x42cm job which the 6042 can. Keep in mind that putting a lot of small panels onto the JFX200 can be time consuming as well. If you are printing borderless, keep in mind that you can't place different acrylic panels side by side with zero margin on the table because you need some space to print over the egde of each acrylic panel. To aid placement, you can make use of so called jigs in which you position your acrylics, and make use of the jig function of Rasterlink (Mimaki's rip). This means when one jig is printing, you can prepare the next one to be put in the printer.
For small prints, an ink set like CMYK Lc Lm W W would be good. The 3042/6042 have the capability to print on objects up to 15cm thick, and have an LD mode function which enables you to print on uneven surfaces with good quality.
In our demo room, we don't print every day with these machines, but still they require little maintenance and rarely have missing nozzles.

I'm surprised to hear that the 3042 and 6042 will produce a sharper result. I thought they had similar DPI and printheads.

 

[yannb]

I'm surprised to hear that the 3042 and 6042 will produce a sharper result. I thought they had similar DPI and printheads.

I can't check right now, but I believe all the 3042 and 6042 default printing modes are uni-directional.

 

[Sindex Printing]

I got Mutoh utoh 1638uh hybrid to get into uv printing directly to the sub straits. The biggest thing is setting up a good maintenance schedule for the printers.

I use the white in feature on the Mutoh not just for acrylic prints. I use the white on wood and colored and other clear materials. The white does slow down the print speed down considerably for me but the results are worth it.

Keep in mind on how you are going to cut the prints out after they are printed. We use a co2 laser to cut all of our prints after they are printed. I would suggest going to the biggest machine you can afford. You can always print a smaller print on a bigger machine.

Go with what ever manufacture is going to give you the best support after the sale.

Looking back I should have gone to a true 4x8 flatbed system but I wasn't sure that we would have enough work to support the higher payment.