Sublimation inkjet printer for textile production printing
- Next Generation -
Nagano, Japan (May 18, 2015)
Mimaki Engineering Co., Ltd., a global industry leader and manufacturer of wide format inkjet printers and cutting plotters, announced today that it will launch the inkjet printer TS300P-1800 in July 2015. The 1.8-m wide roll-to-roll sublimation inkjet printer TS300P-1800 is a dedicated transfer paper printer for the textile print industry.
Recently, market demand for digital on-demand plateless printing has increased, in comparison with conventional analog printing, because of its ability to quickly provide high-mix low-volume printing. Since 1998, Mimaki has been known for its innovative development and manufacture of more than 20 models of textile inkjet printers, while simultaneously providing good printing speed and high quality. Currently, Mimaki textile printers are widely used in the fashion/sports apparel and the interior and fabric signage industries.
The TS300P-1800, Mimaki’s next-generation model, delivers cost-effective printing using machine, printing, and ink technologies while maintaining high printing quality and productivity.
Cockling*1 occurs often on low-cost thin transfer papers and affects the quality of the printhead. To prevent contact between the printhead and raised surface, a high head gap setting is required. In conventional models, the high head gap setting reduces the accuracy of ink droplet placement. The new TS300P-1800 employs a new printhead that ejects ink droplets at high speed to ensure accurate ink droplet placement with a high head gap, thereby providing high-quality printing results on low-cost thin transfer papers.
In addition, the newly developed sublimation transfer ink Sb410 offers high performance at an affordable price using Mimaki’s concentrated ink technologies. Large volume ink packs (2 liters) can be installed in the Mimaki Bulk Ink System 3 (MBIS3) for long-time continuous printing. By eliminating frequent ink replacement, the MBIS3 reduces operating costs.
*1 Cockling: Wrinkling of the media surface due to ink absorption.
The printhead tends to make contact with the cockled paper surface when the head gap is narrow, resulting in undesirable contact damage to the printhead and inferior print quality.
◎Product outline
●Cost-effective solutions
○Cockling-reduction media transfer mechanism and new printhead
- Cockling-reduction transfer mechanism
- The new printhead prints with a high head gap to enable high-quality printing on low-cost thin transfer papers that tend to cockle.
○Low-cost, high-performance Sb410 ink
- High-performance Sb410 ink, containing Mimaki’s ink technologies, achieves low-cost, high-density printing with low ink consumption.
●Mimaki’s print technologies for achieving beautiful printing
- Waveform control technique ensures beautiful print results.
- Mimaki Advanced Pass System 4 (MAPS4) reduces banding and uneven color printing.
●High productivity at 115m2/h maximum print speed
- 115m2/h (*2) maximum print speed with 4-color printing and 65m2/h(*3) with 6-color printing.
*2: 4-color draft mode / 360 × 360 dpi / 1 pass *3: 6-color draft mode / 360 × 360 dpi / 2 pass
●Uninterrupted printing solutions
- Nozzle Check Unit (NCU) automatically detects and cleans clogged nozzles. Nozzle Recovery System (NRS) uses only good nozzles as substitutes, when the clogged nozzles are not recovered after cleaning. These functions ensure constant printing performance and reduce printing waste due to defective nozzles.
- The standard-feature MBIS3 can utilize large volume ink packs (2 liters) for long-time continuous printing.
●High-performance RIP software TxLink3 Lite
* TxLink3 Lite or RasterLink6 is bundled according to a user’s choice.
- The TxLink3 Lite offers simple RGB and CMYK color replacement on raster and vector data, as well as the ability to produce different color patterns.
- Various color replacement functions can represent desired colors.
◎Main features
1. Cost-effective solutions
The TS300P-1800 offers an overall operating cost reduction while maintaining high print quality using machine, printing, and ink technologies.
1) Cockling-reduction media transfer mechanism and new printhead
Cockling is well known to reduce product yield and quality, and frequently occurs on transfer papers during printing. With its cockling-reduction transfer mechanism and new printhead, the TS300P-1800 can print on cockled papers with a high head gap setting while maintaining beautiful print quality.
Previously, thin papers were used for low-cost printing and thicker papers for high-quality printing. Now, the TS300P-1800 can simultaneously provide cost reduction and high-quality printing on both thin to thick papers.
(1) Cockling-reduction media transfer mechanism
①The media attach to the platen by vacuum suction. Under suction, the cockled media surfaces are smoothed out.
②The standard feature Auto Media Feeder (AMF) automatically applies the right tension to the media, thereby maintaining stable and precise media feeding/take-up for achieving high-quality print results.
③Enlarged plates moderate cockling by reducing media uplift and hold down the media immediately after printing.
(2) The new printhead with a high head gap achieves high-quality printing on cockled transfer papers
Low-cost thin transfer papers tend to cockle. To prevent contact between the printhead and raised surface, a high head gap setting is required. (■3) In conventional models, such gap conditions reduce the accuracy of ink droplet placement. (■4) The new TS300P-1800 employs a new printhead with a high head gap to ensure accurate ink droplet placement, thereby enabling high-quality printing on thin paper types. (■5)
2) High-performance, low-cost Sb410 ink
(1) Affordable ink price reduces production cost
Mimaki’s cost-reduction efforts mean that the Sb410 ink costs 20% less than the conventional Sb53 ink. Moreover, the cost of the Sb410 ink per ml is 45%*4 less than our competitor’s sublimation ink. This competitive price improves business performance.
*4: According to March 2015 Mimaki research results.
(2) High-performance ink ensures stable printing and beautiful print results
- Stable ink flow and jetting
The Sb410 ink has superior resolubility properties. This means that dried inks adhered around nozzles are easily wiped off with cleaning solutions. To further reduce costs, because the ink stability has been improved, fewer regular cleanings are required. - Beautiful and vibrant print results
This low-sedimentation ink achieves stable and beautiful printing. Moreover, heat-press transfer printing yields vibrant colors by virtue of its high-density printing. - Low smoke emission
The Sb410 ink emits little smoke, thereby improving the work environment and increasing work efficiency during heat-press transfer printing.
2. Mimaki’s print technologies for achieving beautiful printing
1) Waveform control technique assures beautiful printing
Each ink color has its own specific gravity and viscosity. To achieve precise placement of the ink droplets onto the media, Mimaki designed an optimum waveform that allows the printhead to jet each ink color at the appropriate jetting angle without losing excellent ink droplet circularity even at the high head gap. Moreover, various ink droplet sizes are precisely placed from the minimum size 5pl to the maximum size 25pl. Small droplets create beautiful high-resolution printing, and large droplets are very useful for high-speed printing. Thus, the TS300P-1800 satisfies a wide range of needs including beautiful high-quality printing and productive high-speed printing.
2) MAPS4 delivers stable high-quality printing
Generally, swath boundaries are straight lines. Therefore, a slight misalignment between boundaries causes banding or uneven color printing. MAPS4 reduces banding and uneven color printing with blurred boundaries similar to gradation printing.
■MAPS4 applied
Banding and uneven color printing are reduced by scattering swath boundaries. Beautiful print image is obtained.
■No MAPS4
Bandings appear on swath boundaries. Print quality is remarkably degraded because banding is recognizable on each boundary.
3. Maximum print speed (115m2/h) achieves high productivity
The printing speed of the TS300P-1800 is enhanced by a four in-line printhead arrangement. To achieve a user’s desired print quality and speed, a wide range of printing modes are provided, from the draft mode (which operates at a maximum speed of 115m2/h) to the high-quality printing mode.
4. Uninterrupted printing solutions
Ink and media shortage, clogged nozzles, and other minor problems influence stable productivity. The TS300-1800 fully supports continuous printing with reliable technologies.
1) NCU automatically detects and recovers clogged nozzles
Clogged nozzles are detected automatically by monitoring ink droplets with sensors. When clogged nozzles are located, these are automatically cleaned, reducing waste printing. Nozzles are checked per transfer file.
2) NRS for maintaining productivity
If the clogged nozzles are not recovered after cleaning through the NCU function, the NRS selects substitute nozzles and then restarts printing. This is a significant novelty, since previously, when nozzle cleaning fails, the printhead has to be repaired by a technician, and the printing operation ceases until the printhead is repaired. The NRS allows the printer to continue printing without interruption by using non-defective nozzles as substitutes for defective nozzles until the technician arrives.*5
*5: NRS may not be activated depending on print modes.
3) MBIS3 for long-time continuous printing
Large volume ink packs (2 liters) can be installed in the MBIS3; this enables long-time continuous printing and reduced operating costs.
5. High-performance RIP software TxLink3 Lite
1) Color replacement
Desired colors can be represented by specifying the ink volume of each ink color.
①Create desired colors
When the printed color differs from that expected, the color replacement function enables a user to specify the desired printing color as the target color. This function is useful for reproducing corporate colors.
②Easy to create different color data
With the TxLink3 Lite, colors are easily replaced on vector and raster data.
2) Step and repeat
Large seamless patterns can be produced from a single image, including repeat and mirror patterns.
3) Multicolor ICC profile creation
ICC profiles can be created simply to match a target color by following the wizard.
◎Specifications
| TS300P-1800 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Printhead | On-demand piezo head （4 in-line printheads） | |
| Print resolution | 360 dpi, 540 dpi, 720 dpi, 1,080 dpi | |
| Maximum print width | 1,940 mm (76.4 in) | |
| Maximum media width | 1,950 mm (76.8 in) | |
| Ink | Type/Color | Sb410（Bl, M, Y, K, Lbl, Lm） |
| Package size | 2L Ink pack | |
| Media thickness | 1.0 mm or less | |
| Rolled media weight | 40 kg (88 lb) or less | |
| Certifications | VCCI class A, FCC class A, ETL UL 60950-1, CE Marking (EMC, Low voltage, Machinery directive, and RoHS), CB, REACH, Energy Star, RCM |
|
| Interface | USB 2.0 Hi-speed / Ethernet 1000BASE-T | |
| Power supply | Single-phase AC100 – 120V / AC200 – 240V | |
| Power consumption | （AC100V）1.44kW / （AC200V）1.92kW | |
| Operational environment | Temperature: 20 – 30 °C (68 – 86 °F) Humidity: 35 – 65% Rh (Non condensing) |
|
| Dimensions (W × D × H) | 3,200 x 850 x 1,857 mm (126 x 33.4 x 73.1 in ) | |
| Weight | 213 kg (469.6 lb) | |
Note: Data in the above specifications are subject to change without notice.
◎Contact
Mimaki Engineering Co., Ltd.
Global Marketing Department
Postal code: 389-0512
Address: 2182-3 Otsu Shigeno Tomi, Nagano, Japan
Tel: +81-(0)268-64-2281, Fax: +81-(0)268-64-2285
Mimaki Singapore Pte. Ltd.
31 Kaki Bukit Road 3, #02-03 TechLink,
Singapore 417818
Tel: (+65) 6508 2789