This is Frank Ramono from WhatTheyThink.com. I’m here in Canada at one of the first installations of the M-Press from Agfa; the largest inkjet press in the world. Notice the sheet is now coming in, it’s getting aligned. I’m going to move very quickly to come around here to show you how it gets printed because now the sheet is going to come in here and when it does you’ll see that it makes two passes and prints the entire sheet. Now this is an 80 inch plus sheet that’s going through here and it can be thin material or it can be big material. So here we go, watch this. This is amazing. Comes across, now it prints. Look at that. Its five feet by eight feet. Again, that can be thin material that you’re going to mount or it can be material. I’m going to move very fast now, come around to this side because it’s now going through a curing station in here and now it’s going to come out at this point over here momentarily. There it is. You can see it coming through here. Now out this side; ready to go.
Now the company we’re in right now is the Middleton Group just north of Toronto and they do signage and lot of this material gets printed on foam cord. In fact, if you look over here, there’s a ton of I think that’s foam cord over there that they’re probably ready to print at some point in time as the machine goes through its shakedown period. So this is the most amazing machine in terms of printing large format inkjet or signage or presentation materials. It’s just an absolutely, unbelievable machine. There are several of them in Canada and a handful in the United States but the number continues to grow as printers are looking for something that gives them an edge. And the ability to print on a sheet this big certainly is an edge.
Discussion
By Steve Bush on Apr 04, 2011
To bad this does play on the iPad, I will have to make time to boot up and see if I have the time.Articl iPad compatibility will become more important to business communications everyday it exists.
By Steve Musselman on Apr 04, 2011
Thank you for your enthusiasm Frank.
Agfa's :M-Press Tiger is the largest member in our family of wide-format inkjet products...
http://www.agfa.com/en/gs/solutions/digital_printing/index.jsp
And yes, it's AGFA, not AVCA (nor AFGA) ;-)
By Barney Cox on Apr 04, 2011
Is AVCA a subsidiary of Agfa?
By Dov Isaacs on Apr 04, 2011
To Steve Bush. Don't blame WhatTheyThink.com for the inability to see this video and much other content on an iPad. Complain to "St. Steve the Infallible of Cupertino" who made the explicit choice to block large amounts of web content for purely non-technical reasons!
By Jeffrey Reardon on Apr 04, 2011
Where is this M-Press Tiger info on the Agfa link from Steve Musselman?
By Jeff Lewis on Apr 04, 2011
You can find info on the M-Press Tiger here:
http://www.agfa.com/en/gs/products_services/all_products/mpress_tiger.jsp
thanks!
Jeff Lewis
By Jeff Lewis on Apr 04, 2011
You can find info on the M-Press Tiger here:
http://www.agfa.com/en/gs/products_services/all_products/mpress_tiger.jsp
thanks!
Jeff Lewis
By Tony Karg on Apr 05, 2011
Frank, nice to hear you are back in Canada again. While printing a large format graphic on the M-Press is impressive, equally or even more impressive is the Inca Onset. The first Onset was introduced in 2007, and prints up to 180 full size (5’ x 10’) sheets per hour. Onset has four times the number of installations in Canada, relative to M-Press and WTT.com just ran the announcement of the latest addition to the Onset family, the S40, today.
http://whattheythink.com/news/50081-inca-digital-launches-inca-onset-s40-wide-format-uv-printer/
While I'll admit bias as Fujifilm is the exclusive representative from Inca technology in Canada, we'd be more than happy to demonstrate Onset technology to you upon your next trip to Canada as a basis of comparison to your M-Press experience. I think all printers would benefit from seeing you do a follow up report about all the players in the high speed wide format inkjet market, as this market represents an opportunity for growth and profit for many printers.
By Frank Romano on Apr 05, 2011
Tony
The same site that had the Agfa MPress also had an Inca Onset. It ran so fast they put traffic cones around it to keep visitors at a distance. There is certainly a market for both printers and I am not sure they really compete with one another.
Frank
By Tony Karg on Apr 05, 2011
Frank, Middleton has an Inca Columbia Turbo. That is the predecessor technology to the Inca Onset family. Onset includes three models: S70 which tops out at the 120 beds speed I referenced; S40, the newest member I mentioned in the WTT.com link; and the S20. All three are significantly different that the Columbia Turbo in terms of functionality and performance. Unlike the Inca Columbia Turbo, all three Onset family products offer automation, gloss / matte finish and levels of productivity well beyond what you may have seen. There is a site not 20 minutes from Middleton that has both an S70 and S20. I'm certain upon your next trip to Canada, they'd be happy to let you into the site so you can accurately compare the technologies.
By Luke Princeton on Apr 07, 2011
A large printing company in the UK has both, Onset and Mpress. The systems are not competing with one another. This smart printing company is using both. Yes, the productivity of the Mpress is higher, it was running full 3 shifts with minor down time.
The Onset was doing lower volume jobs and was not running all the time.
Their primary printing system was the Agfa system. Not sure if the reason for this is productivity or cost of print.
Discussion
Only verified members can comment.