Milwaukee, Wis. – MCT recently reported the success of its First Annual Symposium: “Innovations in Textile Finishing,” on February 1-2, 2018 at MCT’s headquarters in Downtown Milwaukee. This inaugural yearly event was part of MCT’s mission to be the innovative source of information for the digital finishing segment of the grand format print marketplace. As a follow up, we want to introduce to the market the importance of continuing Innovation and what MCT has accomplished in 5 short years since introducing the VersaTech product line.

Innovation comes in many forms in the solutions becoming available for the grand format industry. Interestingly, technology that we take for granted, such as digital flatbed cutters, which can be used by grand format printing companies for 10-15 years before replacing them, can see a time where major innovations take place almost all at once. Such is the case with MCT Digital’s VersaTech2.

It is a full platform that includes capabilities not found anywhere else in the market. VersaTech2 incorporates:
A unique patent-pending dual laser and traditional cutting belt technology that allows a single system to be utilized for laser cutting and etching of rigid materials, and laser cutting and sealing of fabric/textiles plus all of the routing and cutting features normally found on such cutters. Changeover is in minutes and requires no extraordinary actions by employees.
It accomplishes this with full conveying for both rigid and flexible/rolled materials while reaching speeds of 78” per second and 1.5G acceleration with full accuracy.

Updated kiss-cutting, oscillating and driven wheel tools have been added to increase throughput by a factor of 2-3 times.
A new Horizontally mounted laser allows for a 30% improvement in the cutting speed for textiles while still allowing for accurate cutting and etching of rigid materials.
Inclusion of a new 5 kW, 50,000 RPM, router that allows the system to accomplish routing at more than twice the speed of its earlier systems, while allowing for larger bits (8mm vs. 6mm) and may be ordered with a new automated 6 bit tool changer, significantly improving throughput when there are multiple router bits required for a single job.

Along with the new routing capability, MCT has also recently began shipping its 2nd generation board feeder, a heavy-duty unit that allows for handling of boards up to 60 lbs. without the necessity to change suction cups for different types of materials from cardboard to heavy woods.

It includes full integration with a heavy duty motorized fabric roll-off capability matched to the conveying speed of the table. This means that there is virtually no possibility of stretch, which causes inaccurate cutting of the fabric, especially for those fabrics that are not laserable, and are better cut by a driven wheel or knife.

System lengths from 1.6M to 3.2M to 4.8M with full conveying for both laser and mechanical cutting, plus flatbed capabilities to 9.6M or even larger are standard products, not custom ones.

Integration of the first major new Vision System, since MCT’s founder, Steen Mikkelsen, invented i-cut® vision back in 1999. TigerVision™, developed by the same team that developed i-cut®, incorporates the simplest and most innovative graphical user interface in the marketplace, plus has a patent-pending set of further innovations that will allow for significant speed-up on the capture of register marks in the 2nd half of 2018, in a way that no other vision system is capable to achieve. Especially on smaller jobs with many marks, this should improve performance by about 30%.

Looking at the competitive marketplace, there is no other solution for flatbed cutting that can handle and cut virtually any material that can be printed (although it can only etch ceramic, stainless steel and rocks) at industry expected speeds and accuracies, with full automation capability, integration with the industry’s standard RIPS including QR code integration for automatic job recognition, true shape nesting, parametric modeling software for packaging and POP displays and the industry’s only true Cut Time Estimating software that can handle accurate estimates for quoting where the actual job image in not yet available, and from the job PDF for production costing and scheduling.

Lastly, MCT has been upgrading its customer base from i-cut to TigerVision with incredible acceptance of its features and no one going back to the prior vision software. It is also making available an upgrade program to allow early users to achieve all the improvements in performance, through upgrades to their earlier VersaTech systems including upgrading to the new VersaTech2 motion system.

Over a short period of 1 year, MCT Digital’s VersaTech2 is providing more innovation and improvements than have occurred in the prior 15 years or more. Now that’s INNOVATION! With the capabilities of the VersaTech2 every grand format printer looking to add to or start a flatbed finishing operation should look carefully at what this innovation can do for them rather than just making the “safe” choice from a long-standing vendor.

See us at ISA Sign Expo in Orlando, Florida - March 22-24, 2018! 

MCT Digital at Booth #5835 & CutGuru.com at Booth #4928.