swissQprint celebrated a premiere at their Printing United booth: that of their first dedicated roll to roll printer, Karibu. In addition, the Swiss manufacturer presented their flagship flatbed printer Nyala as well as inspiring application ideas.

The new swissQprint roll to roll printer, Karibu, had its North American debut at the Printing United show in October 2019. Karibu is 133” wide and has a maximum output of 2282 square feet per hour. Sophisticated features render this roll to roll printer highly efficient and versatile. It complements the Swiss manufacturer’s range of flatbed printers which are renowned for their precision and reliability. Their flagship flatbed printer Nyala produced inspiring samples during the show. Nyala has a 126×79” print bed and produces up to 2217 square feet per hour, as speed model even 3982 square feet per hour. All swissQprint flatbed printers feature a number of add-on options.

Ingenious roll to roll solution
“When developing Karibu, we focused on providing real innovations”, explained Carmen Eicher, product manager at the swissQprint headquarters in Switzerland. “We have more than 20 years of experience in developing UV inkjet printers which defines the swissQprint DNA.”

In fact, Karibu is very efficient thanks to features like the cassette system for fast loading and changing of rolls. There is a Light Box right next to the printing area for immediate quality control of backlits. The fully integrated Mesh Kit makes full bleed and mesh printing a clean business. The dual roll option doubles productivity by processing two rolls parallel. Last but not least, a new output software enables adjustment post RIP.

Karibu uses cool LED curing. As a result, the media diversity is substantial. Processing heat-sensitive roll material is no problem at all. swissQprint has also developed a new ink set with properties optimised for roll to roll printing: flexibility, good adhesion and a large color gamut. What is more, the inks are Greenguard Gold certified. That means that printed products are even allowed into hospitals or schools.

Tried and tested flatbed printers
swissQprint flatbed printers are known to be robust, precise and versatile. Carmen Eicher said: “We have more than 1000 happy customers all over the world.” The printers have a modular design. So the user configures their device to their needs: There are nine freely configurable channels to extend the CMYK standard by light colors, white, varnish or primer. swissQprint also offers Greenguard Gold certified inks for their flatbed printers.

There is a roll to roll option to process flexible media and a board option for extra-large formats exceeding the print bed size, i.e. boards up to 126×157.5 inches. Any of the options are retrofittable. In other words, the printer is able to grow with the business and potentially becomes a multitool. It is not surprising that the Nyala model has been the most popular large format printer in its category in Western Europe for the past four years.

Inspiring applications
Visitors of the swissQprint booth saw demonstrations and inspiring application samples including texture and lenticular prints as well as effect varnish applications. All of the prints made the high precision of the Swiss made large format printers obvious. The swissQprint team pointed out that anyone who missed the show was invited to make an appointment for a personal presentation at their US showroom in Elgin, IL.