Kalispel
New Member
I spent the day wandering through Printing United. We are going to buy a UV flat bed printer for a niche application. I went to the show because my experience is in metals processing and I know next to nothing about printing. I got useful information and saw a few other interesting things but my overall impression is the industry has consolidated to the point that there is no innovation. Everybody has a Chinese-made mechanical frame with an array of Ricoh or Kyocera print heads strapped to a flatbed, roll feeder or garment frame. It seems the only differentiators are customer support and maybe reliability of the overall assembly.
There were some impressive displays like a monster machine printing 4x8 panels in 18 seconds but it was still just a big cluster of Kyocera print heads moving fast on a generic gantry.
Some of the images are spectacular but I’m not sure the quality differences can really be appreciated by normal people. I had a folks try to show me why their print was better but I really could not see it. The line between stunning vivid color and unbelievable incredible color is kind of blurry to me. Any of the printers would meet our needs for image quality.
Textured printing is interesting and somewhat innovative but it does not seem to get much attention.
The show is probably most useful for people looking for sources of tchotchke to print on or second-tier print supplies.
Are there new technical capabilities would you guys and gals like to see in the future?
There were some impressive displays like a monster machine printing 4x8 panels in 18 seconds but it was still just a big cluster of Kyocera print heads moving fast on a generic gantry.
Some of the images are spectacular but I’m not sure the quality differences can really be appreciated by normal people. I had a folks try to show me why their print was better but I really could not see it. The line between stunning vivid color and unbelievable incredible color is kind of blurry to me. Any of the printers would meet our needs for image quality.
Textured printing is interesting and somewhat innovative but it does not seem to get much attention.
The show is probably most useful for people looking for sources of tchotchke to print on or second-tier print supplies.
Are there new technical capabilities would you guys and gals like to see in the future?
