sun fastjet page-array (“one pass”) technology · this report has not been licensed to any...

Sun FastJetPage-Array (“One Pass”) Technology

March 2007

Nicholas M. Hellmuth

UV-Flatbed

Sun FastJet UV-Flatbed

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Please Note

CONTENTS

Copyright 2007 FLAAR

PAGE-ARRAY 1

HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENTOF THE SUN FAST JET 1

LEARNING ABOUT THE PAGE-ARRAY 2

INKJET IS GRADUALLY REPLACING TRADITIONAL PRINTING METHODS 5

COATING BEFORE PRINTING 5

CURING 6

CONTROL AREAS 6

PRINTING SAMPLES 9

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 10

PLEASE NOTE

http://www.FLAAR.org

http://www.wide-format-printers.NET

1Sun FastJet UV-Flatbed

Page-Array Technology of the FutureI use the designation “page-array” to mean that the printheads are arrayed across the entire page. So the substrate moves rapidly under the heads because the heads do not have to move back and forth. The heads are stationary, jetting ink as the paper runs underneath at a fast rate.

In the industry this is normally called one-pass printing. But I avoid the concept of “pass” altogether because a one-pass print mode means the printhead carriage moves across the paper once; you can (in theory) do one-pass printing with an Epson, Canon, or HP printer. With a Roland you can do up to 32 passes (back and forth, back and forth 16 times, so 2x16).

With a page-array there is never even a single back and no forth either! The row of printheads just jets ink when so instructed by the operator via software.

Page-array printing already occurs with the Agfa :Dotrix, which was first displayed at DRUPA 2000 under an earlier name (the.factory, “the dot factory”). Page-arrays are also used in desktop printing and are the Holy Grail for wide-format inkjet technology. Imagine a Canon wide-format printer with a series of printheads the width of the entire printer. The only reason you don’t yet see wide-format sizes with page-arrays is because of the cost of having that many heads. Plus you need a system to detect nozzles that are out and a backup replacement nozzle is required. This implies overlapping nozzles so one nozzle can replace a failed nozzle elsewhere.

You can achieve overlapping nozzles by having two rows of printheads per array, or by having printheads with nozzles in a trapezoidal pattern. You can detect nozzles out by a variety of means including having a detection system downstream so that a bad nozzle won’t leave an entire visible empty line: the first instance will be detected and a backup nozzle will cover the adjacent spot so quickly that you won’t notice the first defect. Software engineers, printhead developers, and printer system integrators have several other clever ways to handle bad nozzles, but all this development takes time (and millions in R&D funding). But the only way that inkjet printers will replace flexo and offset machines is when page-arrays are developed.

If you have a CMYK printer, then you need one array for each color. An additional array is needed for a gloss optimizer if so desired. Both Epson and HP already use two different versions of a gloss optimizer. Epson squirts this color on top of blacks so you don’t get gloss differential or bronzing. Other systems use the optimizer liquid to fill in blank unprinted spaces so their original matte surface does not stand out from areas that have ink (that are thus inherently a bit more glossy).

History of the development of the Sun FastJet

Development began about a year or so before DRUPA 2004. A small test version of the overall concept was shown at DRUPA 2004. I never found the printer but considering the size and hectic of DRUPA 2004 that does not surprise me. The current generation of the FastJet is so much improved that the original test version is no longer utilized.


Three of these Sun FastJet machines exist today:

• An alpha version installed at an alpha test site in the UK

• The beta version that I inspected at the test facility in Cambridge1.

• The first production model being built at the factory adjacent to the test facility.So I was able to see two different FastJet systems: the two more advanced models.

The beta version is now being prepared for shipment to Holland. Once it is installed I will need to inspect it in-situ to see how it is functioning in real life. In other words, is the printing company content and are they on their way to making a profit with this new technology?

I had expected that the history of development would progress forward, but when there was no FastJet in the Sun Chemical booth at FESPA ’07 in Berlin, this raised more than a few questions.

Learning about the page-arraySince I was especially interested in the page-array aspect, I looked at this portion of both printers (finished beta version and the production model still being manufactured).

Here are four views of the page-array support structures. Each yellow structure holds the array for one color.

1The Inca Digital factory is in Cambridge, England, not Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cambridge is about two hours from London’s Heathrow airport.


This is the beta version (fully functioning). This angle shows the positioning of the five yellow support structures. You can move the orange-red arm to lift out any one yellow array.

I am known on the floor looking up to see the arrangement positions of the heads. In this photo you can see the four pods of printheads.


My camera is set on JPEG in order to save memory space and make the photos easy to handle, since my interest is not to re-engineer any aspect of this printer. By the time a JPEG is downsized by Adobe Photoshop and then crunched by Adobe PDF distillation software there is not much detail left, but you notice there are six rows of nozzles per pod and each pod is overlapped so there is no line left where one pod ends and the next pod begins.


Inkjet is gradually replacing traditional printing methods

As a professor of inkjet printers, and considering that 98% of the universities around the world teach only screen printing, offset, flexo and/or gravure printing, I am both personally and professionally interested in page-array concept. This is the sole reason that I accepted the invitation from Sun Chemical to break into my visit to PMA trade show and travel all the way to the UK to learn about this breakthrough inkjet technology. Students who are graduating in the future will be getting jobs in companies that will be switching from screen printing to UV-curing flatbed inkjet printers, switching short-run offset to page-array presses such as variations on the :Dotrox, and switching from flexo to the Sun FastJet for printing on corrugated packaging.

In other words, today students are being trained to manage printshops that will either transition quickly or will go out of business. It would be the same to train students in darkroom photography and Kodachrome film today, when 85% of all professional photography is done digitally. You won’t get much of a job if you know how to run a wet darkroom but can’t handle a digital workflow.

Universities in the UK are aware of the evolution and transition to inkjet and are already revising their curriculum. Universities in the US are slower to recognize the impending demise of old-fashioned traditional screen, offset, and flexo printing.

Coating before printing

This week they are testing various concentrations of primer. The corrugated material is coated in-line and printed down line immediately.


Curing

This system uses a nitrogen blanket to overcome oxygen inhibition.

Control areas

There are LCD monitors (and emergency stop buttons) at the “front” and at the “back” (input end). This is the post beta unit.


There are LCD monitors (and emergency stop buttons) at the “front” and at the “back” (input end). This is the post beta unit.

This is the main operator area. This is the input end on the beta unit.


Printing Samples

An entire day was dedicated to learning as much as possible about the Sun FastJet. In addition to the visit to the factory itself, hours were devoted to discussing key aspects of the current and future potential of this kind of inkjet technology.


When you are printing on corrugated material, even when pre-coated, you get the results you expect on this kind of material. Colors are conditioned not only on the background (whether white or brown) but color is impacted by being a UV-cured ink to begin with.

Summary and ConclusionsIf you are considering buying a 3-million dollar printer, you should consider several steps:

• Visiting a trade show where the machine is present.

• Visit the factory.

• Visit a demo site

• And get the FLAAR Reports to check on all three.

As soon as the beta machine is in the beta site and producing corrugated packaging on a daily basis we will need to visit this location in order to finish our report.

Visiting a trade show is a helpful introduction; even if the FastJet is not present (you can appreciate that it’s not easy to move a machine this size to a trade show). But at a trade show you can see and learn about general UV-curing inkjet technology. This is sort of homework before you visit the factory.


By “factory visit” what you really should seek is three aspects: •Seeing the production line, or in this case, the building of a single unit. •Experience a print run •Receive a general background from the pertinent Sun managers.

Overall view of the system: printer at the left; electronics at the right.

The back of the printing unit.


The output end of the post beta unit.

The input end.


This is a photo-essay to document the visit to inspect the Sun FastJet. The next step was intended to be a visit the beta-site about a month after the printer has already been installed. Then we could issue an actual evalua-tion/review as a full-scale FLAAR Reports.

During our visit to the factory in the UK, a visit to this beta-site was discussed. It was to be scheduled before FESPA ’07 so that we could have our results ready by then. But in the months after the factory visit, no further news was forthcoming. Nothing on the results of the installation, and no visit whatsoever.

Since FESPA ’07 is the largest UV-curable inkjet printer trade show in the world (other than upcoming DRUPA), I figured that there would be at least a banner showing the printer at life-size. Or at least some buzz on the show floor.

Not a peep. Not one industry consultant or colleague mentioned it. There were so many new UV printers at FESPA that there was not time to visit a booth that was empty of actual printers, so there was no time to ask in the Sun booth what had happened to the beta test.

In the meantime there are lots of other interesting new UV printing technologies. The time we had scheduled to visit the Sun FastJet beta site in May, we spent productively at the Zund factory in Switzerland and the week before that at NUR Macroprinters and other high-tech companies throughout Israel.

The Internet is filled with PR releases stating that the FastJet will be commercially viable by 2005! The silence on how the beta test site is doing naturally raises questions. It will take more than a PR blitz and Success Sto-ries to provide a serious independent evaluation. Hopefully in the future I can report that the patient is recover-ing and will survive and prosper.

Most recently updated June 18, 2007, after FESPA ’07.

First issued Spring 2006.

Copyright 2007 FLAAR

sun fastjet page-array (“one pass”) technology · this report has not been licensed to any...

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