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3M
Scotchprint 2000 electrostatic printer
 3M
is one of only two remaining companies which still market
an electrostatic printer for large format.
3M
is better known for its weather-resistent media for large
format printers,
for outdoor signage. 3M also markets the Cactus
RIP, a Macintosh based RIP for HP
and other large format inkjet printers. If you are considering
an electrostatic printer you might wish to find out what other
printers are available by asking for the appropriate FLAAR
report, listed below.
It
was amusing to read the ads which touted electrostatic as
"the future of digital printing." In point of fact,
sales of electrostatic printing have collapsed to the point
that Xerox quit several years ago and does not even bother
to provide adequate service to all the Versetec and ColorgrafX
machines that it did manage to sell. Phoenix's modest priced
electrostatic printer failed in the marketplace. The company
went bankrupt.
Yes,
electrostatic output is low cost, and fast. But quality is
questionable when compared to all the advances in inkjet technology.
Besides, the Scotchprint Printer 2000 can go only up to 54"
which is rather miserly considering that the Hewlett-Packard
can handle a full 60" and the ColorSpan
goes to 72" in width. Besides, electrostatic printers
cost a bundle to purchase. For speed, however, they are very
fast. Too bad there is not enough sales to justify enough
research and development to result in breakthroughs in increasing
the quality and lowering the cost. Without better print quality
and lower cost these printers are destined to go the way of
the dodo bird (and the way of CrystalJet, an excellent technology
but a failure in manufacturing, marketing and acceptance).
As
an example of what an electrostatic printer is capable of,
Specialty Toner Corporation has tweaked performance out of
their RasterGraphics
electrostatic printer that is better than the output of a
300 dpi Encad (and Encad
sold almost 50,000 of those models). One observation about
electrostatic printers, every time we visit a print shop which
has one, the electrostatic printers are printing 8 hours a
day and making a profit for the sign shop. But that is because
they already have these printers for many years. This is not
the kind of printer you want to add to your shop if you don't
already have these years of background specifically with electrostatic.
Besides, you need dye sub transfer equipment because that's
what e-stat is used for: printing on paper for subsequent
transfer. What are the options? FLAAR offers an entire series
of publications on options for the year 2003 to build and
grow a sign shop.
Download the FREE Previews |
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All
reports by Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth |
UPDATED:
July 06/2001, last updated May 25, 2003
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