News, and previous news released

SignAfrica, South Africa 2011

August 4, 2011. Updated August 31, 2011.

Nicholas attended SignAfrica as invited guest, and lectured on printing on innovative materials other than PVC and foam board.

Dr Hellmuth presented two lectures in Johannesburg during this late August expo: one on Inks that print on anything and everything: Reality Check (but yes, they are really magic inks).

How to survive with a print shop

When low-bid banners and billboards evaporate your profit

What YOU can still print, to stay in business (and prosper). In other words, there is more than signage that you can print, if you have the appropriate printer and learn the workflow.

This lecture will discuss Jetbest ink, Sepiax ink, and Hongsam wallpaper ink.

A second lecture discussed printing on glass.

FLAAR Reports takes pleasure in announcing that Nicholas will be speaking at the Sign Africa Expo Conference about "Printing on Glass: Discussion of workflow and many kinds of ink that work on glass".

While at SignAfrica Nicholas will be making a list of all inks and all distributors who offer inks and media.

Plus a list of all textile printers. And a list of all flatbed cutters manufactured in Europe, North America or Japan (such as Kongsberg, Zund, Aristo and comparable quality).

We will also update our FLAAR Reports on wide-format inkjet distributors in South Africa.

New reports from FLAAR will cover all Chinese-made printers which use Epson DX5 and DX7 printheads.

The FLAAR Report on SignAfrica will, as every year, also feature all the UV-cured printer brands and models, plus the major brands of solvent printers.

The major publication will be on TRENDs, including whether MEMJET is a functional printhead technology, or just a PR hype like Foveon (a digital sensor that was 100% PR releases and less than 3% substance). CrystalJet ten years ago, and the Kodak 5260 printer were other ¨¨fabulous technologies" that survived only in PR releases, sham reviews, and dubious ´´Success Stories.¨ A printer of insignificant size with MEMJET printheads was at SignAfrica in a miscellaneous booth.

Three from FLAAR were at the two simultaneous Spring expos in China

March 1, 2011; updated March 9th.

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D-PES 2011 in Dongguan and Sign China Expo in Guangzhou the same week (last week). For the first time in industry history we are making lists of all the Chinese printers which utilize Lexmark, Lenovo, and Epson printheads (so printers other than Mimaki, Mutoh, and Roland).

Plus FLAAR will produce one of the first comprehensive lists of all after-market inks available from China (yes, we are aware of the situation for third-party inks; but we have visited the ink factories of three inks so far so can begin to tell the difference between different brands).

Click to zoom Here is Nicholas in the inauguration ceremony.

Today was hosted by Lawrence Chung, to visit his CrystalJet headquarters in Guangzhou (third largest city in China) and then to headquarters of his other firm, Gateway. Very informative. FLAAR Reports can provide better tips about printers and inks because we have access to personal inspection of the actual companies.

Consulting Services from FLAAR Reports in Australia

March 24, 2011

For any distributor or print shop owner, manager or printer operator in Australia, who would like an opporunity for consulting services in Australia, Dr Nicholas Hellmuth will be there for several days this spring. Visual Impact Expo, Sydney, Australia, and PrintEx11, co-located with Visual Impact, both 4 to 6 May is the opportunity. If you wish or need Dr Hellmuth to visit your printshop, or visit your company (if you wish help in deciding which printer or other part of the workflow to consider), contact FrontDesk@FLAAR.org and ask for the consulting brochure.

Lots worth seeing at ISA sign expo.

April 4, 2011

Every year for a over a decade I have attended ISA, and for the first time, FLAAR will have a booth here. ISA is a good place to see the entire workflow: inks, media, cutters, coaters in addition to printers.

FLAAR at FESPA Americas + Graphics of the Americas (GoA)

February, 2011

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FLAAR was at FESPA Americas and Graphics of the Americas (GOA), 24-26 February, 2011 in Orlando. FLAAR was at booth 1807 at FESPA Americas and Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth will be lecturing at GoA and FESPA Americas.

Lectures at GoA:

Feb 24: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM (New Technologies in Wide Format Printers)
Feb 25: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM ( Wide Format Opportunities with resin ink Technology)

Lectures at FESPA

Feb 25: 3:00 - 4:00 Cartón con estructura de nido de abeja: Materiales innovadores y amigables con el medio ambiente (Honeycomb sandwich board: Re-board (Design Force), Falconboard (Hexacomb Pregis), etc.)

Feb 26: 12:00 - 1:00 Impresión sobre todo tipo de materiales: La impresión decorativa para sobresalir ante su competencia (Printing on everything. Beyond signage: print decor to get ahead of your competition.)

If your expo or conference elsewhere in the world would like Dr Hellmuth to speak, he can lecture in Spanish, German, and English.

First major international trade show of the year was in Dubai, Jan 24-26, 2011

January 7, 2011

Every year FLAAR is flown to Dubai by the expo organizers. Some years to lecture; other years as VIP guest, and for 2011 Dr Nicholas Hellmuth is also head of the team to select the best signage in Dubai: best inkjet prints; best LCD or LED signage; and best booth display at SGI Sign and Graphics Imaging expo.

We show here the exhibitor list for UV-cured printers for last year,plus the first report for 2011 . Here is also the Distributor List. For 2011 there will be year 2011 updates of both these, plus a new list of after-market inks and list of substrates and media distributors for Dubai.

These reports can be ordered via PayPal, Credit Card or invoice with bank transfer.

For the upcoming expo this year, FLAAR will also have a booth in Dubai for the first time.

Sepiax

Every ink type is good for some applications but can't print on other substances. The first ink that can print on “everything” was UV-cured. But, this ink requires expensive curing lamps. And UV ink works best in expensive printheads. In comparison, the wholesale value of an Epson head is probably less than $300!

So ink company after ink company has tried to produce an ink that is as useful as UV-cured but does not have the downsides.

Then a company in Austria revealed that they have been discretely creating an even more innovative new ink, named Sepiax AquaRes, a resin water-based ink. FLAAR spent about 16 months researching this ink and our report came out a few months ago.

FLAAR at SGIA 2010, Las Vegas, Nevada

November 12, 2010

We were at SGIA trade show in Las Vegas Convention Center. Also we had a booth.

During this year FLAAR had the opportunity to have booths in other trade shows such as FESPA Mexico 2010.

We look forward to having a booth at SGIA 2011.

Latex ink after-market

November 12, 2010

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Almost 4000 latex ink printers have been sold worldwide and many people have asked for a FLAAR evaluation. But there are so many new UV-cured and new Sepiax printers coming out that our staff have been booked solid. Plus we need access to be able to study the latex ink printer in-person. Finally this access was possible so Dr Hellmuth flew to Singapore to spend several days in front of an L25500 that has been in a printshop now for several months. Our evaluation provides actual factual knowledge of this printer.

But most importantly, this report is based on user-experiences; so this FLAAR Report is not about how greenwashing latex ink is; and as you would expect of a FLAAR Report, this is not the kind of Success Story that a PR agency would dare release. The new review should be finished in one or two weeks. Plus, this unique perspective comments on whether, or not, after-market latex ink functions in the L25500.

Eco-Solvent Printers, Mild-Solvent Printers

We cover these Mutoh, Mimaki, Roland, and Seiko ColorPainter printers primarily on our sister site, Large-format-printers.org. We bring information on eco-solvent printers from ISA and other signage trade shows. We have three new titles on the Roland SolJet, based on three different site-visit case studies. We also cover Mutoh, HP 9000s, HP 8000s, and all the mild-solvent printers too (pros and cons with warnings about misleading advertising claims). We are updating our coverage of the Mutoh Toucan LT and its hybrid flatbed also.

However since we at FLAAR are professional photographers, come from an architectural background, and are dedicated to fine art giclee, we ourselves still have a deep interest in the new generations of water-based printers. So we find the new aqueous-based resin ink chemisty exciting. However even with the advent of Sepiax resin water-based inks, there are still printshops for whom a Seiko ColorPainter, Mutoh, Mimaki, or Roland solvent printer are a valid option to look at.

It is all ink

If you understand what inks are being tested in ink labs around the world you can prepare for competition. If half the world sticks with solvent inks (of all flavors), you can offer services in your city that your competitors can't match if you have learned from FLAAR, before your competitors, what new inks will offer an advantage as we move into autumn and winter 2010.

FLAAR acquires HP Z3200 ps to evaluate

Here at FLAAR we either inspect a printer inside a photo studio or giclee atelier or a printshop, or we test the printer ourselves in-house. For larger printers and for textile printers we test them in demo rooms at the factory (since there are too many printers to realistically expect to have them all in-house).

But for the HP Designjet Z3200 ps Photography, we are doing in-house testing. Here is a shot of Nicholas checking the installation. The printer arrived on October 2009 and we had the first comments on the Z3200 out within one week.