Wide-format inkjet printers for digital wallpaper, UJET MC3 Express from DTP Link, Yuhan-Kimberly

Samples printed by UJET MC3 Express.

I tend to associate wallpaper with my grandmother’s house. Every room in the entire house had wallpaper.

In every house I have lived in since, there is rarely any wallpaper whatsoever. So clearly tastes have changed (in part due to the cost of hanging the paper). Also the repetitive designs of wallpaper may not suit your modern taste preferences.

But with digital wallpaper you can create your own colors, your own patterns, and you can avoid a pattern all together by doing a wall mural (but on wallpaper material). So today several wide-format inkjet printing companies offer solutions for digital wall coverings and digital murals on wallpaper. The wallpaper printer I know the best is that of Yuhan-Kimberly DTP Link, the UJET MC3 Express. I have seen this printer at GraphExpo and in Korea at the DTP Link demo center.

Be wary of using solvent ink printers for wallpaper

Some states may have laws about using carcinogenic ink for wallpaper that will be in a public space. So using solvent ink for wallpaper may not be a good idea.

Plus solvent-printed wallpaper may outgas with an objectionable odor for a few weeks (or longer). Some UV-cured wallpaper may also have an odor; this depends on which brand of ink and how the ink was cured. Often it will smell unbearable for a short while but then the smell will dissapate and not be as bad.

Some people may also find the smell of vinyl objectionable. Combine the smell of vinyl wall covering material with the smell of solvent ink, and you have a potentially unattractive product.

For all these reasons, it may be a good idea to look at water-based ink for printing wallpaper.

This is the UJET MC3 Express wallpaper printer.

Wallpaper materials for digital wide-format inkjet printing

Many companies now offer digital wallcovering media. The ones we know the best are:
Dreamscape, Korographics, InteliCoat, Ultraflex are a few of the many companies that offer digital wall coverings.

LexJet offers WallPro inkjet wallpaper, a latex saturated nylong reinforced wallpaper.

I know LexJet materials the best because I have been brought to their Florida headquarters twice to see their facilities and products. For the same reason I know the wallpaper printers from DTP Link the best, since Yuhan-Kimberly has opened their demo center for my inspection twice already. Yuhan-Kimberly is the Korean branch of Kimberly-Clark (makers of Kleenix and other products we all use daily). DTP Link is their division that specializes in making inks for printing on textiles with wide-format printers.

Booth of Yuhan-Kimberly DTP Link at SGIA 2008.

First posted October 30, 2008.