Trends at Fespa Berlin – Part 1

This year’s Global Fespa trade show took place in Berlin, which felt fitting in this time of international uncertainty, given that Berlin lies right at the heart of modern Europe, with the city rebuilt out of the ashes of the Second World War, and then rebuilt again after the Cold War.

The wide format market is also undergoing its transformation, so the Fespa shows give us a good snapshot of what is happening in this market. The show felt more lively to me than last year’s outing to Amsterdam, which, to some extent, was overshadowed by drupa. That said, it didn’t feel busy in terms of visitor numbers and it was easy to move quickly from one hall to the next. But there did seem to be a greater sense of purpose among visitors, with more pressing questions about products, at least judging by the conversations that I overheard in passing.

Quite a few vendors announced new products, but since wide format is now a very mature market, these were mostly updates to existing equipment. Most vendors now have a very diverse portfolio so any new products were mainly about rounding out their full range rather than about addressing new trends. That said, it was interesting to see which aspects of their range each vendor chose to highlight.

Among all the new printers, product updates and general hype, it seems to me that there were two main themes for the show. The first of these was for bigger, higher volume presses, as print service providers look to consolidate their printer fleet and streamline their processes to squeeze out every last efficiency saving they can.

This chimes also with the findings from IT Strategies, with Marco Boer, vice president at IT Strategies, saying that the market for buying new wide format machines is struggling, particularly at the lower end. He told me, “There is so much consolidation in the marketplace that the big guys are consuming so much of the market and that is hitting purchases for the smaller companies.” He says that wide format has been a replacement market for a long time, as existing customers upgrade their equipment, so this may be indicative of the confidence in the marketplace.

Fujifilm, for example, has a broad range of relatively new wide format printers but its main stand was dominated by a single press, the new Acuity Ultra Hybrid Pro. Fujifilm also marketed the new HS3000 single-pass press, which was too big to bring to the show. I have already covered both of these in a separate story, but these sorts of high volume devices are indicative of where of many wide format print service providers are going.

This theme was also echoed by Agfa, which brought along two new press variants — the Onset Panthera FB3216 flatbed, which is one step below a single-pass machine; and the Tauro XUHS, which offers a combination of productivity and flexibility. Both were shown with robotic systems for fully automated loading and unloading. Overall, there were a lot of automated loading and particularly unloading systems, for both printers and cutting tables, as vendors seek to squeeze the most productivity out of their systems.

Otherwise, as I have already noted, most of the new announcements were mainly vendors rounding out their portfolio. Durst, for example, opted against bringing the high-volume Super Multi-Pass prototype that it showed at last year’s drupa. Instead, Durst filled in gaps in its P5 portfolio, with Christophe Gamper, managing director and co-owner of Durst, stating, “The graphics market for us is the P5 family.”

The most notable of these was a new 5.2m wide dye sublimation printer, the P5 500 Tex iSub. This feature integrates inline fixation and is designed for soft signage such as exhibition graphics. Peter Bray, managing director for Durst UK and Ireland, says, “We have a number of customers in the UK that are interested in the 5m iSub.” He says it’s a niche market, noting: “But it’s quite a benefit for that marketplace. And we are quite fortunate that there are not many competitors in that market with inline heating.”

Durst also showed the P5 X flatbed, which it announced earlier in the year. It will take boards up to 3.2 x 2.1 m and up to 70 mm thick. It uses Ricoh printheads and can produce up to 110 sqm/hr. It uses LED UV inks. The standard configuration is for CMYK, but there is space for up to ten channels. The choice of colors includes lights, fluorescents, orange and violet for extending gamut, plus white, varnish and primer. There’s also a roll-to-roll option to convert it into a hybrid.

Bray says that the P5X will sell very well in the UK market, adding, “For certain applications, having a dedicated bed gives customers the confidence to use those substrates. He continues, “The P5-350 HS is our flagship product and that’s from the P5 family. It’s been out for four and a half years but it continues to be one of our most successful products.”

Durst also showed off the LF430 textile printer, which resulted from its acquisition of Aleph. This is aimed at both soft signage and fabric decoration. It’s available in two versions, with the GT models designed to print to transfer papers while the GF models are for fabrics, with a choice of sublimation and pigment inks. There are three sizes, starting with the 1.8 m wide LF400-GT, up to the 3.2 m wide LF430 that was shown in Berlin. It uses Kyocera printheads, with up to six channels. and has a top speed of 1000 sqm/hr. Durst is also in the process of establishing a new center in Como, Italy, to oversee this range. Bray says that the service and support will come from the European headquarters.

Gamper stated, “I think we are one of the fastest growing brands in the US with Vanguard,” before adding, “But we will fade out the European distribution of Vanguard.” I think that was inevitable as Vanguard makes more sense in the price-sensitive US market as a local supplier. In Europe, Vanguard simply risked denting Durst’s hard-won reputation as a premium vendor.

EFI showed off the mid-range of its portfolio. Ken Hanulec, EFI’s vice president of worldwide marketing, says that display graphics is moving more towards the textile business, noting, “The lines are getting blurred now and we support that.” He pointed out that EFI has a wide-ranging portfolio, saying, “The family is based on price and profitability, and they all serve a purpose, from single pass, hybrid, roll-to-roll and flatbed. We look to do a full product refresh in our portfolio.”

This included the new mid-range 3.2 m hybrid printer, the M3h, shown for the first time in Europe. This is a replacement to the old GS-series and can take board, sheet, or rolled media up to 5.08 cm thick. It prints CMYK plus white, and there’s an optional clear ink. It can print multiple layers up to five in a single pass.

EFI showed off an upgraded version of its 30f flatbed, the new 30f+, which offers a flatbed alternative to the M3h hybrid. The 30f+ has a 3.05 x 2.04 metre printable area with bleed printing and can handle media up to 10 cm thick. It uses a new generation of ProGraphics+ UV LED inks, which include white ink and an optional clear.

Hanulec shared an update on the X5 Packsize Nozomi prototype that was shown at last year’s drupa, saying. “We are getting much closer to commercialization and we believe that will happen later this year.” This press can produce finished boxes but he added that customers at drupa had asked about a version to produce flat boxes, which EFI is now working on.

However, the Nozomi AQ, which will run aqueous inks, has been delayed. It’s still running at a beta site, Hanulec described the technical challenges as “not trivial.”

SwissQprint showed off its new fifth-generation flatbed printers, which were announced at the start of this year. This brings the Nyala and Impala flatbeds up to a similar specification as the flagship Kudu. That includes the option for up to ten color channels as well as a new magnetic linear drive for the head carriage. Steve Pridham, sales manager at SwissQprint UK, explained, “The magnetic drive gives us faster acceleration. It gives us more drop placement accuracy, which leads to better image quality. We have big UV LEDs and the carriage is twice as heavy as before.”

SwissQ opted to stick with Konica Minolta printheads with the standard configuration using KM1080i heads but there is an option to change these for higher resolution KM1280i heads. Pridham says that some customers prefer the older heads, “Some people don’t need the higher resolution. People who might not have an ideal print environment might find the larger drop size better. It’s a more robust head so it’s not always about quality. Sometimes speed is the ultimate aim.”

Mimaki celebrated its 50th year with a couple of new product launches. The JV200-160 is a 1.6-meter-wide roll-to-roll eco-solvent printer with a practical production speed of 17 square meters per hour. There’s also a 1.3m wide version. It uses the recently announced SS22 eco-solvent ink, which is free of GBL chemical and is said to reduce odor by approximately 40%.

Mimaki also showed off a new textile printer, the Tx330-1800, which is loaded with both textile pigment inks and dye sublimation inks so that users can easily switch between the two. In both cases, the prints require a heat fixation process, but there’s no need for any further washing. There are two versions. The standard prints to paper, but can also handle non-stretchy fabrics. The ‘B’ version incorporates a sticky belt that can handle stretchy, thick, and thin fabrics commonly used for apparel.

Mimaki has also reformulated two of its UV inks to comply with health and safety regulations. The new ELH will replace the existing LH-100 for rigid substrates and promises the same degree of scratch resistance. Its counterpart, the new ELS inks, will replace the current LUS-120 for flexible media. These new inks are completely free of SVHC – Substances of Very High Concern – as well as CMR – Carcinogenic, Mutagenic, and Reproductive – and are a response to tighter regulations in several regions. Mimaki claims that both these inks emit 30% lower odor than their predecessors.

Roland DG showed off the XP640 eco-solvent printer that it announced earlier this year, along with the latest models in its industrial Versa Object print range, including the MO-180 and the LO-640. Both use the EUV5 inkset that includes Orange and Red in addition to CMYK plus White and Gloss and primer. Roland says that this leads to a 20% improvement in color gamut compared to CMYK alone. EUV5 inks can be printed on a wide range of soft to hard materials, including plastic, paper, leather, wood, etc. Glass and metal can also be printed on by using primer ink.

The LO-640 is said to be up to three times faster than the previous CO-640i at 5sqm/hr. It has a flat bed with a printable area of 1.52m x 2.45m. It can handle objects up to 242 mm in height and 100 kg/m2 in weight.

The MO-180 is a more compact version of the desktop MO-240 that was introduced last year. It has a 458 mm x 305 mm print area, and can handle objects up to 204mm in height. The print speed is said to be up to 1.9 sqm/hr. There is an optional rotary axis unit, the machine can print on cylindrical objects such as bottles.

Epson showed off a new roll-fed printer, the SC-S8100, which is a 64-inch large format eco-solvent signage printer. It gains a new, larger PrecisionCore MicroTFP printhead so that productivity can be increased by up to 30%, depending on material type, when compared with the SC-S60600. It rounds out the range which already includes the SC-S7100, and the S9100 models.

HP also demonstrated its new latex printers, the 530, 730 and 830 series, which I’ve already written about in more detail. The most interesting of these is the entry-level hybrid, the R530, which has a print width of 1.6m. It gathered quite a lot of interest at the show and offers a very flexible solution in a small footprint. It prints six colors – CMYK plus light cyan and light magenta – as well as 2x white. Otherwise, the Latex 730 and 830 are 1.6m wide rollfed printers that offer minor updates on the older 700 and 800 series.

The second overall trend that I want to write about was more application-led, with customers looking for new products, such as DtF, that would help them generate new revenue streams. I’ll cover this in the second half of this report, which I will publish in the next day or so.