A large-format printer (or simply a “wide” printer) is a printer with the ability to print on sheets of “wide” formats, such as A0, A1, A2 and A3, which are two or more times wider than the most used A4. Some sources suggest printers for printing on sheets over 24 inches wide. Some individual models can print on sheets up to five meters wide.
Printing Technologies
Large format printing is carried out on various types of printers: inkjet, electrographic, thermal transfer, photon.
Depending on the type of ink used, inkjet large-format printers allow printing on a very wide range of materials. The width of such printers can reach 5 meters. Inkjet printers use the following basic types of ink:
- Water soluble: the print head of the printer uses water-based ink.
Print media has a special ink-absorbing coating. The prints are usually not waterproof and fade quickly. To extend the life of the print, an additional lamination with transparent films is used.
- Solvent: the print head of the printer uses a solvent ( solvent ) as a liquid base.
Media is usually coated with PVC. The prints are waterproof and the service life before fading (on the street) reaches 3 years. To extend the service life, an additional coating is used with liquid varnishes that block the ultraviolet component of the sun.
- Ultraviolet : Special UV curable inks are used for printing. The polymerization process of such inks occurs under the influence of UV radiation. This allows you to print (depending on the design of the printer) both on flexible materials - fabrics and non-woven materials, and on rigid sheet materials - tin, glass, wood, plastics.
- Latex - ink is cured by crystallization of water under the influence of high temperature on the print from 110 to 160 ° C. Images are plastic and resistant to mechanical and chemical influences. There is no smell, because there is no evaporation. Limited to printing on materials resistant to heat, the main competitors are eco-solvent and UV printers.
Large-format electrographic printing devices are laser printers of large widths, up to 91 cm. They are used in cartography, printing of drawings and advertising posters. Print on plain paper. Differ in high speed of the press.
Photonic wide-format devices expose the laser beam on photo paper. Low speed, the highest quality full-color printing, low cost, very large resource 10 000-15 000 hours of work.
In thermal transfer large format printers, printing is done by a thermal print head. The dye is fed on a film carrier in rolls, the so-called thermal transfer tape in cassettes. The thermal head together with the transfer ribbon cassette of the same color moves along the surface of the material and the dye is transferred to the surface by heating. Printing is carried out sequentially in four primary colors with automatic change of cassettes. Material for printing is usually a self-adhesive PVC film. It is usually combined with a cutting plotter, all in one device, for contour cutting of printed stickers. Width reaches 120 cm, resolution up to 600 dpi. They are used in advertising for the manufacture of stickers, in electrical and mechanical engineering.
Special Benefits: Prints are solvent and scratch resistant. Printing can be done not only in 4 primary colors, but also in metallic, for example, gold, silver, as well as special colors - white, red, green, orange, brown, etc., which in many cases is very economical. You can also print on color films, for example, on a red film in white. Disadvantage: the high cost of the print.
See also
- Paper
- Whatman
- Plotter