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When Michael Rahban of Evolve Imaging wanted to add a grand-format UV printer to his small shop, he really needed to do his accounting homework. He knew he was going to make a major capital investment and he wanted to make sure he would have the business to keep his new machine running at a clip to start making back some of his ROI right away.
Rahban calls his shop, Evolve Imaging, a high-end boutique large-format graphics shop. It is located in the heart of Cerritos, CA. "We are a small shop with four full-time employees. We actually have more printers than people in house. Our forte is outputting retail and trade show graphics," said Rahban.
In addition, to finding the right model to fit his business plan, he wanted a printer that was environmentally sound. "I wanted a printer that wasn't printing on solvent inks. I don't like the fumes and I don't want to deal with future health risks," he added.
Rahban reported they first saw the Jeti 3324 UV Roll to Roll (RTR) at a trade show last year and, after a demo and some discussions with the people at Gandinnovations, they purchased and installed it in October of 2006. "A big project for a major client was coming up where we needed a new printer to complete the job. So it was a good timing to get the machine in house," he said.
"What surprised me the most about the printer was that if you can keep it running eight hours per day you can easily gross five grand on it a day. This is if you have the jobs for it," he pointed out.
"The Jeti 3324 UV RTR utilizes 24 Spectra heads and environmentally friendly UV curable inks to produce one of the fastest outputs of any UV roll to roll grand-format printer on the market that I've seen thus far," said Rahban.
"The colors it outputs are really sharp. The reds are very vibrant and the blacks are deep. A take-up unit is built into the printer allows the machine to be run by a single operator, which is ideal for a small shop like ours. At the forefront of the technological enhancements is the software upgrade which can detect if any individual nozzle may be misfiring. The software will automatically compensate the saturation, safe-guarding the image output. It's a great feature," said Rahban.
He said that the Jeti 3324 UV RTR is ideal for printing on host of substrates. "We have used it on such media as reinforced vinyl, pressure sensitive vinyl, corrugated board, rigid plastics, metal sheet, paper, canvas fabrics and foam board.
"It's a beautiful machine…it's as if Porsche designed and manufactured it. So far it's proven to be very durable printer for us. The longer you run the machine the better it seems to produce. Overall it's been a solid piece of equipment," he concluded.
author: BY BILL SCHIFFNER