The project, known as Make Aberdeen, is part-funded by the Scottish government initiative Superconnected Cities and runs in conjunction with Aberdeen City Council and Creative Scotland.
Robert Gordon chief technology officer Phil Chaplain said that at 1.2x1.2m, the printer was the biggest it could fit in its Make Aberdeen hub but the smallest in the Jetrix range. The hub, which is in a former city record shop, had to have a 2x3m pane of glass removed in order to fit the printer inside. It was refitted the following day.
The UV flatbed was installed on 11 October and was up-and-running by the end of the day.
Chaplain said: “We work closely with Metro Imaging in London and one of our alumni who works there came back up here for an exhibition, and we were talking about procurement and he suggested we get a machine of this size.
“The KX3 is so versatile and the scale of substrates that you can print on in terms of variety and thickness and quality of print make it an amazing machine.
“We are putting it into a digital ‘fablab’ type of environment, where the community, our students and local creatives can come in and have access to that type of cutting edge technology, which they would not necessarily have access to or be aware of."
The KX3, the first Jetrix to be installed in an institute of higher education, features six-picolitre drop size and is capable of 26.4sqm/hr in production mode. It comes in four colours as standard, but the university's machine is configured with the six-channel option to run CMYK plus white and varnish.
It can handle media up to 1,220x1,220mm and 70mm thick.
Make Aberdeen charges members a small membership fee and a nominal fee for access if they bring in their own materials. It also houses a host of digital kit, including a Mimaki digital textile printer, laser cutters, vinyl cutters and 3D printers.
It runs workshops and other curriculum activities for students.
Chaplain was full of praise for InkTec, the manufacturer of Jetrix machines, after he was unable to visit its site for a demo so was shown a full demonstration of the machine over Skype. He said he would buy another one if he had the money.
InkTec head of national sales Ben Woodruff said he was particularly proud of the project.
