Kick-started by a need for new business in the pandemic, Eltham first bought a Xenons R180 from RSR, the Chinese OEM’s sole UK distributor in 2020.

From this standing start, Eltham Digital has grown its signage business to now account for half of its total revenues, and decided that it needed a boost to its capacity.

Terry Glasscock, the company’s owner, said: “During the Covid pandemic we were being asked to produce all kinds of signage, so we could see there was demand there. 

“RSR convinced us the Xenons hybrid was the ideal machine to take on a new market as it offered high performance and versatility for a relatively low cost. They were right.”

The X180, delivered in late 2022 and running since January 2023, is of the same format as the R180 at 1.88m, but has several mechanical upgrades that will serve to boost quality for the South-East London firm.

The new machine has been upgraded with Ricoh 6 printheads rather than the R180’s Epson DX5 heads. The LED UV-cured hybrid press’ ability to print on a wide variety of substrates was of particular appeal to Glasscock.

He said: “It will print on just about anything as long as it’s less than 35mm thick,” he said.

“We produce something different every day, whether it’s point-of-sale boards, vinyl banners, outdoor signage or exhibition panels, and the Xenons machine does it all.”

“The new one is faster to run and set up, and we expect it to match the performance and reliability of the machine it is replacing. For me the best thing about the X180 is ease of use; there’s very little maintenance, and to run it, we just press ‘print’ – that’s about it.”

Xenons has been imported to the UK market by distributor RSR since 2010. Originally a darkroom equipment supplier, the firm moved into CTP machine sales before adding wide-format printing to its lists, particularly from Asian brands only recently made available to Western markets including Gibson, Xenons, Focus and iEcho.