Showing on the Roland DG stand at the three-day trade show in Birmingham’s NEC Arena, the dual Light White ink uses the same technology as the rest of Lightbar's solvent-UV ink system.

Lightbar business development director Shaun Holdom said: “Traditionally, people have bought white and it’s been a bit of a gimmick because the product itself hasn’t lived up to what people need to do. What this product does is stop you from having to wait a long time for the ink to dry. With UV technology on the white, it will dry quicker.”

The showing was the first worldwide presentation of the new ink, which joins the other solvent-UV inks in containing more colour pigment and less carrier than alternatives such as latex. Cyan, magenta, yellow and black solvent-UVs were first shown at last year’s Sign & Digital.

According to Holdom, the white ink has been in development since December 2015 and is now almost ready for commercial release.

“Because you’re printing with a white ink that is eco-solvent and has to evaporate to dry, you can’t put as much pigment in there as you would do with a UV. So we can get a good density of white and have hopefully overcome quite a lot of the obstacles that meant even though people thought white was a good idea, they never really quite went for it,” he added. 

Holdom said there had been lots of interest shown in the new ink, and footfall on the Roland DG stand at Sign & Digital had been high. 

Lightbar technology was first shown at Sign & Digital in 2013. Printers with Lightbar contain a lamp unit, which shields against UV leakage and is bolted to the front of its frame. They use low-energy UV strip lamps. Lightbar technology features on the Roland DG RF-640 printer and VS-640i print and cut printers.