It officially began selling the kit yesterday and SEDO director Andy McGuinness said there had already been a lot of interest from existing clients.
McGuinness will be taking over as SEDO managing director at the end of this year when his father and SEDO founder Brian McGuinness retires.
McGuinness said that prior to the Agfa deal SEDO had only sold machines up to 1.6m-wide, but that over the past two years it had fielded an increasing number of customer enquiries for flatbeds and had been investigating the market as a result.
“I had a look through an Agfa magazine a few months ago and thought ‘I haven’t spoken to these guys yet’. I spoke to Steve Collins (AGFA UK and Ireland product and marketing manager), said we were in the marketplace, he set up a meeting and we went from there."
The range includes the 2.05m-wide H2050i and 2.5m-wide H2500i, both of which are LED hybrids.
McGuinness said: “Even though the cost is a bit more upfront, over a lifetime you save quite a lot more money, with better curing and faster speeds. It’s an advantage Agfa has over some of its competitors.”
SEDO's portfolio will also include the M2540i FB and the 3.2m-wide M3200i roll-to-roll.
McGuinness expects the 2050i will sell the best, with the 2500i also anticipated to sell well. The 2050i costs approximately £120,000 and the 2500i is around £10,000 more.
“I really like the quality of the prints produced,” added McGuinness.
“Because of our marketplace, in the public and corporate sector, clients always want a higher level of quality. We didn’t want to go for something in the economy range. I was blown away by the speed they can print at whilst still maintaining high quality.”
The six-channel 2500i and 2050i have a maximum speed of 115sqm/h and 90sqm/h respectively.
The six-channel plus white M2540i FB flatbed has a top speed of 93sqm/h and can print onto material up to 45mm thick.
Depending on sales, McGuinness said SEDO may also look to take on Agfa’s 2015-released Jeti range in the near future.
SEDO will continue to sell its existing range of wide-format printers from Canon, Mutoh and Epson.
It also runs a 'disaster recovery zone' for existing customers, headed up by sales executive Luke Walford. It has recently appointed former Xerox engineer Mike Vincent as head of technical engineering to assist in this area.
The seven-staff outfit turned over £1.2m last year, with McGuinness envisaging that this will increase by about 10% next year.
