The St Neots, Cambridgeshire-based company will take delivery of the hybrid roll-to-roll and flatbed machine along with a wide-format plotter next week, supplied by Bury St Edmunds-based Mayday Graphic Products, which took the machine on earlier this year.
XL managing director Tony Smith said he already had a backlog of orders requiring the machine's use. He was initially advised by Mayday on the product and said that he had opted for a hybrid machine as the 18-staff outfit is looking to satisfy customer demand for the likes of pop-up banners but also for printing on DiBond and Perspex.
“When I was presented with the option I thought we’d go for both [roll-to-roll and flatbed], that seemed to be the way to go,” said Smith.
“We deal with wide-format for our customers but we rely on others to do it - there’s a lot of it we put out - and we really need to be driving to bring it all in-house because the added value is better.”
The five-colour (CMYK plus white) MT-R180 runs UV inks, printing at maximum speeds of 30sqm/hr in four-pass mode and taking a variety of substrates sized 1.8mx700mm maximum at 30mm thickness. It is equipped with front and back extension platforms for plate printing, a conveyor feeding system for rigid and flexible media and a belt vacuum system for edge-to-edge printing eliminating banding.
“It’s just the variety of stuff we can print on it,” said Smith.
“I’ve already got customers asking to print onto Perspex or onto bus stops, cabinet doors or things like that. I got into this just to do basic stuff but then customers say ‘Well can it do this?’ and the variety is endless because of the extra thickness.
“It is a case of seeing how this goes. If we end up with more flatbed stuff that needs doing or more roll-to-roll stuff then we’ll obviously take another machine on to take the extra load off.”
£1m-turnover XL Press is now looking to upgrade its digital division and is likely to replace a Xerox 700 production printer with a Versant 180 digital press before the year is out. It runs a Speedmaster XL 75 on the litho side, along with a range of finishing equipment.
