The high-frequency welding of PVC is probably not the typical route into the wide-format sign and display print market, but this is how Digital Sign Services got into the business. Before 2001, it was known as Plastiweld Fabrications and it acted as a finishing house for those companies printing banners on super-wide format printers. During the 1990s, however, those companies started to bring their finishing in-house, which meant Plastiweld’s work began to dry up. As a result, a year into the new millennium, it hit back by offering print services itself, purchasing a Vutek 3360 3.2m-wide solvent printer, and relaunching as Digital Sign Services.

In the 10 years since, the company has added an HP 5500, a Vutek 5330 5m solvent machine, a flatbed 3.2m Vutek QS3200 with white ink and, in January this year, its latest purchase, the UV roll-to-roll 5m EFI Vutek GS5000r.

"One of the principle reasons for buying the GS5000r was to be able to print in a better quality on wide, non-PVC materials – polyesters and cottons, the more eco-friendly options," explains Gerry Howell, managing director at Digital Sign Services. "Clients are demanding canvas prints now, not PVC work, and with a solvent machine the inks sink into a lot of the substrates meaning the colours come out wishy-washy. Because the GS5000r’s UV inks are cured instantly, the colours you get on these fabrics are really very beautiful."

Weighing up the options
Despite his history with Vutek machines, Howell did not automatically opt for the GS5000r without checking the rest of the market. He also looked at the Durst Rho 500R and the HP Scitex XL1500. For the latter, he flew out to Barcelona for a six-hour demo session and he was impressed with the kit, though he thought the demo itself could have been better.

He then flew to Brussels to see the Vutek in action. The quality he believed was better, the technology newer, the speed much faster and the demo "excellent". But it was also around £100,000 more expensive. He had a dilemma.

"Should we spend £100,000 more on a machine that basically did the same thing? We took a long-term view: we looked at the service and the ink prices, both of which we got a deal on for the Vutek for being long-term customers, and we decided that over five years, the costs would be about the same," reveals Howell. "So we bit the bullet and thankfully have ended up with the much better quality machine."

That quality, according to Howell, is so good that a fine art print produced on the machine would not be turned away from any gallery in the world. The machine’s smoothing application, controlled from the user interface where you can also choose to print in four or eight colours, avoids banding and the machine offers dual resolution of true 600dpi or 1,000dpi.

Quality depends on the speed you print at. For its demo, Vutek took the same file and printed it at various speeds so Howell knew what the machine was capable of. He runs the machine at around one-third to half of its top speed of 288sqm per hour, as his client base is at the higher end of the market, but he says running top speed produces more than adequate quality for building wraps and things viewed from a distance.

"It will produce reasonable prints very quickly, or very high quality prints a little slower," he concludes.

Very high quality obviously means very large files and this is something Howell had to prepare his computer infrastructure for before the printer’s arrival. The average image file is about 3GB, but can be as much as 8GB, so Howell had to install fibre optic cables with higher powered computers to RIP and transfer the massive images for printing. Emmanuel Swolfs, EFI inkjet field international marketing manager, concedes that this may be something some printers do not forsee.

"Fibre optics are rarely used within the companies we serve," he admits. "Increasing the transfer speed of the ripped file is always a valid concern and we will talk to Gerry to see what he did."

With high-speed cables in place, the machine was installed in January this year. Engineers spent two weeks fitting the near-9m long machine into a "corner" of the factory, using lasers to get the bed straight to within an error of "basically nothing". Howell says the robustness of the machine, which brings reliability advantages, also means that the bed won’t need to be levelled again.

"If you compare this chassis with our other machines, this is dramatically stronger and more rigid and so substrates are less prone to twisting and bending," he reveals. "In addition, our 5m solvent machine needs the platen levelling around every six months. For this to potentially never need relevelling is quite something."

Software hiccups
Although the machine is still settling in at the company’s facility near Guildford, Howell has already spotted a couple of the normal software glitches you tend to get, along with one that is slightly less normal.

"All the controls are in metric measurements except one that is in imperial," he explains. "It is not a problem as long as you know about it and Vutek are fixing it along with the other normal glitches you get."

Aside from these very minor points, Howell could not be happier with the machine – although, there is one thing on his wish list: a double-sided printing kit. This is where the substrate is printed one side and then you turn it over to print again and a light shining from below allows you to see and line up the registration marks. If you start going astray, the application allows you to nudge the substrate back into place so it fits the print on the other side.

"The HP machine has this and it varies in its effectiveness. Some people take it off straight away, but I used one on the demo and it worked very well," says Howell. He adds that Vutek have promised this will be available soon and Swolfs confirms that this is the case, although he can’t give a date as yet.

As for his next purchase, Howell says that if the poor eco performance of PVC continues to become an issue for both clients and government, it is likely his next investment would be another machine in the style of the GS5000r. It may have only been running for a few weeks, but it has made a lasting impression.

"It suits our purpose extremely well," he says. "In the two to three weeks we’ve had it, we’ve been impressed with both the speed and the quality; we can’t fault either. And it’s taken no extra effort to achieve that apart from buying the machine!"

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SPECIFICATIONS
Max speed
288sqm per hour
Resolution
Dual resolution for true 600dpi (24pL) or 1,000dpi (12 pL)
Max substrate thickness
3.2mm
Weight
5 tonnes
Dimensions (hxwxd)
1.9x8.7x2.5m
Price
£385,000
Contact
EFI Vutek 07887 842786

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COMPANY PROFILE
Digital Sign Services was born out of high-frequency PVC welding company Plastiweld Fabrications in 2001. It serves the exhibition and events industries with clients including the Excel exhibition centre and a whole range of companies, museums and attractions. Managing director Gerry Howell has around 23 staff that operate out of a facility near Guildford.

Why I bought it...
Clients were demanding printing on more eco-friendly substrates and the solvent machines could not give the same quality on these fabrics. The GS5000r gave both this quality and speed improvements.

How it performed...
It hasn’t been in place for long, but the quality and speed have both lived up to expectations and the firm says the machine itself is a robust and well-built bit of kit. Minor problems with software and the absence of a double-sided print kit aside, it’s been a great success.