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The Durst Rho 600-series is the first wide-format printer with Quadro array printhead technology. Array drop ink delivery for wide-format is an industry first, and results in quality that is the closest to traditional or digital photographic prints.

One of the problems common to rigid piezo UV solvent printers is banding due to failure of drop placement. Durst has solved this problem with its Quadro array system. The arrays produce a better drop breakup to reduce banding and result in near photographic quality. The Rho 600 series produce a variable drop that masses between 40 and 55 picolitres for resolutions up to 600 dpi. The user can select the quality print level and the printer will adjust the drop size automatically.

According to Durst, their UV ink delivery system "results in a consistent ink droplet that creates extremely smooth, rich and clean solids and a very fine text; the Rho 600 can easily print six point reversed text."

In commenting on the Rho 600 design, Chris Howard, Durst VP marketing and CEO of new business development says: "The key from a design standpoint is how we feed the nozzles with ink. Any ink array needs a good system to keep the nozzles from starving for ink and causing nozzle dropouts. Durst's feed system is a straight line and we use an osmotic filter to keep air from getting to the ink feed for the nozzles." Durst's Quadro arrays are the first print arrays made by Durst and utilize nozzle plates from Spectra. Durst also has designed the firing pulse for the arrays.

The color function is the same on all three Rho 600 models; the difference is in the number of Quadro arrays that allow for greater speeds as you move up the models. The Rho 600, like the Rho 160 and 205, use the same UV-curing inks and allow the user to print on a wide-range of materials, uncoated and absorbent stock, and cardboard, canvas, plastic, wood, aluminum, etc. The 600 printers have 12 UV lamp intensity levels in order to adapt the curing properties to different substrates that operate at 40 degrees Celsius (one-half the temperature of other UV curing lamps). The significance of the lower curing temperature is the ability to run a broader variety of substrates through the printer as the heat on the material is lower and the materials do not warp or bend. One example is .015 Styrene.

Do not confuse the Durst Quadro arrays with traditional piezoelectric print heads common to current UV and solvent flatbed printers. UV piezo printers often have failure of drop placement that causes banding. Variable-dot technology is not new, although it is a recent innovation. Durst Quadro arrays can print from 400-600 dpi, utilizing variable ink drop sizes. These dpi settings are user selectable.

The Durst array print technology looks at one pixel at a time and is quite different from other scanning array systems. A linear array combines all pixels into one line to write one line at a time that can result in undesirable dropouts. Linear arrays are stationary when used in copiers and are a used in large format printers such as Eastman Kodak's NexPress, but these are toner-based printers. The Agfa Dotrix is the only narrow format single-pass linear printer that uses UV curing inks.

Hard on the heels of acquiring Tektronix's large format printer division, Xerox is upgrading its midrange line of office large format printers with five models that offer a network interface and many paper-handling options.
The DocuPrint N2125 has an estimated street cost of $1300 and comes with a 550-sheet paper feeder and 100-sheet auxiliary tray. It can accept one or two additional 550-sheet feeders, which cost about $230 each, and a $250 duplexer is also available. You can get the same solvent printer with no network card; then, it's called the N2125b and priced at $1000.

The N2125's engine speed is specified at 21 pages per minute. PC World clocked the N2125's real-world performance at just shy of 12 pages per minute.

The 60 percent ratio of engine speed to real-world performance is likely to hold for two other new Xerox large format printers: the 32-ppm DocuPrint N3225, which costs $2500; and the 40-ppm DocuPrint N4025, which costs $2950.

The DocuPrint N3225 and N4025 include two 550-sheet paper trays as standard equipment and can accept a paper-feeding subassembly that includes a 500-sheet drawer and two 1000-sheet drawers. The subassembly, which has an estimated street price of $1050, makes it possible to keep letterhead, separator pages, and other media available at all times. For very long print jobs, you can reload empty drawers while the large format printer is operating.

The N3225 and N4025 also support an optional collating and stapler unit, priced at $1150 and a ten-bin mailbox for $1200.

The other two new models, the 20-ppm DocuPrint N2025 and 28-ppm N2825, can print on tabloid-size (11-by-17-inch) paper. Options for the N2025 and N2825 include a tabloid-size 500-sheet feeder for about a $290 street price, a tabloid-size 2000-sheet feeder for about $1050, and a tabloid-size duplexer for $440.

Hewlett-Packard has added Internet connectivity and intelligence to its large format printer offerings with seven new Internet-ready large format printers for workgroups and individuals.

Of the seven HP large format printers announced Tuesday, those designed for individuals will each have "personal Internet connectivity," allowing users to scan and digitally send images over the Internet, says Vyomesh Joshi, the president of HP's imaging and printing systems.

Higher-end systems designed for workgroups will have "both the Internet connectivity aspect and a virtual machine to provide almost any service to the large format printer as an appliance," Joshi says.

The new HP solvent printers range in price from $199 to $1099. The high-end HP LaserJet 4100 is available now. The mid-tier HP LaserJet 3200, 2200, 1220, and 1200 will be available April 1. The HP JetDirect 175x, for personal or small-business use, will be available May 1, according to HP officials.

Web, Wireless Focus
With the large format printers, HP is focused on ramping up five options, which are intelligence, Web browsing, wireless printing from PDAs via infrared, digital faxing, and digital scanning/sending, officials say.

The high-end HP LaserJet 4100, for example, incorporates HP Chaiserver Embedded Virtual Machine technology. EVM allows users to execute Java applications to extend the large format printer's ability to interact with Web-based services, cell phones, and PDAs, officials say.

The mid-tier HP LaserJet 2200, designed for small businesses, integrates color scanner/copier technology, a Web browser to monitor basic large format printer and network configuration capabilities with an HP Jetdirect network card, and an infrared port for wireless printing from mobile devices.

"The large format printer will become the platform for the delivery of multiple services, providing rich, personalized, published content," Joshi says.

Digital large format printers come in variety shapes and sizes nowadays. But whatever they may look like, they still do one thing; they transform colored digital pictures into high-quality photo prints while you sit back and wait. Thanks to the inventors of digital camera, most printers are now affordable and easy to use. Many of them do not even have to be connected to a computer to print.

Before you indulge yourself into buying your own solvent printer, there are questions that needed answering first to ensure that what printer you will be shopping for is the one right for you.

Will the digital printer work with your camera'

Buy a large format printer with a media slot that has the same kind of memory card your camera uses. Or a large format printer that connects directly, using a cable of course, to your camera. A USB-capable printer that connects to your computer is a nice option. The process is fairly simple. You just have to drop the photos into the hard drive, edit and print them from there.

What printing technology suit you best'

There are basically two kinds of technology that is inherent in photo large format printer. Dye sublimation and inkjet. Both kinds can produce brilliant images.

Some people believe that dye sublimation excels at continuous tone printing. While others prefer the crisp colors, inexpensive supplies and print flexibility of inkjet and bubble large format printer. Whichever kind you choose, remember that optimizing a large format printer for photo printing will do a much better job than general use printer.

How much resolution do you need'

Take note that the higher the resolution, the crisper the print result will be. For example, a 400 dpi resolution is finer than a 300 dpi resolution.

Take note also that resolution cannot be compared between dye sublimation and large format printer. The numbers of dpi required to make the same quality photo print may vary depending on the different aspects of the large format printers.

Does the printer have editing capabilities'

Some printers let you edit digital photos. This editing capability can range from a few limited text messages and crop sizes to a touch screen LCD that allows multiple picture editing before printing.

The type you will use would depend if whether you want to do some editing, in the first place. And if you do want, choose if you rather do sophisticated editing on a computer or quick adjustments from a large format printer.

The FLAAR Reports you see here are the results of Professor Nicholas Hellmuth's quest for what solvent large format printer are optimal for various kinds of signage.

Screen large format printer companies, sign shops, and print shops in over 42 countries come to FLAAR to seek our help in us suggesting what solvent large format printer that they should consider for POP, banners, and other display graphics.

FLAAR solvent large format printer Reports contains over 15 different titles divided in different thematic groups, so you can decide what is best for your needs. Click on each title, listed below (or in the menu at the right) to view the series content.

If you seek solvent printers that are new or still current for 2007, we do have more recent reports coming out on several brands of eco-solvent and mild-solvent large format printers. The other reports that are recent (2006-2007) are reports on the newer UV-curable flatbed printers.

Please realize that many of these large format printers shown on this page are no longer current models. We do not update reports on non-current models. But we do make these reports available because people want to buy older large format printers on eBay or otherwise buy them used. There are not really any other reports on these brands, so we feel proud that at least we have some basic information available.

We tested all multifunction large format printer in the PC World Test Center for printing, scanning, and copying speed and quality.

The solvent printer tests consisted of generating a three-page black-and-white newsletter, a ten-page black-and-white text document, a grayscale photo, a two-page Excel spreadsheet, a three-page PowerPoint presentation, and a color JPEG photo at default settings. Only inkjet MFPs printed in color; laser MFPs converted the color documents to grayscale.

The scanner tests consisted of scanning a 2-by-2-inch color photo at maximum resolution and maximum bit depth; a 2-by-2-inch color photo at 600 dpi and 24-bit depth; a 4-by-5-inch color photo at 100 dpi and 24-bit depth; a one-page, black-and-white text document at 300 dpi and 1-bit depth; and a 7.5-by-10.5-inch black-and-white line-art image at maximum resolution and 1-bit depth.

The copier tests involved copying a single black-and-white page.

A panel of judges rated the quality of each MFP's output, using criteria adapted from PC World's large format printer and scanner tests. We measured large format printer times from the execution of the command until the job was completed. Scanner times covered both the preview time and the scan time, yielding a total time for each job. For printing the image on an inkjet-based MFP, we used vendor-specified optimal-quality settings and vendor-specified paper. On a laser-based MFP, we used vendor-specified settings and then printed the image on stock paper. For black-and-white printing, we put the laser-based MFPs at "best print quality" settings.

To print the text documents, we used Microsoft Word 11 with default settings. To open and print the JPEG image, we used Photoshop CS.

We tested large format printer and scan functions on a pair of identically configured 2.8-GHz MPC Pentium 4 systems with 512MB of RAM. Each multifunction large format printer connected to the PC via a USB 2.0 port. To evaluate each MFP's scan quality, we printed the scanned color and black-and-white images on a Canon i455 large format printer and an HP LaserJet 1200 printer, respectively; we had the i455 output the images using high-quality settings and glossy paper. We also reviewed the scanned images on screen, using a pair of Panasonic PanaSync Pro P110i 21-inch CRT monitors.

Considering the variety of things you can print yourself, personal large format printer are downright revolutionary.

Whether inkjet or laser, solvent printer offer a lot of convenience beyond just printing documents and driving directions. Being able to print quickly on a whim can save you time, cut business costs, and give you flexibility to create one-off materials. If you need only a few promotional postcards, why buy a bunch of extras just because a print shop requires a big minimum order' The variety of things you can print may surprise you. Some of them will save businesses time and money, while others will thrill hobbyists and general consumers.

Postage
Stamps.com offers a service whereby you can print postage with the inkjet or large format printer you already have, without having to buy a specialized postage inkjet printer. The service costs $16 per month.

Pitney Bowes used to offer a service called ClickStamp Online that allowed you to print postage with your own large format printer. In its place, the company now offers a $20 monthly plan that includes the rental of a postage meter and scale--you can print postage but you can't use your own large format printer.

Bar Codes
If the image of bar codes tattooed onto the backs of prisoners' heads in Alien 3 horrified you, you may not rejoice to learn that printing bar codes is easy--and much less painful than getting a tattoo.

You can print bar codes by the sheet with an inkjet or laser printer, or print them individually with a smaller label printer. All you need is software and a specialized font from a company such as IDAutomation or Seagull Scientific.

Airline Tickets
Self-check-in kiosks at airports are a fine invention. But they don't save you time if the passenger in front of you is cursing at the screen in frustration. Print your boarding pass at home. Many airlines offer this service when you make a reservation online.

Business Cards
Need an elevated title for the day' Print your own business cards. Avery's Clean Edge business cards break off from the paper around them without leaving little nubs--that sure sign of a do-it-yourselfer that may undermine your credibility.

Event Tickets
Many organizations, from professional sports teams to museums to ski resorts, let you print your own tickets. Why wouldn't they' E-mailing a PDF file of a ticket costs a lot less than printing it--and some organizations will get you with a service charge for the convenience of hitting the slopes instead of the ticket line.

Companies like ClicknPrint offer this service to venues. Typically, the company helps the organization set up an online ticketing site that generates PDFs, and then on the day of the event sets up a laptop and bar-code scanners on a wireless network at the venue. As for the PDFs you print at home, you don't need to worry about using an inexpensive inkjet to print a legible bar code on your ticket--as long as you don't use really cheap paper.

Greeting Cards and Invitations
Printing cards and invitations shouldn't involve a grueling session with a layout program. When you'd rather say it yourself than rely on Hallmark to pen your sentiment, consider using specially designed software and printing the card at home. Mountaincow and other companies offer such software. Preprinted stationary is available, so for some designs all you print is the text. The designs tend to be simple, but if it's the thought that counts, at least the thought is yours.

Checks
We'd all like to make more money, but printing it will get you in a lot of hot water with the Feds. You can, however, print your own checks--even on an large format printer. With specialized paper, printing software, and fonts from the likes of CheckMaster, you're in business. For large volumes, it's probably best to use a laser printer as well as special MICR toner, which is magnetic so banks' machinery can read the checks.

Coffee Mugs, T-Shirts, and Novelties
Need a second income' NovaChrome USA sells kits for making sublimation transfers so you can put photos on everything from ceramic mugs to mouse pads. First you print your photo on the transfer paper, and then use a heat press to transfer the ink to a piece of metal, plastic, wood, or fabric. These items need a special coating to receive the ink, and fabric needs to have a fair amount of polyester--the ink doesn't adhere well to cotton.

Of course, for starters, you'll need a printer. These inks work with Epson printers, even some low-cost models. For example, you can use the $99 Epson C86. A set of specialty inks is pricey, at $337. The 8.5-by-11-inch transfer paper costs $15 for 100 sheets from NovaChrome USA. NovaChrome charges anywhere from $500 to $1000 for heat presses designed for various needs; go to the company's home page and click "Heat Presses" in the left column for more information.

Signs
Just because your printer only takes paper up to 8.5 by 11 inches in size doesn't mean you can't make larger signs. Avery Sign Kits come with foam board in various sizes on which you assemble multiple prints to make a large sign. The polymer media that comes with the kits is weather-resistant; there are guides to help you align the prints; and if you goof it up on the first try, no worries: The glue doesn't permanently adhere on first contact so you can reposition your prints if you need to.

Sushi, Circuit Boards--Even Human Skin
Yes, you read that right. In my March column I described how a chef in Chicago is printing edible menus; Seiko Epson has printed circuit boards and a giant OLED display; and researchers are pursuing the creation of human skin--and possibly even living tissue--with the help of large format printer.

The Duo continue their look at stand-alone photo large format printer, offering thoughts on displays, PictBridge, and a backslide into computer use.

The Duo continue their fractious examination of the state of the art in stand-alone photo solvent printer with a look at the dilemma of printing images you can't see. If you choose to print your images by popping a card into a slot on your large format printer, not every unit will show you what it is you're about to "spend" that pricey piece of photo paper on. The HP large format printer has a tiny display, but the Sony does not; to see what's on the card, you've got to hook the large format printer up to a TV--which probably wasn't on your list of simple-photo-retrieval priorities. And the Selphy won't even let you do that.

Steve notes that some photo large format printer allow you to cable up your camera directly, letting you use the camera's screen to view the specific images you wish to print. That's an option thanks to a relatively new technology called PictBridge--fairly standard on printers and cameras sold in the past year, but not so common on units built earlier. Naturally, both printer and camera have to be PictBridge-compatible. Hey, just because electronics should be simple doesn't mean they are, right'

Steve, thoroughly disgusted at this point, suggests that perhaps the best option is simply to fire up the computer, transfer the images from the camera, and print already. Angela notes that some folks may prefer to drop the whole thing and haul their memory card to one of the photo kiosks one finds at Wal-Marts and drugstores across the country (even if those machines never seem to be in working condition in the stores she frequents). Steve caps it by pointing out that HP makes a full-size, full-function printer that, for just $50 more than the Photosmart 325, can print both text and photos from memory cards, a PictBridge camera, or even (whisper) a computer.

Company readies five low-cost large format printer and new networking software.

Dell launched an effort this week to woo customers away from rival Hewlett-Packard, releasing five new large format printer and open-standards monitoring software.

The new hardware includes two color solvent printer models--the 3010cn and 5110cn--and three back-and-white printers, the 5310n, 5210n, and 1815dn.

Dell plans to compete against HP based on cost, offering additional features without increasing its prices, said Tim Peters, Dell's vice president of imaging and printing.

Dell offers color printing for the price of some black-and-white models, comparing its new 5110cn to HP's LaserJet 4240n, and comparing its new 3010cn compared to HP's 2420, the company said.

The new family of large format printer are also fast. Dell said its model 5310n produces black and white copies at a rate of 50 pages per minute, while its 5110cn cranks out 40 pages per minute black and white or 35 in color.

Machine Management
There is more at stake here than printer cartridges and reams of copy paper. Dell is also making a bid to manage entire fleets of office machines, whether in small businesses or enterprise companies.

Dell's OpenManage software can track ink levels and maintenance schedules in any large format printer using the MIB (management information base) network management protocol.

That covers all the best-selling models in the marketplace, including the most popular printers found in enterprise environments, said Dell spokeswoman Rachael Lyon. The company also plans to release templates to cover the remainder of the market.

By offering a product to manage a diverse collection of machines, Dell is trying to expand its market from simple printers to a wider section of business.

That can add up to big dollars.

On May 16, Xerox announced a $36 million document management contract with the University of Calgary in Canada, building a network to track copying, scanning, faxing, and document storage anywhere on campus.

"Previous platforms were all fragmented; they were standalone, not networked," said Jim Firestone, president of Xerox North America. "But printers can be like rabbits in an office. IT can set the standard, but then they just start showing up."

By managing the entire network, Xerox is moving up the value chain, no longer peddling only copying devices, he said.

Another player trying to capture a piece of the document management market is Microsoft, which plans to offer image scanning and print workflow control in its pending Vista OS, Firestone said.

HP and Canon announce new professional photo large format printer, and HP also introduces its photo kiosk.
Danny Allen, PC World

The big annual Photo Marketing Association (PMA) convention just wrapped up, and my colleague Eric Butterfield reported on new consumer digital cameras and photo printing accessories for our Today @ PC World blog. However, PMA also saw the introduction of some interesting photo printing solutions that cater to business markets. These include new high-end photo large format printer targeting professional photographers, graphics artists, and advanced amateurs.

I'll discuss those after I tell you about a new commercial product from HP.

HP's New Photo Kiosk
If HP has its way, you won't be able to go into a supermarket or drugstore without bumping into its new Photosmart Express Station. This kiosk can deliver 4-by-6-inch photo prints from your own memory cards or from a Snapfish online photo-sharing account.

In these kiosks, HP will use its new six-ink inkjet technology, which is based on the company's scalable printing technology. Competing kiosks use either dye-sublimation or silver halide processes.

HP claims that this technology should help the Photosmart Express Station be up to 40 percent more profitable per square foot through greater efficiency, lower maintenance requirements, detailed remote monitoring tools, and up to 10 times the supply capacity of current competing kiosks. Consumers can expect an easy-to-use interface that will deliver waterfast 4-by-6-inch prints that, according to HP, should last for "long over 50 years"--and will produce each one in about 5 seconds.

HP has looked to the retail market before: You might remember its Phogenix Imaging partnership with Kodak, which dissolved back in May 2003. It will be interesting to see how the new kiosk venture competes with existing competitors, including its old ally.

See this post at PC World's staff blog for further information on the Photosmart Express Station and HP's new Photosmart Studio, which will allow retail stores to create albums, calendars, posters, and greeting cards with customer's photos.

HP's Photosmart Pro B9180 Photo solvent printer
Let's move on to large format printer. HP's B9180 is touted as producing true monochrome (black-and-white) reproductions and vibrant color/fine art prints thanks to its individual Vivera pigment-based inks: Matte black, photo black, light gray, light cyan, cyan, light magenta, magenta, and yellow. It can produce output on various media (including photo paper, stiff pre-matted paper or canvas) at sizes up to 13 by 19 inches.

Photos printed with the B9180 are rated to last for more than 200 years. The B9180 supports both PCs and Macs, and HP supplies an Adobe Photoshop plug-in for color management in addition to other utilities. HP should begin taking orders for the $699 Photosmart Pro B9180 sometime in late May or early June.

Canon PIXMA Pro9500 and PIXMA Pro9000
For its part, Canon last month unveiled its own models capable of producing detailed, gallery-level color or black-and-white prints. The company's new Pixma Pro9500 and Pixma Pro9000 can print on a number of different media types (such as cotton fine-art paper) at sizes up to 13 by 19 inches; the two large format printer have a maximum resolution of 4800 by 2400 dots per inch and outwardly appear identical, but they use different printing technologies.

The Pixma Pro9500 is a ten-color Lucia pigment-based large format printer, while the Pixma Pro9000 uses eight dye-based inks. Both devices are PC- and Mac-compatible and ship with Easy-PhotoPrint Pro, a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop that simplifies configuration and color management. Pricing and availability weren't confirmed at press time.

Canon imagePrograf iPF5000 Wide Format Printer
Late last month Canon also announced its new imagePrograf iPF5000, a large-format large format printer that uses dual print heads to create professional prints up to 17 inches wide. The device features a maximum resolution of 2400 by 1200 dpi, has a 4-picoliter droplet size, and uses 12 Lucia pigment-based inks--red, blue, green, gray, photo gray, cyan, photo cyan, magenta, photo magenta, yellow, regular black, and matte black--to produce striking images rated to last for over 100 years. The imagePrograf iPF5000 is scheduled to become available in April for $1945.