Business News
Shorter Turn-Arounds And A Better Environmental Profile At Pixel Driven By The HP Designjet L25500 Printer
Wednesday 18. August 2010 - Established in 2002 by Andreas Span and Michael Anderlan, the Austrian print service provider (PSP) Pixel Beschriftungen, of Innsbruck, specialises in printing outdoor signage, vehicle wraps, POP displays and banners.
Challenge
Achieve shorter turn-around times
Grow business and expand environmentally responsible printing capabilities
Increase digital printing capabilities
Find a printer that prints on foils and films
Solution
HP Designjet L25500 Printer for film and foil printing
Results
Expansion of short-run digital printing capabilities
Instantly dry prints, reducing drying time by up to three days and resulting in shorter turnaround of jobs
Better environmental footprint supporting new business opportunities and an improved working environment for employees
Less manual operation means more unattended printing
Established in 2002 by Andreas Span and Michael Anderlan, the Austrian print service provider (PSP) Pixel Beschriftungen, of Innsbruck, specialises in printing outdoor signage, vehicle wraps, POP displays and banners. Ninety five percent of its jobs are printed on fi lm, which are then applied to cars, buses, trams, lorries and billboards.
Saving time and the environment
Since its inception, the company has been growing and now has a workforce of fifteen employees. As a result, Pixel Beschriftungen has been looking extensively into streamlining its workfl ow as well as lowering its environmental footprint.
“Nowadays, more than ever, the environment plays a major role in all our decisions and our customers are equally concerned about it,” explained Andreas Span, co-founder of Pixel Beschriftungen. “Apart from the odour that is emitted by solvent and eco-solvent inks, the installation of air extraction systems for health and safety is a costly investment that adds to the original costs of a printer as well as on-going operational costs of such systems. In addition, our existing machine portfolio often requires drying times of up to three working days.
“Since we installed the HP Designjet L25500 in November 2009, the issue of prolonged drying time has been eliminated. Prints on the HP Designjet L25500 are instantly dry, therefore shortening our turnaround times significantly,” says Andreas Span. “These time savings will positively influence our business in the future, enabling us to be more flexible and react more quickly to our customers’ needs. In today’s fast moving business environment, everything needs to be as fast as possible, and we can now achieve this.”
Water-based HP Latex Inks produce odour-free prints(1). Furthermore the HP Designjet L25500 Printer does not require special ventilation equipment(2) or external dryers, and therefore energy costs are reduced and drying times eliminated.
High quality images for large format printing
The HP Designjet L25500 is equipped with the HP Optical Media Advance Sensor (OMAS) and an embedded spectrophotometer as well as the Optical Drop Detector (ODD) to control substrates as they advance through the printer and minimise banding effects. The jetting of drops is permanently controlled by the ODD, providing error-free prints and greatly enhancing image quality.
“Our customers require high quality prints that do not display any banding issues. From the start, the HP Designjet L25500 achieved a first-rate quality that impressed everyone, especially for vehicle wraps and our backlit projects (called ‘art in construction/art within architecture’). These applications require a high degree of accuracy and that’s what this machine achieves. In addition, the possibility of double ink layering, important for the quality of our backlit projects, enables us to achieve even stronger, vivid images. Now that we have these capabilities and can achieve such a high standard of image quality, we expect to be printing far more backlit orders.”
HP reliability and ease-of-use
“The HP Designjet L25500 has proved to be reliable, and we even tried to print lengths of 30m without any operator intervention,” continued Andreas Span. “It is a printer that does not require much manual operation, enabling simple, unattended printing. This ease of use was another decisive factor for us when we considered purchasing the L25500.”
In addition to the benefits of unattended printing with the HP Designjet L25500 Printer, the HP Thermal Inkjet printheads in this printer are user-exchangeable and therefore, do not require special knowledge or a technician to operate them, making the set-up production process even easier.
Pixel Beschriftungen appreciates the fully automatic printhead testing and maintenance system that minimizes downtime and service calls. “This machine has definitely been developed with HP’s customers in mind. It is easy to use, a real “plug-and-play” printer that not only satisfies professionals, but also entrants into the print business.”
Andreas Span concluded, “The future is definitely one of odourless and environmentally responsible printing. To this end, our company is also trying to use more and more recyclable media and we are considering taking part in the HP Media Take Back programme. HP’s free and convenient programme offers print service providers the facility to recycle original HP ink cartridges and printheads, as well as prints that are produced on HP recyclable media.(3) It is also possible to return all of the consumables for the printer to HP for free and convenient recycling, including original HP ink cartridges and printheads, the printhead cleaning cartridge and the printhead cleaning container.(4)
“Solvent printing has and still will have its uses, but with the rising environmental movement and our own personal environmental concerns, I see solvent printers on the way out, and believe that in just a few years, they will be a thing of the past.”
(1) Printers using HP Latex Inks use internal heaters to dry and cure the latex polymer film. Some substrates may have inherent odour.
(2) Special ventilation is not required to meet US OSHA requirements on occupational exposure to VOCs from HP Latex Inks. Ventilation equipment installation is at the discretion of the customer-no specific HP recommendation is intended. Typically no air discharge permitting required with inks that emit extremely low levels of VOCs. Customers should consult state and local requirements and regulations.
(3) HP offers the HP Large-format Media take-back programme in the U.S., Europe, and Canada (as of June 1, 2010) through which most HP recyclable signage media can be returned, availability varies. Some recyclable papers can be recycled through commonly available recycling programmes. For details visit www.hp.com/ recycle. Aside from this programme, recycling opportunities for these products are currently only available in limited areas. Customers should consult local recycling resources for recycling these products.
(4) In the circa 50 countries and territories in which the HP Planet Partners programme operates. Programme features and availability varies. Where this programme is not available, and for other consumables not included in the programme, consult the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) available at www.hp.com/go/ecodata to determine appropriate disposal.