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Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Technology & Products
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Epson T-Series Printers: Speed, Accuracy and Versatility

Epson SureColor T-Series Inkjet Printer

Make print production easier, faster, more versatile and more profitable with Epson’s new SureColor T-Series printers from LexJet. Epson’s latest generation of technical printers are plug-and-play and easy to use, with simple, four-color operation.

Technical Inkjet PrintingYou’ll save time and money while you realize super-accurate production of the most demanding fine-line printing for blueprints, architectural drawings and plotting at the fastest speeds available in their class. The Epson T-Series is capable of accurately plotting minimum line widths as thin as 0.018 mm.

With resolutions of up to 2880 x 1440 dpi, the Epson T-Series also delivers application versatility so you can print brilliant, durable posters, photos, presentation graphics, and promotional and point-of-sale displays.

In addition to a range of compatible print media – including bond papers, archival films and premium photo papers – the thick media print path handles rigid media up to 1.5mm thick.

Other valuable features include:

  • New dual-role models (the 36″ SureColor T5270D and 44″ T7270D) include a high-capacity catch basket for quick retrieval and reduced sorting time
  • Roll and sheet feeder available in 24″, 36″ and 44″ widths
  • Horizontal output basket for enhanced output stacking
  • Optional 36″ multifunction scanner enables PC-free full-color scan and copy capabilities up to 36″ wide
  • Optional expansion modules (Adobe Postscript 3 hardware engine and internal 320 GB printer server)

The printers include:

The SureColor T3270 is a 24″ single-roll printer with print speeds of up to 660 square feet per hour and a retail price of $2,995.

The SureColor T5270 is a 36″ single-roll printer with print speeds of up to 740 square feet per hour and a list price of $3,995.

The SureColor T7270 is a 44″ single-roll printer with print speeds of up to 780 square feet per hour and a retail price of $4,995.

The SureColor T5270D is a 36″ dual-roll printer with print speeds of up to 740 square feet per hour and a retail price of $5,995.

The SureColor T7270D is a 44″ dual-roll printer with print speeds of up to 780 square feet per hour and a retail price of $6,995.

To find out more, and for help selecting the right printer for your workflow and market, call a LexJet printer specialist at 800-453-9538. And, for a video overview of the SureColor T-Series printers, click here.

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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Converting a Plain Display Case into Advertising Art

Allison-Kaufman DisplayAllison-Kaufman Company, a manufacturer of fine diamond jewelry, played to win at a recent jewelry show. Given a blank slate with which to work, Allison-Kaufman’s graphics department led by graphic design manager Jeremie Rothman transformed a boring display case into a brilliant promotional piece.

Unveiled at a cocktail party the night before the show, Rothman says, “Everyone loved it and took pictures of it. They liked the concept, design and how the final piece looked. It started as a concept for our Queen of Black Diamonds set we’re promoting based on a postcard we created.”

Attendees voted on the best display cases and Allison-Kaufman’s display renovation got second place. Rothman says they were likely edged out of first, not by the rival display case design itself, but due to the fact that the winners dressed up in crazy costumes.

However the voting turned out, Allison-Kaufman’s display accomplished the primary goal, which was to draw attention to the display and elevate the brand with its customers.

Allison-Kaufman Jewelry Display
Inside the tower display, LexJet Opaque AquaVinyl Removable PSA was used for the chess board and embellishments on the chess pieces.

To decorate the display case, Rothman used LexJet Opaque AquaVinyl Removable PSA, printed on a Canon iPF8400 wide format inkjet printer, applying the vinyl to the four lower and upper panels. Rothman also printed and applied the chessboard on the inside of the case, and added the Allison-Kaufman logo and diamond embellishments to the chess pieces, including the chess queen that tops the display. The oversize chess pieces were acquired from megachess.com.

“The graphics look very sharp and it’s almost 100 percent opaque, which is a big bonus. The material is amazing,” says Rothman.

LexJet 8 Mil Absolute Backlit
Allison-Kaufman also prints photo-quality backlits on LexJet 8 Mil Absolute Backlit and other point of sale materials for its retail jewelry customers.

Rothman adds that they use AquaVinyl for in-store wall displays that they give to their retail customers for point of sale advertising, as well as LexJet Aqueous Perforated Vinyl (70/30) for window displays and LexJet 8 Mil Absolute Backlit for photo-quality backlits.

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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Roping up Fabric Banners for Rodeos

Fabric Banners for a Rodeo

Special events are an increasingly important branding opportunity for the Nackard Companies and the beverage brands it represents in the Arizona market. As the beverage distributor’s experience with Dew Downtown, the annual snow-shredding competition through downtown Flagstaff, has illustrated, a successful and growing special event provides brand saturation beyond the point of sale.

This summer is rodeo season in Arizona, and Nackard is branding at four different rodeos. The first one of the summer started just three years ago and Nackard was there as a sponsor and a print provider from the beginning.

The Chuck Sheppard Memorial Roping event at the Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo Grounds brings calf and team ropers together to honor Chuck Sheppard, a famous horseman and roper, and to support various area scholarships.

Fabric Banners by the Nackard CompaniesWith an average of about 30 sponsors per year, Nackard’s job is to provide 3×8 banners to line the fences around the rodeo grounds. Steve Lalio, P.O.P. shop manager for the Nackard Companies, created a template that includes one of Nackard’s brands and one of the sponsoring companies.

The rodeo’s first request was for banners that wouldn’t make a lot of noise when they flapped in the breeze and struck the fencing. It seems the animals get a little spooked when that happens, and the last thing a roper needs is a spooked animal in the ring.

So, Lalio suggested LexJet Poly Select Heavy for the banners, and the solution worked. Though it’s a heavy, durable fabric, it doesn’t make a lot of noise against the fencing if it flaps around, or at least enough noise to get up the hackles of a bull.

“If every sponsor notices what we did with the banners, they’ll want the fabric material because they print well, look nice and are lighter than typical banner material,” says Lalio, who prints the banners on the shop’s Canon iPF8000S. “What’s also nice about the fabric is that we can run them without lamination, so all we do is print, put Banner Ups and grommets in the corner, roll them up and send them out.”

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Technology & Products
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Pre-Event Promotion with Big Graphics at the Point of Sale

Large Inkjet Printed Store Banner

Dew Downtown Flagstaff is rolling like the proverbial snowball. Now in its third year, the event turns downtown Flagstaff into one long terrain park where boarders and skiers compete for prizes.

As the event gains traction and grows each year, the P.O.P. print shop at Nackard Companies pumps out increasingly more graphics year over year. This year, Nackard has also been printing pre-event promotions, the largest of which is currently hanging in a local Sam’s Club over a 400-plus case display of Mountain Dew beverages.

The graphic is 16 feet wide by 8 feet tall, double-side, divided into four sections to make transportation of the graphic easier. Printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene, the four sections are actually made up of six print panels, paneled together with double-sided tape.

“I used my ONYX RIP software to panel it properly before I printed it. Each panel is 35” x 8’: it was about six pieces total with a 1/2” overlap. I designed it at the final size and told ONYX to give me a 1/2” overlap,” explains Steve Lalio, P.O.P. shop manager. “I took the printed pieces, laminated it, trimmed off the excess and used double-sided tape to put it all together as one big banner. I also placed gray lines in the RIP to tell me where the four-foot sections were, and then cut it at each line for transportation.”

Lalio adds that they were trying to bridge the gap between a graphic that was too heavy and one that was too light. Originally, the customer wanted the graphic applied to Coroplast, but Lalio explained that it would make it too heavy. Fabric would have been too light, and Lalio wanted a material substantial enough to attach the 3D snowboarder to on the right side of the graphic.

Inkjet Printed Truck BacksLalio also reinforced the top and bottom with strips of 2’x 4′ Coroplast, which also acted as anchor when Lalio drilled the snowboarder into the banner. The snowboarder was printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene, laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Luster UV Standard Low Melt laminate, applied to a piece of Coroplast, and die cut.

Among other pre-event promotional graphics, Nackard also applied graphics the company’s Pepsi truck backs with LexJet Extreme AquaVinyl w/ PSA, laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Luster UV Standard Low Melt. Meanwhile, the shop is printing virtually non-stop for Dew Downtown Flagstaff, which runs Feb. 8-9.

Check back here for a recap of the graphics production for Dew Downtown Flagstaff sometime after the event. And, pray for snow (they could use more of the natural stuff for it).

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Technology & Products
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A Closer Look at the HP Designjet Z5400

HP Designjet Z5400If you run a print shop that needs quality printing and the ability to switch print media quickly, check out the HP Designjet Z5400 PostScript ePrinter at LexJet.

The big news here is the 44-inch printer’s two-roll media and automatic switching features, which reduce time spent changing media and downtime between multiple print jobs.

It works great on a variety of media for profitable applications, like posters, photo reproductions, backlits, signs, point of sale, line drawings and maps. The printer uses six HP Photo Inks with three different shades of black at up to 2,400 x 1,200 dots per inch.

The HP Designjet Z5400 features HP Multi-Dimensional Smart Drop Placement Technology. Based on automatic drop detection and intelligent masking capabilities, the technology detects then corrects ink placement errors during printing to increase efficiency and reduce waste.

Also on board is the HP Instant Printing PRO, which allows you to preview, crop and easily print PDF, PostScript, HP-GL/2, TIFF and JPEG files. The “e” designation in ePrinter means that the web-connected printer has automatic software updates, USB flash drive or email printing, and a color touch screen and print preview to quickly check prints before they start printing.

To find out more about the HP Designjet Z5400, and to find the best HP printer for your needs – whether it’s the HP Latex Printer, other Z-series or T-series printers – call a LexJet expert at 800-453-9538.

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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When is it Time to Upgrade Your Printer? One Print Shop’s Experience

Canon iPF8400S Inkjet Printer at Bill Reed Distributing
The new Canon iPF8400S from LexJet is up and running at Bill Reed Distributing and the output on LexJet 8 Mil PolyGloss Banner looks fantastic.

 

It’s the age-old dilemma: should I repair my old printer or just buy a new one? For Michael Thornton, administrative marketing manager at Bill Reed Distributing, Abilene, Texas, this particular dilemma presented itself when his old printer went down.

“As I was getting ready for the technician I picked up the phone and called Chris Piersoll, my LexJet rep. He said to hold up on the repair and first compare the cost difference between repair and replace, and the long-term productivity benefits of a new printer. We discovered that when you factor in the amount of down time we were experiencing, and the wear and tear it was a no-brainer to upgrade and pay the few hundred dollars difference for a new machine,” says Thornton. “The thing that concerned me most about repairing the one I have is the simple fact that it has a lot of miles on it. What’s the guarantee that something’s not going to happen a month from now? You know how this goes: you’re always in the middle of a big print project when it goes down. It was a much wiser investment to purchase a new machine because it is such a vital part of what we do; we can’t function without it. Marketing and sales pieces are critically important to supplement our sales. We love the reliability of the Canon printers, and at the price point LexJet is offering, why wouldn’t we buy a new one?”

Thornton upgraded to the Canon iPF8400S, which will provide the print shop with more speed and new color management and cost-tracking features. Moreover, with Piersoll’s help, Thornton was able to exchange the old ink cartridges he had in inventory.

“Chris was able to help us out with the ink we had for our old machine. I had a backup for every color sitting there, and that’s $1,700 that potentially I’d have to add to the cost of a new printer. That was one of the determining factors, and a lot of companies won’t work with you on swapping out ink cartridges,” explains Thornton. “So again, why wouldn’t you buy a new printer and guarantee yourself that you’ll have a great product and a new warranty. And with the Canon printer, minus changing out the printheads about once a year, there’s not much to do to keep them running.”

Ultimately, says Thornton, it’s all about consistency, productivity and efficiency. Thornton ran the old printer for 1,392 days after installation, printing about 180,000 square feet and more than 30,000 linear feet.

“While the old printer allowed me to go through sub-menus and look at how much ink was used per print, it’s very easy to factor your square footage cost with your media, but ink cost is not always the same because of color and saturation. What I’m really looking forward to with the new printer is the ability to be more detailed about tracking ink usage and actual costs; that’s invaluable, especially when you’re not having to dig for the information. It’s all about making things easier and working smarter,” says Thornton. “When you’re working with a number of convenience stores, and they all want their point of sale at the same time, you need to make sure the printer is running and it’s efficient. If it’s down, you’ve got a big problem. That’s what the big factor was for me. Look at how much we’re paying to fix the three-year-old machine, versus the cost for a new one. For all of us here, from the owner to the GM, the logical thing was to replace it; it’s been a great machine and let’s move on. Productivity is key.”

Though Bill Reed Distributing uses a wide variety of materials, from vinyl and Photo Tex to banner materials, Thornton adds that their standard print material is LexJet 8 Mil PolyGloss Banner. “The Canon prints such a beautiful graphic and when you put it on the glossy media it gives it a very classy look,” says Thornton.