Wide Format Imaging

Mimaki Engineering Co. Ltd. has announced its new white solvent ink to be used in its JV33 series of wide-format solvent inkjet printers. The whiteness of the ink has been improved, to significantly widen the design possibilities for both outdoor and indoor graphics.

When printing white ink as an under layer for full color on transparent media the media has to be re-fed in order to print the color on top of the white layer. This often leads to registration problems. To eliminate such Mimaki has developed "White ink overlay printing" which allows simultaneous white and full color printing. Mimaki's new feature for the JV33 enables accurate output of vivid full color graphics with white under layer.

While the new white ink retains the advantageous features of SS21 inks such as fast drying and a wide color gamut, the whiteness and opacity are decisively improved. This new white ink enables simultaneous high speed printing of white and color thereby facilitating many more design effects. In addition the pigments in the white ink have been improved in order to prevent a shift of whiteness due to sedimentation. White ink, which uses heavy inorganic pigments such as sand, is liable to sedimentation. When this occurs only the upper part of the fluid is extracted, resulting in color shift. The new white SS21 ink reduces this undesired effect considerably and enables stable and dense white printing.

"Our new enhanced white SS21 ink enables designers to produce highly creative graphics on various materials such as transparent film or colored media. Now they can produce the same vivid images with white under and overlay which was previously available only on flatbed printers," said Isao Tabayashi, general manager of IM (Ink and Media) Division. "We are pleased that this innovation offers our customers further capabilities to distinguish themselves from their competition."

Related:

• www.mimaki.com