Zund UVJet 250-Combi UV-cured flatbed printer momentarily withdrawn

The Zund UVJet 250-Combi UV-cured flatbed printer has better color and overall we like this model better than the Zund 215-C or 215-Plus series UV-cured ink flatbeds.

We have inspected the Zund UVJet 250-Combi UV-cured flatbed printer at several trade shows during 2004 and have written up a FLAAR Report which includes our list of pros and cons. Dr Hellmuth scrutinized the Zund 250-Combi printer at DRUPA 2004 in Duesseldorf during his 10 days inspecting all the UV-cured flatbed printers from all over the world. 

Then Nicholas returned to Germany to take notes during 6 days at Photokina trade show in Cologne . Hellmuth’s photographs have been published by National Geographic and Japanese coffee book art publishers, so he attends Photokina every time. At Photokina 2004 a diverse range of printers were exhibited; by Photokina 2006, other than Canon, Epson, and HP, virtually no printers were displayed, especially not any UV-cured inkjet printers.

Can you afford to miss a crucial tidbit of information that is in a FLAAR Report?

When you are trying to decide between the Zund UVJet 250-Combi UV-cured flatbed printer and the Zund 215, or between the Zund UVJet 250-Combi UV-cured flatbed printer and a Vutek, Dupont, Durst Rho, ColorSpan 9840 or other printer, then you definitely need to get your hands on Nicholas Hellmuth’s conclusions.

Next Prof. Hellmuth continued to compare the Zund 250 with the Zund 215 during trade shows during 2005 (and with the ColorSpan 72 UVX, Neolt, Gerber Solara UV2, Durst Rho, NUR Tempo, and Gandinnovations Jeti 3150 UV printers at SGIA trade show in Minneapolis.

Why is the Zund 250-Combi temporarily withdrawn? 

Get this report and many more

But then we noticed that the Zund UVjet 250-Combi was no longer exhibited in 2005 trade shows. The Zund website still has some photos of the model 250, but the actual page where it should be presented, with its specs…. This page is blank (when we tried to see what was the status in November 2005). We checked around and learned from multiple sources that the Zund UVJet 250-Combi UV-cured flatbed printer had issues in beta-stage. Because we liked the Zund 250, we were disappointed to learn it may have been temporarily withdrawn from the market.  

Then we found out that several places actually began to sell the Zund 250 and several early buyers became very upset, so the printer was hastily withdrawn to be redesigned. However reportedly there is one installation of the Zund 250 in the US that is still using it. So there are probably a few installations in Europe . But no Zund 250 printer has appeared at any trade show in 2005 or so far in 2006. If it reappears (at all), it would be at SGIA 2006.

Where to find reliable information on UV-cured flatbed printers?

If you spend hours on the Internet trying to learn about the Zund Uvjet 250-Combi, all you find are PR releases, advertisements, and other stuff by people who have never worked with UV printers.

FLAAR works hard to distinguish ourselves from trade magazines. We visit the factories where printers are manufactured. So we have reports directly from the ColorSpan factory and from the GRAPO factory.

We visit demo centers as well. So we have FLAAR Reports with factual reports from Raster Printers demo center, from Gandinnovations demo center, and from HP demo centers.

The FLAAR Report on the Zund 250 describes the interrupted status of the Zund 250, and indicates that it has been gingerly reintroduced (but not in America ). Obtain this information in the FLAAR Report on the Zund 250-Combi. 

Take a look at the comprehensive series by auto-downloading the Previews.

Our FLAAR Report on the Zund 250 is being updated for November 2006 with the latest information on precisely what caused this nice printer to be withdrawn.

It is crucial to know the true status of each UV-curable ink printer

If you are trying to decide between the Zund UVJet 250-Combi UV-cured flatbed printer and the Zund 215, or between the Zund UVJet 250-Combi UV-cured flatbed printer and a, Agfa, Eastech, Vutek, Inca, Durst Rho, or other printer, it is crucial that you know whether the Zund 250 Combi printer really exists.

What if you wanted an Oce Arizona T220UV? What if you ordered one? This actually happened to a print shop in Minneapolis. Only after they signed the contract were they told that no Oce T220UV printer was available. Now you can obtain the actual status of the Oce printer in the FLAAR Reports.  

If is not fair when manufacturers, such as Xerox, fail to tell people when their printers are terminated, withdrawn, failed, or otherwise will no longer be available. XES did this several times: once with their electrostatic printers and then again with their oil-based ColorgrapX X2 printers: Xerox stopped production, closed down, fired most of the large format printer employees just before Christmas 2002.

Then FLAAR mentioned this. XES got very upset and said they had not stopped production, yaddi da, yaddi da. So we naively revised our comment. Later we found out we had been duped: Xerox simply wanted to sell off what was left in the warehouse and allegedly did not want anyone to really know that production had stopped.

It was a comparable story with the Kodak 5260, and again with the Encad NovaJet 1000i and Kodak 1200i. I have not yet seen a Kodak Inc press release stating there is no functioning Encad factory as of about March. Indeed not a single Encad printer was shown in the rather surprisingly large Kodak booth at PMA 2006.

And same with Xerox all over again, since Xerox rebrands the Encad NovaJet 1000i (identical printer as the Kodak 1200i; the renaming is another ruse that we do not support).

I telephoned Kodak during May, and a very honest Kodak employee said they are no longer being manufactured. Yet at a subsequent trade show, the Xerox booth personnel were not aware of this. This aged printer is still being sold in 2006, primarily outside the USA .

So if you are shopping around for a UV printer, you definitely need to get your hands on Nicholas Hellmuth’s conclusions in the FLAAR Reports. Apparently you can obtain fresher information in the FLAAR Reports than on the manufacturer’s own websites.

We hope to eventually reach a better understanding of whether the Zund 215 is still being manufactured and what features have been changed on the re-issued Zund Uvjet 250-Combi. Of course these printers have more serious issues facing them: namely all the new printers that have come out in the last several months (at FESPA Digital in mid-May 2006), such as the Durst Rho 600 Pictor, or the productive ColorSpan 9840, a completely new design. We visited the MacDermid factory and tested this printer on concrete slabs, wood, and many other items of interior decoration. Very impressive.

There are many satisfied owners of recent model Zund printers: we interviewed one in St Charles , Missouri . Our site-visit case study of a Zund 215 is now available. So you need to match your needs, the needs of your clients, with the pros and cons of each UV-flatbed printer. FLAAR offers more than 53 titles on UV-curable inkjet printers. So you can be sure to find many reports that are crucial to give you tips, help, information, and documentation.

On the nice Zund web site there is virtually no facts on the Zund 250: no spec sheet (none that we could find), no info on price, nothing on what features were improved over the last version, etc. This leaves the FLAAR Reports as one of the few resources available.

Since the Zund 250 was such a nice looking machine two years ago, we hope we can see it somewhere, and visit the factory so we can report on its improvements over the early version. If this printer is fixed, these improvements deserve to be broadcast in our reports.

In the meantime we have site-visit case studies of the ColorSpan 72UVR and UVX, Gandinnovations Jeti UV, Luscher JetPrint, and Infiniti printers, revealing what these machines are actually like in real life.

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Most of our updates for summer 2007 onward are in FLAAR Reports in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. It is more efficient for us to make new information available in PDF format. So if the web page itself is not updated, check out www.wide-format-printers.NET to see if the printer, RIP, or other subject is covered in an update in a PDF download.