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Nicholas invited as guest by Sun Chemical, at Sun FastJet factory in England. Here he is showing some samples printed in FastJet.

Sepiax Ink Technology, water-based yet for outdoor signage

In late March HP introduced its HP latex ink at a huge international event in Israel. Then at FESPA Digital another water-based ink was introduced by Sepiax. Sepiax Ink Technology had a large booth: but so did over 20 other after-market or alternative ink companies. Since I had to inspect all the UV flatbed printers and had meetings day and night, there was only time to visit those ink companies that I know already or those ink companies that stopped me in the aisle and asked me specifically to visit their executives. This is a polite way of saying that I had never seen Sepiax Ink at any ISA or SGIA trade show, and no one had ever mentioned Sepiax Ink Technolology to me, so I did not stop at their booth because there were a dozen other ink companies that also sought attention.

Since I have visited the Triangle ink company US headquarters in California and have been hosted for a week's inspection of ink labs in Israel, and have been guest of Sun LLC ink in Novosibirsk, Russia, these are the three ink companies that I visited at FESPA Digital. Plus one Chinese ink company whose booth managers asked me to speak with their founder and CEO.

So after three days of meetings, photographing all the UV-curable printers, especially the new Mutoh Zephyr, there was no time to visit the booth of Sepiax

Here is Nicholas Hellmuth analyzing the sample from Sepiax. In this photography you can see that they used the Polyester chrome film material for this sample.

Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth holding the complete sample.

Nicholas in NUR ink lab on one of his four visits to Israel high tech companies.

Sepiax Ink Technology compared with HP latex ink

Checking their web site, “weather resistant, abrasion resistant” this sounds like the HP latex ink. I have also heard of an earlier DuPont ink that had similar qualities to latex ink (in addition to the unfortunate VinylJet ink (made by DuPont for Kodak VinylJet, but in part due to problems with Encad, this early non-solvent ink failed utterly).

As soon as it is possible to receive training at the Sepiax Ink Technology then I can compare it's pros and cons with those of HP latex ink. One fact is that Sepiax ink is formulated for piezo printheads (naturally since virtually all current signage printers use Epson, Xaar, or Spectra printheads.

In distinction, the HP latex ink is not intended to be an after-market ink; the HP latex ink is for thermal printheads.

Sepiax compared with bio-solvent inks

First VUTEK InkWare produced a bio-solvent ink. Then Mutoh built a printer that used this bio-ink. Then that flatbed printer was replaced by a different Mutoh flatbed based on the ValueJet platform. The original ink formula was not successful but after three or four generations the current MuBIO ink is better than two years ago. But both Sepiax and Kiian inks probably print on substantially more materials than bio-solvent (and Sepiax is completely water-based).

New Sepiax and HP latex inks compared with Epson’s new ink

The new HP latex ink and the new Sepiax ink will challenge Epson's new eco-solvent printer, GS6000. Solvent ink is gradually being replaced all over the world. Epson would have done better to have switched to an ink like Sepiax or Kiian.

Sepiax ink compared with Kiian's alcohol-based magical ink

At SGIA 2008 there was an exhibit of samples from an ink that could “print on everything.” The range of samples was impressive, but there was almost no information.

The same Kiian ink, this time with a prototype printer, was exhibited at VISCOM Italy 2008. This time a brochure was available but it had no specific information on the ink: only normal specs on the modified Roland printer. This ink has no specific name, and was conspicuously absent at the large Kiian booth at FESPA 2009. In the US it is distributed by TW Graphics. The complexity of which company does which in the Manoukian Argon conglomerate makes it a challenge to know who to speak with, and where to go to test the ink.

Sepiax ink company is easier to deal with. Their headquarters are in the most beautiful part of southern Austria, less than 2 hours drive from Ljubljana, Slovenia (where FLAAR does many of its lecture programs).

Sepiax Ink Technology company.

It was possible to spend two days testing the Sepiax ink on PVC, aluminum foil and diverse other materials. This page will be updated as soon as I catch up with the entire FESPA week. But suffice it to say, Sepiax ink is worth looking at. Presently it works on Epson printheads. You can use Sepiax ink in any Roland, Mutoh, or Mimaki printer: does not require any special additional heaters. The ink does not require primer or post treatment on most materials.

More to come.

FLAAR testing and evaluation of Sepiax water-based ink on uncoated DuPont Tyvek and on PVC in demo room of Sepiax Ink Technology in Austria. Karl Ebner (Sepiax), Nicholas Hellmuth, Franz Aigner (Sepiax) and Tina Kosir, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, assisting FLAAR at FESPA and on digital imaging projects.

 

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Most recently updated May 21, 2009.

First posted April 7, 2008. Updated Feb. 2, 2009.