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CALCA flatbed UV printer product evaluation

Currently I have found four Chinese flatbed printers that appear to be more or less concepts based on the Inca Digital flatbed printer concept:

• CALCA UV flatbed printer
• Yinghe Flat Bed Printer (Yinghe-UV-FLAT-1224) (sic)
• JHF-UV Vista 2506 DS and Vista 2508D+
• (Seaband) Qumtum P2

All four are slightly different from each other. What they share are the relatively small size (compared with large and heavy flatbeds from Teckwin and Yishan). If you compare prices you find that of course the Chinese printers cost less than the Inca Spyder. But the question is, how well does each brand perform? How long do they last? What is the resale value, if any, after three years?

Small UV flatbed printers have never been a successful size: there is always a high initial cost with any UV printer, no matter whether 1 meter or 3 meters in width. The small flatbed printers of Mimaki, Mimaki UJF-605c, are used only in niche applications and thus are not destined to be best-sellers.

CALCA booth at Shanghai trade show 2008.

As soon as this CALCA UV flatbed printer appears at a trade show it will be possible to provide more information. It has not been visible at FESPA, nowhere in the US, and not even at the recent Shanghai ’07 trade show. Since there was no alphabetical index of that show, there is no way to tell if they exhibited in some lost corner of a distant hall, but I have not seen or heard about this printer from any China contacts either.

Same with the Yinghe flatbed UV printer. They are sold on the Internet but not available for detailed inspection.

FLAAR does not recommend any digital imaging product until we can actually see it, inspect it, study it, do test prints, and also try to find an end-user who actually has one (for a site-visit case study).

To upgrade our recommendations we are beginning to visit Chinese factories: visited three wide-format printer factories in July, including the factory of Teckwin. Here we could actually inspect their dedicated flatbed printers, including a new small version, about the size of the CALCO and Yinghe, but a completely different structure and drive mechanism.

It is easier to write about UV printers when they are exhibited both in the US and Europe, and even easier when we are hosted to visit their factory and demo rooms. This is a lot less hectic than a trade show.

The name that appears associated with CALCA is Beijing Softimage Technology Co., Ltd.

 

 

Most recently updated 25, 2006.

First posted March 15, 2006. Updated April 6, 2006.