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Gerber XRT2500 grand format printer

Companies like 3M, Gerber, Matan, Redhill, and even Oce are learning that it costs too much to design, engineer, and manufacture new models of inkjet printers. It is hard enough to market them; but to try to come up with the original design is too complex in todays fast changing digital technology.

It took about 10 years for Oce to come out with their own 60” printer. At one stage it was an oil-based printer. But that chemistry and technology turned out to be unpopular. So it became a UV-cured inkjet printer and eventually appeared as the Oce Arizona 60UV. But it had a weak ink, slow printheads, and seems to have had skewing issues with rigid material.

So now the popular thing is to rebrand someone else’s printer. Agfa is doing this in eco-solvent printers. HP is rebranding the Seiko printer as the HP Designjet 9000s. And Gerber is rebranding a printer as the XRT2500. The difference is that HP is rebranding a Seiko printer that has been proven to be extraordinary. Whereas Gerber is rebadging a Teckwin Chinese printer that not many people know one way or the other what it is really like.

But we will keep our eyes and ears open, and if we find out about a print shop that has any of these printers near us in the Toledo area of Ohio, we will check it out and report back.

Gerber XRT2500 printer at SGIA 2004.

List of stretch-models of solvent inkjet printers

• ColorSpan 98SI, 98.5 inches

• Mimaki JV3-250SPF, 100.3 inches, 2.55 meters

• Mutoh Osprey, 103 inches, 2.612 meters

• Mutoh Spitfire, 102 inches, 2.60 meters

• Roland SOLJET Pro II SJ-1000EX, 104 inches

• Roland SOLJET Pro II V SJ-1045

• Roland AdvancedJet AJ-1000 (new as of February 2006)

• Seiko ColorPainter 100S, 104 inches

So far the new HP 8000s and the HP 9000s mild-solvent inkjet printers are not stretch models. HP will probably have Scitex Vision handle the true grand format sizes.

First posted February 16, 2006.