France based Pixcolor recently commissioned its second swissQprint roll to roll printer. The first had already started work just a few weeks before.
‘Karibu’s potential quickly became apparent,’ explained Frédéric Toupenay, managing director of Pixcolor. He added, ‘We’ve always printed a lot of flexible materials with our Nyala and a sublimation printer, but Karibu brought an instant leap in quality, efficiency and reliability.’
Hence, the immediate order of a second UV roll to roll printer from swissQprint. ‘Karibu saves us a lot of time and gives no trouble whatsoever.’ Pixcolor’s customers include trade fair booth builders and shop fitters who are supplied with campaign and decoration elements as well as lettering and displays. Their biggest customer immediately noticed the difference; Karibu sets the new standard for quality.
Pixcolor prints miles and miles of banners, various textiles and self-adhesive films. In addition, there is paper, magnetic sheet on rolls and other films. ‘Of the many printers we’ve had, none has processed everything as smoothly as Karibu,’ said Toupenay. ‘Even older rolls of material that choked other machines worked with Karibu.’ Karibu doesn’t distort substrates, while line sharpness and print quality in general are striking. All these were reasons for purchasing the second system.’
The UV ink that swissQprint developed especially for Karibu is very flexible – stretch frames don’t cause stress whitening. Toupenay pointed out problem-free folding in particular: ‘We fold textiles for shipment and then assemble at the customer’s location.’ No abrasion or creases can be seen. Toupenay also praised the colour fastness, ‘It stays absolutely constant from the first to the last metre. Many other technologies have great difficulty with this.’ Toupenay very much welcomes the ink’s GreenGuard Gold certification, especially as this opens doors to new customer segments.
The printer’s built-in light box runs right alongside the printing area, so the operator can immediately and continuously check backlit prints. Should optimisation be necessary, the company can act quickly and lose little time or material. Pixcolor uses the Mesh Kit for full bleed printing of permeable media. Thanks to this, the machine stays clean, which in turn saves time.
Karibu is highly energy efficient, as Toupenay confirmed, ‘Power consumption is massively lower compared to that of other large format printers.’ In addition, Karibu produces hardly any rejects. And then there is cool LED curing, which prevents material shrinkage and ensures registration accuracy with multi-part products. ‘We save a lot of material and have no more complaints,’ said Toupenay. Pixcolor now operates a total of three swissQprint large format printers: the two Karibus, plus a Nyala flatbed printer. ‘These machines are extremely reliable – that’s so typically swissQprint,’ he added.
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