Hello, I'm newbie here and in the printing industry so let me introduce Myself 
My name is Juan and I work as a mechanical design engineer for a company focused in design/manufacture dashboards, the dial indicators are printed and need to have very specific features in appearance since the light passes thru to illuminate the symbols and all that stuff. The "regular" process for making this is by screen printing which makes it very expensive for low-volume and rigidity in terms of tooling for any running change on the artwork.
A couple of years ago the company decided to start producing this parts in-house using digital printing technology to take advantage of the flexibility of the direct printing so they purchsased a Truepress Jet650UV, to make story short the machine is going to be taken out since it was more expensive to make it run than the profit.
Besides regular production, we used this equipment to produce the prototypes in the design phase, for this purpose it was excellent because of its flexibility. the thing is that this machine is way much expensive to mantain since we need it ocassionally (let's say a couple of prints per day) and these machines are designed to be running 24/7 and if you have it iddle for long time you start having a lot of trouble on nozzles clogged and some other issues.
Based on that we have the chance to purchase a much smaller equipment to be able to print at much lower scale and low volume for our requirements, basically what we need is:
Our fears is to select any equipment and start having troubles of clogged nozzles and damaged (expensive heads), and all of the "common" issues of our current machine. I know that we weren't operating correctly, lack of maintenance and whatever you tell me I'll accept it, but we need a more trouble-free equipment:
So far I have been doing my homework and the ones in the list are:
My main question is about these equipment, any recommendations? is any other that you know suitable for the purpose that we want? or even these technology is suitable for what we want? (flexible rapid prototyping of printing automotive dashboard overlays) I know that UV printing is aimed for high volume, but is there any other alternatives??
Thanks in advance for your support!
My name is Juan and I work as a mechanical design engineer for a company focused in design/manufacture dashboards, the dial indicators are printed and need to have very specific features in appearance since the light passes thru to illuminate the symbols and all that stuff. The "regular" process for making this is by screen printing which makes it very expensive for low-volume and rigidity in terms of tooling for any running change on the artwork.
A couple of years ago the company decided to start producing this parts in-house using digital printing technology to take advantage of the flexibility of the direct printing so they purchsased a Truepress Jet650UV, to make story short the machine is going to be taken out since it was more expensive to make it run than the profit.
Besides regular production, we used this equipment to produce the prototypes in the design phase, for this purpose it was excellent because of its flexibility. the thing is that this machine is way much expensive to mantain since we need it ocassionally (let's say a couple of prints per day) and these machines are designed to be running 24/7 and if you have it iddle for long time you start having a lot of trouble on nozzles clogged and some other issues.
Based on that we have the chance to purchase a much smaller equipment to be able to print at much lower scale and low volume for our requirements, basically what we need is:
- Print in Poly Carbonate Sheets of 0.5 mm thickness, 11 x 17 (double letter) print area
- Ink needs to withstand -40ºC +80ºC and resist to UV (are located inside of a vehicle exposed to sunlight)
- Ink needs to be flexible enough to be able to be cutted by a CNC blade table
- Print environment: Dusty, temperatures from 32 - 100 ºF and RH from 5 to 80% (yes, It is insane) in the shop.
Our fears is to select any equipment and start having troubles of clogged nozzles and damaged (expensive heads), and all of the "common" issues of our current machine. I know that we weren't operating correctly, lack of maintenance and whatever you tell me I'll accept it, but we need a more trouble-free equipment:
So far I have been doing my homework and the ones in the list are:
- Lavaprint - 3648C UV Flatbed Printer
- Mikami UJF-6042 UV printer. Tabletop Type LED-UV Curing Flatbed Inkjet Printer
- Direct Jet 1014UV or 1024UV
- LE-6080 Rioch head uv flatbed printer
- Brother-Jet BR-U4880-Plus A2 UV Flatbed Printer
My main question is about these equipment, any recommendations? is any other that you know suitable for the purpose that we want? or even these technology is suitable for what we want? (flexible rapid prototyping of printing automotive dashboard overlays) I know that UV printing is aimed for high volume, but is there any other alternatives??
Thanks in advance for your support!
