Agfa has upped the stakes in the roll to roll 3.2 metre wide inkjet market. The Jeti Ceres uses LED UV combined with a high pigment thin film ink technology and will run at 186m2/hr on a side range of media.
Reinhilde Alaert, marketing product manager, sign & display, says: “The Jeti Ceres RTR3200 LED could be considered the roll to roll equivalent of the Jedi Titan series flatbed machines. Our aim with this new engine is to maximise productivity while staying true to Agfa Graphics’ industry leading image quality and low ink consumption. This is why we are bringing a roll to roll alternative to the Jeti product family.”
The Jeti Ceres will come with an “extremely opaque” white ink and a primer option to cope with more difficult substrates. It helps ink adhere to these non receptive surfaces. This leaves six ink positions for CMYK-LMLC inks. Agfa is using Ricoh MH5420 print heads in the Jeti Ceres.
The printer can take a single roll to 3.26 metres wide or two rolls at 1.56 metres in width, each from 0.2mm to 2.0mm thick. There are four print modes offering 186m2/hr in express mode to 22m2/hr in high definition mode, offering 920x1200dpi. This might be selected for close view backlit graphics. For window graphics, a white can be printed first or as a sandwich between the images.
As well as these films the Jeti Ceres will print on vinyls, canvas, banners and meshes. It is designed as a future workhorse for industrial roll to roll printing. The development continues the spread of LED UV curing, introduced last year on Agfa’s flatbed machines. This enables inkjet to handle heat sensitive materials as the technology does not generate energy as ink outside the narrow spectrum of UV light.
The printer is available immediately in all regions. It will be the key product Agfa is showing at exhibitions around Europe starting with CPrint in Lyon at the end of this month. The printer supports third party Rips alongside its own Asanti workflow.
Agfa expects the Jeti Ceres 3.2 metre roll to roll printer using LED UV to core its thin film ink to become a workhorse printer offering high quality and high throughput in express mode.
