Fujifilm has announced the Acuity Prime, a flatbed large format printer that is the start of a new direction following the end of its relationship with Canon. That had endured for 14 years with Fujifilm selling flatbed inkjet machines under the Acuity name while Canon sold essentially the same press as the Arizona range.
Now Fujifilm has switched supplier for the Prime 20 and Prime 30 with further machines expected to fill out the portfolio, replacing those from Canon. The entry level Acuity 1300 is understood to remain and the Acuity M, the B1 flatsheet single-pass machine built by Inca, is not affected.
Anda Baboi, marketing manager for wide format inkjet, says: “The thing that really sets it apart from anything we have brought to market before is the extent of the creative freedom we have had over every aspect of its design and development.
“Having this level of control has given us the opportunity to address a huge number of practical and technical issues, ensuring that the end product offers unbeatable standards of performance; exceptional value, versatility and ease of use, and the best ROI available on the market.”
Both versions of the new machine have a 2.5×1.25metre bed size and maximum print area and can print on substrates to 51mm thick. They use variable droplet Ricoh Gen5 printheads, offering a choice of four-colour only, five-channel, six- and seven-channel printing. The additional channels can be used for white, clear and a priming coating to open scope to a wider range of substrates.
There is a new Uvijet HM LED UV cured ink printing at a maximum resolution of 726×1,200dpi controlled through Colorgate, Caldera or Onyx Rips. The differences between the two models relates to throughput. The Prime 30 runs between 150m2/hr in sketch mode to 16m2/hr in the fine art mode. The equivalent of the Prime 20 is between 130m2/hr and 11m2/hr.
It uses a five-zone vacuum and five-pin registration system for fast loading with other features designed to make the printer user friendly. Lights are used to indicate the status of the ink pouches which are designed for a rapid switch over without splashing.
It adds up to what Fujifilm is calling its “new blueprint” for wide format inkjet. The company, then Sericol, started working in wide format inkjet in 1999, continuing as the centre of excellence for Fujifilm following acquisition in 2005. The first Acuity models followed in 2007 and since then more than 1800 have been installed worldwide. However, the market has shifted significantly in that time.
David Burton, business director at Fujifilm’s large format inkjet head office, says: “We realised three years ago that the market had reached a tipping point. A point at which more of the same, with minor improvements, was no longer enough. The market needed something fundamentally new. So out of the Fujifilm R&D and development centre in the UK, we set out to create just that – something built out of our heritage and long experience, but at the same time, fundamentally new.”
This meant a back to the drawing board approach for the flatbed Acuity and a three-year research project with an emphasis on quality, value, versatility and ease of use, countering the feature creep that had pushed Acuity away from many potential customers as the competition in flatbed inkjet printing has increased.
While the Acuity Prime is targeted at the entry level of the market, the second new machine, Acuity Ultra R2 is pitched at high volume roll to roll superwide printing, either 3.2 metre or 5 metre width with six or eight colours printing three levels of greyscale at 1200x1200dpi.
The same principles have underpinned the design and specifications, leading to larger and easier to switch ink tanks compared to the original Acuity Ultra.
The new machines will be part of a virtual exhibition that Fujifilm is staging. Alongside demonstrations of the Acuity Prime, Fujifilm will show off its latest developments in offset, where the new version of its process-free plate will feature, the Jetpress B2 inkjet press alongside a new rollfed inkjet press for flexible packaging printing.
