SOS Installation of a Xenons X-180 and Almeida Cutter at PDS, Plymouth

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Gordon Bryan and his new Xenons Machine

PDS offers two machines at a lower price than one – without compromising quality.

Plymouth’s PDS Print has installed two brand new machines supplied by SOS; a Xenons X-180 hybrid flatbed/rollfed wide format printer and an Almeida B8-2513 digital cutter. Gordon Bryan, Director of the Company, said that the investment is a further dive into wide format production for the company.

“We took our first steps into wide format with a solvent based Roland roll-to-roll machine which we got from SOS five years ago, mainly producing posters and banners. It became such a success it was running 24 hours a day – so it was clear we needed extra capacity,” he says.

“A major client was asking for more and more work produced on rigid media, which meant mounting to board, a time consuming process. So we needed a hybrid machine which would produce direct to materials such as corex, but also meet demand for our roll fed work.”

Bryan spent some time researching the wide format hybrid market. “SOS offered us the Xenons machine and the Almeida cutter for less than the price of a standalone hybrid machine from their rivals – it’s literally two machines for less than the price of one. At first, this put me off a little – you wonder how it’s possible – but we were reassured that the Xenons uses the latest Ricoh print heads, which is the key component. Other users gave us good reports, and the test prints we did looked great.”

He continues: “The cost may have been low, but the quality has been high. No matter what we have done to it, it has always performed flawlessly. We’re very concerned with colour accuracy and it’s been calibrated to match the output of our other devices. The other big plus is productivity; because it’s an LED UV machine, drying is instant, and because we opted for a rolling bed on the Almeida cutter, we have automated poster cutting which saves us upwards of 4 hours a day and frees up our operator.”

“The cutter is very versatile, it comes with a big set of tools as standard – not as optional extras. The speed is great and the accuracy is amazing.”

The Xenons X180 can print up to 1.88m wide on ACP, foam board, fluted board, ceramic tiles, glass and wood. It also prints on vinyl and flexible media. Almeida is available in various sizes. This 2.5m by 1.3m cutter is one of them.

PDS Print was founded by Gordon’s father Ron Bryan in the mid 1970s, making it arguably the longest-surviving print company in Plymouth. Gordon Bryan says that adaptability has been the key to the company’s longevity. “You have to update and go with the times. We’ve installed these machines because we know digital and wide format print are the future.”

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