Don-Bur subsidiary, Sapphire Curtains and Graphics, has greatly enhanced its efficiency and capacity with the introduction of a new printer for curtains. A £750,000 investment, the EFI VUTEk Q3r UV LED printer increases productivity by 700%. It can also print white.
Sapphire’ general manager Mark Wayman explain: “In simple terms, our older solvent-based printers behaved more like domestic printers. White was a omission of any colour print. You relied on the brightness of your material to print onto. The brightness of the images decreased as soon as the material began to get darker. Because the new printer prints white as part a colour set, bright, intense colours are always available on any background colour. Even metallics.
“The older printers at Sapphire could only print about 2 sets of curtains per day and still require 24 hours de-gassing time before clearcoating. Traditional, labor-intensive signwritten inks were used to print between 2 and 6 pairs of curtains per day, with a team of four. Today, the new cool LED curing printer can print all requirements at a rate of 14 curtain sets per day with no extra drying time.”
Sapphire now processes printed trailer curtain orders in a matter of hours, as opposed to the 3-4 day turnaround cycle. Clearcoating is now part of the printing process. Instead of waiting 24 hours for the first print to dry, this reduces the time required to finish the job. Another benefit is the new printer’s 71% reduction energy consumption, just 2.9kW compared with its predecessor’s 10kW.
Wayman explains how productivity can be improved. “Years ago, it was just plain curtains but everyone wants livery on their curtainsiders and not just the back doors now. About 90% of my production consists of livery for curtainsiders. Nothing plain really goes out the door now.”