CET Color K2 3200UV RTR Roll-to-Roll UV-curing printer

I

January 2019

Test print evaluation

CET Color K2 3200UV RTR

Nicholas Hellmuth and Jose Melgar

Roll-to-Roll UV-curing printer

at SGIA 2018

CET Color K2 3200UV RTR Roll-to-Roll UV-curing printer

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Nicholas Hellmuth and Jose MelgarFLAAR Reports. January 2019

For several years, we have followed the interesting CET Color printer models that have been exhibited in North America.

This is a very interesting company because it started as a print business whose owner, Ernie Chin, became interested to find ways to modify his printers to increase their productivity. Those early attempts were successful and the hobby of rebuilding wide-format printers became a formal process with high-quality engineering support, which led to the foundation of Chin E. Technologies, known today as CET Color.

During SGIA 2019 we had the opportunity to run print tests to determine the quality of CET Color’s K2 3200UV RTR, a roll-to-roll UV-curing printer model.

But the print test you will see in the following pages have a greater purpose beyond inspecting a wide-format inkjet printer: our designs are educational, because we fly them back to Guatemala to donate them to schools in low-income regions.

Why FLAAR Reports?In the printing industry, there are hundreds of websites, online magazines, and blogs covering the ins and outs of new wide-format inkjet printers, inks, media, software, etc.

And while these media outlets have an important role in the industry, FLAAR Reports is different in that our publications are based on actually knowing the products we write about, AND know the people behind the products.

Also, we are different because our business model does not depend nor includes PR nor advertising. Rather, FLAAR Reports is interested in sponsored

research projects that allow us to evaluate the wide-format inkjet printers our readers are interested in.

With almost 20 years evaluating wide-format inkjet printers, inks, media, software, finishing equipment and other aspects of the printing industry, our reports and websites are read by thousands of people a year.In all of those years we have learned that dedicated reports is the most helpful type of publications for print shop owners, managers and printer operators.

We have visited factories literally around the world to write evaluations on wide-format printers and other related equipment, and these printer brands have received lots of exposure from our web traffic.

For a total evaluation, we prefer to visit the factory and do first-hand print tests as we have done with EFI, Dilli, Durst, HP, and hundred other factories.But since it takes time to schedule a visit, we normally start by writing a brief evaluation based on inspecting the printer at a sign tradeshow.

A key aspect of our evaluations is doing test prints, either at a tradeshow or in a more complete evaluation in the factory.

Printing our own files helps us determine the quality of a printer because we know what the original file looked like.

As mentioned at the begining, besides being analysts in the print industry, FLAAR has an educational branch conformed by several researchers and designers that illustrate these materials.

We would like to thank the CET staff for doing test prints for FLAAR Reports at SGIA 2018.

CET Color K2 3200UV RTR roll-to-roll UV-curing printer at SGIA 2018

Print Samples to allow determining print quality (and document printer quality)

CET Color K2 3200UV RTR Roll-to-Roll UV-curing printer

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CET Color K2 3200UV RTRIf you analyze the models of the printer manufacturers based in North America, you will quickly realize that in most cases, the models manufactured by HP, Gandy Digital and others are in the high-end price range. CET Color on the other hand, offers interesting wide-format UV-curing printers with a mid-range price. The starting price of this model was US$99,995 at SGIA 2019, and although the prices might have changed, you have an estimate of the price range of this model.

At SGIA2019, we had the opportunity to run print tests on the K2 3200UV RTR, a dedicated roll-to-roll UV-curing printer with a print width of 126” (3.2 m).

This model handles roll media up to 2 mm thick. You can order this model with any of these two ink color configurations: CMYK or CMYK + lc, lm + White.

An interesting aspect of this model is that you can order one or two rows of print-heads. This is why the specs list two figures for each print mode.

This model has four print modes or print speeds:

Draft (1 row, 6 pass 939 ft2/hr)(2 rows, 6 pass 1500 ft2/hr)

Standard(1 row, 8 pass 725 ft2/hr)(2 rows, 8 pass 1160 ft2/hr)

Production(1 row, 12 pass 478 ft2/hr)(2 rows, 12 pass 724 ft2/hr)

High Quality(1 row, 16 pass 356 ft2/hr)(2 rows, 16 pass 570 ft2/hr)

CET Color K2 3200UV RTR Roll-to-Roll UV-curing printer

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The model exhibited at SGIA 2019 had an ink configuration of CMYK + lc, lm and White. As shown in the photo at right, apparently this model also has a channel for varnish, but this is something we need to confirm.

This printer comes with Kyocera printheads, featuring 2,656 nozzles per head. This printhead model has a variable drop size of 5, 10 and 15 picoliters, which allow for smooth color transitions.

The sample being printed below is a list of Roman, Mayan and Cardinal numbers. Below the numbers you see the name of each one in Spanish, Kakchiquel (a Mayan language cur-rently spoken in rural areas of Guate-mala), and English.

CET Color K2 3200UV RTR Roll-to-Roll UV-curing printer

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FLAAR Mesoamerica has an educational branch called Mayan Toons, formed by several biologists, researchers, and graphic designers that produce hundreds of illustrations based on the Maya culture.

Mayan Toons is the only institution that produces educational material in different languages for schools in low-income areas of Guatemala.

These materials are not sold Instead, they are donated to public schools in low-income regions in Guatemala. The offi-cial educational material for public schools usually comes only in Spanish.

Below, you can see a number of illustrations of birds native to Yaxha-Nakum-Naranjo, an Archaeological National Park in Peten, in the northen region of Guatemala.

CET Color K2 3200UV RTR Roll-to-Roll UV-curing printer

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Based on these print samples we determined that the CET Color K2 3200UV RTR has a rich and wide color gamut. Green and blue tones are especially good, but oranges and magenta tones are good too.

In other words, the colors produced by this printer were accurate. We know because these illustrations and designs were not taken from the internet or from any stock image gallery. Our designers and illustrators prepared these files in our office from zero. So we knew what the original designs and illustrations looked like.

No noticeable banding or any other print issue was visible even from close distance. In a future edition of this evaluation, we would like to test how the CET Color K2 3200UV RTR performs with skin tones. However, judging by the color tran-sitions we could see in our illustrations, we predict this printer is going to outperform other printers in the same price range.

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Thousands of people lined up to enter the main hall at SGIA 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada, US.

Since a good quality print, in addition to a well made printer, good quality ink, appropriate printable material, knowledgeable color management, also needs a high quality original photograph, we at FLAAR also cover digital photography, especially what equipment and what techniques produce the kind of image that will make your printer, your ink, your media look even better: www.digital-photography.org