Organised by Messe Frankfurt Trade Fairs India Pvt Ltd, Media Expo 2015 at New Delhi witnessed a host of exhibitors, including many from overseas, showing digital largeformat printers, laser engravers, CNC router cutting machines of varied models and configurations, and many other allied products and materials including LEDs. Key exhibitors that pulled the tide of crowd around on the busy isles of the show floors comprised Hewlett Packard (HP), FUJIFILM India, AXYZ International, Epson, Esko- Graphics India, Apsom Infotex, Colorjet, Caldron Graphics, NEGI Sign Systems & Supplies, Sun Sign & Technologies, Mimaki, JN Arora, Mono Sign Systems, Digi Pro Print, Acry Monomers, Britomatics, Keith Electronics, Arrow Digital, City Advertising, among others.

All new developments

As always, the stand of Hewlett Packard (HP) encouraged visitors to hook to new prospects of HP Latex 300 series, persistently targeting small and medium PSPs. “These days, flexibility to choose unique and versatile media has been one of the fundamental requirements of the PSPs. This is what we showcased the possibilities on glass, leather, metal substrates, acrylic, etc,” said Bhavana Saluja, country marketing managerscitex, HP. ‘Live’ demos of vehicle wraps with a spectacle of wall arts, HP convinced every visitor by presenting its Designjet series (Z5400, Z6800 Photo Production Printer and D5800) at the expo.

A mega showcase from NEGI Sign Systems & Supplies was its complete set of innovative printers comprising ValueJet VJ-1638, ValueJet VJ-1604 K4 bundled with ONYX Rip software alongside the latest like NEGI-Jet NJ E1-1800, a high-quality eco-solvent printer suitably crafted for high precision and high-speed inkjet prints for in-store graphics. “We target to provide visitors a complete range of our machines for comprehensive applications in this edition of the expo,” mentioned Vijay Kandari, sales head, NEGI Sign Systems & Supplies Co.

A new Gongzheng GZE 1802SG printer, which Shailesh Mehta, director, Mehta Cad Cam Systems Ltd, termed as ‘a vinyl printer at the price of flex printer’, was a big showstopper. This economical six feet Gongzheng printer is featured with Spectra Starfire printhead (introduced for the first time) and capable to run upto 104 sq m/hr. Other products presented from the company during the expo included its indigenously engineered Leebra Series engravers, Gloria Series laser cutting machines, among others. Caldron Graphics showcased fresh potentials of ceramic and textile printing, which Rajat Mitra, director of the company mentioned as their new concentration.

The company presented its latest CJ7000 II model during the expo. Emerged after a brief skipping mode in the Indian market, Mimaki at the expo announced the relaunch of their operations in the Indian market through the recently incorporated 100 percent subsidiary Mimaki India Pvt Ltd.

Presenting their range of industrial printing and textile machines, Tomohiro Ikeda, Asia Oceania Business Unit, Sales & Marketing Division, Mimaki Engineering Co Ltd, Nagano, Japan announced that they would be looking forward to re-connecting with their important Indian customers. Tempting superior in UV printing, Arrow Digital presented Jetrix KX5, a true flatbed and RTR printer along with IP-6620 ColorPainter, which is equipped with new media lifter (jack-up function). Prakash Chopra, business manager, Arrow Digital Pvt Ltd mentioned visitors keenly embarked to their displays.

Two big introductions from Infinity Digital Solutions were IDS-1313 UV and VK-Jet 180K with gray scale printheads. About the newly introduced printers, Deepak Kumar Wadhwa of Infinity Digital Solutions Pvt Ltd, said the UV printer is for small-format applications on glass, metal, ID card plastics, etc. One among the most attended on the show floors was the Epson stand where a tide of visitors swarmed around the company’s SureColor Series for indoor graphics, such as SC-SC50670 and SCB6070/ B7070. Konica Minolta Business Solutions was also a showstopper in presenting innovation in photo/ poster printing through its bizhub Press c70hc and others in the series. “Through we are not into traditional large-format printing, our printing solutions are meant for interior graphics, such as POPs and POSs,” said Surendra Kumar, sales manager, Sales Division, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India Pvt Ltd.

New PICOMAX KM 1024 from Macart Equipment was one of the indigenously engineered cost-effective printers for supreme quality shown at the expo. Other exhibitors showing unsurpassed range of new printers included UV Printers, Astro Jet India and JX Enterprise as well.

Precision cutting & routing

Presented persuasively as a new advancement in digital finishing, Kongsberg XN from Esko-Graphics India was put up on display, opening up the competency to perform in varied parameters. “We also present our range of tools for all applications and substrates, for example, PM knife tool, foam cutting unit, high power milling unit, etc,” shared Shrihari K Rao, sales director, South Asia, Esko- Graphics India Private Limited. Showing the run of the machine onsite, Keith Electronics unpacked its latest MF20-E/10 fibre laser marking machine, which magnetised crowd. About the machine, Raj Chopra, director, Keith Electronics Pvt Ltd pointed it out as economical, compatible with plastic, stainless steels and could do wonder in metal surface marking, such as on aluminium oxide.

Kartar Corporation in collaboration with TPS showcased TPS-S8900, a China-made premium automatic channel letter bender, presenting for the first time in the Indian market. “This machine features a large torque and high precision with maximum processing height of 180 mm and bending of 1.0 mm thick steel,” explained Joyce Ye from TPS, adding that the machine is suitable to bend LED letters, stainless steel letters, punching letters, resin letters, giant glowing letters and more.

Across textile arenas

Textile printing materials and technologies opened up a new shift in terms of eco-friendly and flexible printing. Focusing on this and more, Apsom Infotex presented a complete combo of ColorJet soft signage solutions alongside a series of Roland cut and print machines. Ravi Agarwala, director, Apsom Infotex Ltd mentioned the company’s ColorJet SoftJet grand-format soft signage printer as a key to efficient productivity and profitability. Also presented at one of the company’s segregated ColorJet zones was an end-to-end ink range for solvent, eco-solvent, dye-sublimation, UV curable and textile.

JN Arora & Co, a big ink major, has swung into textile zone with the introduction of Italian machine Siser for thermo transferring on textile items, such as T-shirts, shoes, leathers and others in the category. “You can have decorations on cushions, shirts and end number of items,” mentioned Vimlesh Arora, managing director, JN Arora & Co Pvt Ltd. “You can get your own designs, customised items with the help of Siser using a rage of medias including foils, reflective substrates, glow-in-dark materials, even the ones with low temperature sensitive,” he added.

What textile could excel in extraordinary ways was proved by Visual Displays presenting its high-end line of Sun Fabrics—a recyclable, non-tearable material compatible with solvent, ecosolvent, latex or any other pigmentbased inks. Deepak Girotra of Visual Displays said the future of signage and display graphics is revolved around textile materials, which are not only ‘green’ but versatile.

Range of media & consumables

Special range of high-end media and consumables were showcased, bringing a new dimension to the creation of special effects and qualities in display graphics. Among the line of Starflex materials that Sun Sign & Technologies presented was Magnetic Vinyl, a magnetically receptive material that attracts all types of low profile magnets, including flexible magnetic sheeting.

Easy to cut or trim with scissors, knife, die-cutter or cutting plotter, this vinyl is printable using solvent, eco-solvent, latex and UV technologies to create backgrounds to place the magnets. Deepak Gupta, director, Sun Sign & Technologies, mentioned the company’s Block Out Flex NSBO- 3012 for both side print as another big introduction during the expo.

Mono Sign Systems, authorised distributor of Avery Dennison materials, Samsung LEDs, presented these products in an attractive way. “Our presence in the expo is for brand promotion, particularly promoting our newly introduced A-grade ‘Mona Acrylic’ cast acrylic sheet,” said Saurabh Aggarwal of Mono Sign Systems. Presenting AT Inks range, which included platinum and standard grade Quattro and Dous products for printheads like Konica, Seiko, Spectra, Skywalker, etc at Acry Monomers stand pulled huge crowd. Manish Aggarwal of Acry Monomers India Pvt Ltd said they rather paid attention to bring the newly introduced AT Inks logo to the visitors’ notice.

Using the expo as a right platform to meet their clients, Hitesh Jobalia, managing director, Max Flex & Imaging Systems Limited said, “We have set up our own manufacturing plants in Badlapur for vinyl and Ahmedabad for foamboards; basically, we would like to inform and educate the industry about our new move through this well-organised expo.” He expressed amazement to so much of crowd at the expo.

On the other side, InkTec Sublinova, a new standard of dye-sublimation ink introduced by Britomatics attracted visitors. “We displayed our Bite Jet Series to provide flexible option to those looking for indoor applications,” shared Sumit Dev, director, Britomatic India Private Limited. And another crowd puller was SAM INK. In this, Vijay Chavan of Geevee Infotech mentioned the company’s display of a SAM INK series attracting their existing as well as news customers during the expo.

ITMS India, a channel partner of LG Hausys, showcased high-end LG printing materials for varied applications. Ayush Kapoor, director, ITMS India Pvt Ltd, was elated to the overall footfall. In addition, the expo didn’t miss the presence of some leading media manufacturers, namely Qrex Flex, Sunflex, SRF, Swarup Polymers, Navratan and the like. Among the exhibitors impressively showing architectural modular sign systems and display solutions were Suncolor Display presenting its newly launched unipoles of 15 ft and 19 ft high and the rest comprised Signsutra, Signage Group, Amrit Sales Corporation, Cosign and others.

A host of exhibitors, both from overseas and domestic arenas, presenting a resourceful range of LEDs and related products included Arihant, Bitwon Tech, Changzou YinFeng, Imatek, TID Reflective Material, Samtec International, to name a few.

Almost every exhibitor at Media Expo 2015 in New Delhi was elated to the fact that the whole three days of the trade exhibition were worth attending and footfall was tremendous. The next edition of the expo will be held from January 15-17, 2016 at BEC in Mumbai.

FUJIFILM brings suitable printer for Indian market Citing ‘green’ as the ultimate shift to innovations and a new gain in business, FUJIFILM India presented the might of UV technologies during the expo. “UV as an eco-friendly technology is the bottom line of every equipment from FUJIFILM; our machines are durable, have no restriction on any media of even or uneven surfaces,” explained SM Ramprasad, assistant vice president, Graphics Art Division, FUJIFILM India Private Limited. Put up strikingly at the company’s stand was a door printed on the company’s newly unpacked Equity EY, which could even penetrate into the deeply engraved portions, and a suitably engineered printer for the Indian market. “We already have Equity Advance, which is highly premium in terms of cost (Rs 1.4 crore); now, we introduce Equity EY at just Rs 85 lakh, suitable for the Indian market. Mainly being a consumable company, our printers are just drivers; and having understood this perspective, we bring our UV products to an affordable level,” said SM Ramprasad, adding, “The ink prices across our various models vary from Rs 8,000 to 12,000 per litre, which can be translated into Rs 12 per sq ft, which by far is most economical, so in that sense we are working more on cost effectiveness.” Just another entry-level printer from the company, Equity LED 1600 hybrid printer allows spot UV printing.

Paradigm shift in innovation from Digi Pro Print Protruded amid the multitude of exhibitors at the expo was Digi Pro Print with its well-arranged stand standing tall and staging the company’s new HandTop UV digital flatbed printers, perfectly engineered to deliver absolute high-quality prints any customer could adopt to speed up business. Introduced attractively at the company’s stand were HT 3200 UV hybrid and HT2512 UV flatbed printers. “By participating in this New Delhi edition of the expo, we endeavour to penetrate into the north Indian market; we found a good number of potential visitors who showed interest in our products,” mentioned CV Ramesh, marketing head, UV Digital Printing, Digi Pro Print. Both HT 3200 UV and HT2512 UV are GEN5-Series UV printers with greyscale printheads, ideal for retail POP graphics, backlit displays. HT 3200 UV hybrid printer is capable to handle both rigid and roll media. Currently, Digi Pro Print is headquartered in Chennai.

Monotech unpacks four new PixelJet models Four new indigenously engineered PixelJet models from Monotech Systems at the expo covered the entire gamut of both eco-solvent and UV parameters. “In the ecosolvent domain, we have perceived the success of our five feet printer; but in response to the rapidly maturing market we introduce 10 ft Pixeljet ECO 3202,” mentions TP Jain, managing director, Monotech Systems Limited. Of the new attractions at the company’s stand was PixelJet Desktop UV printer designed for gifts, tabletop items. Textile domain is yet another arena where the company is focusing on for a bigger expansion. “Textile is our new exploration of what ‘inkjet’ technologies can do in the segment,” he says. Monotech’s stand was one among the most crowded spots on the show floor. Witnessing the swarm of valued visitors all around, TP Jain remarked it as a big sign of revival of the signage market.

AXYZ International opens up more than ordinaries With its reputation as global manufacturer of CNC routers and CNC knife systems, AXYZ International boasts of its widespread presence in Canada, UK, Poland and India. The company’s participation in the expo revealed some fresh opportunities which digital finishers could tap using Trident CNC router systems. On the introduction of Trident 4010, Vinod Srinivasan, director sales & marketing, AXYZ Automation Pvt Ltd said the machine is perfectly engineered for accurate precisions to craft POP and POS display items. Faster, wider, longer and deeper, finishing job of Trident Series is more than ordinary as it accepts more, from routing aluminium and acrylic to cutting paper, vinyl, foam-boards, chloroplast, styrene and rubber.

Next-gen LEDs by City Advertising Brighter and better than the other glowing products flaunted around, Next Gen LED Signage materials putting up on display by City Advertising at the expo pulled profound attention of every passerby. The reason, according to Nitin Srivastava, director, City Advertising, is that the company’s products are of world-class, consented by many international users in Europe and other parts of the world. “Our Next Generation Signage products are widely accepted for outstanding high luminant power as well as customisation,” he added. Available in all colours LED products from City Advertising are of ten-year life span and warranted for two years.