Players from wide-format segment enters PIA/GATF Intertech technology award
- Inca Onset and Xaar 1001 printhead take the pride
At this year’s coveted
PIA/GATF Intertech
technology award,
companies from wide format
segment also made their
presence felt by bagging awards
– Inca Digital (Onset) and Xaar.
The Inca Onset is a large-format
UV digital flatbed printer that
handles print sizes up to 10.5×5-
ft and achieves production
throughput of three hundred
3×5-ft sheets an hour. Edge-toedge
printing allows for substrates
up to 3/8” thick and up to 22-lbs
at full speed. This printer can be
equipped with a fully automatic
load/unload system and is
extremely easy to run by one
operator with a minimal 20-
minute setup time at the start of
each day.
Its intelligent design identifies and
remaps weak nozzles to assure
consistent quality, uses the lowest
energy levels possible for UV
curing, and employs linear drives
to move the bed for smoother
motion and better drop
placement and accuracy, resulting
in higher quality prints.
Xaar was also announced as the
recipient of the PIA/GATF
Intertech Technology Award for
2008 for their Xaar 1001 printhead.
The Xaar 1001 is an ideal inkjet
printhead for commercial print and
packaging. Designed for highspeed,
single-pass applications, the
Xaar 1001 head is at the heart of
a number of innovative UV inkjet
presses. It delivers excellent drop
formation and drop placement
accuracy with outstanding
operational durability. The head’s
unique XaarDOTT technology
allows variable-sized drops to be
produced, giving users the ability
to select drop size depending upon
the application. Fine drops give
smooth tones and sharp-edged
text, while larger drops ensure
good ink coverage at maximum
print speed.
The 1001 printhead also
incorporates Xaar’s new HSST
head technology, which delivers
“through-flow” operation. Most
printheads shoot ink by delivering
a pressure pulse down a channel
that ejects ink from a small nozzle
at the end. Unfortunately, nozzles
can fail, either being blocked by a
particle or because air bubbles
form. Failures require a wipe/
purge maintenance routine to reprime
the nozzles. With Xaar’s
through-flow design, ink flows
past each nozzle orifice, keeping
the channels primed and
operational. Any nozzles lost due
to a physical shock quickly selfrecover.
In their evaluation of the Xaar
1001 printhead, the InterTech
judges said, “This is a truly
innovative design of inkjet head
technology and facilitates faster
speeds, improved productivity
and increased resolution."
The InterTech Technology Awards
honour the development of
technologies predicted to have a
major impact on the graphic arts
and related industries. PIA/GATF
sponsors the awards as a service
to the industry in order to spotlight
the wide range of technologies that
contribute to the advancement of
techniques and processes used in
the graphic arts.
