PRINTERS. (of all kinds, sizes and shapes) Media & Inks, Laminators. General Introduction to SIGN ASIA EXPO

Transcription

1 March 2018 PRINTERS (of all kinds, sizes and shapes) Media & Inks, Laminators General Introduction to SIGN ASIA EXPO Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth and Andres Mike Morataya I

2 CONTENTS General Introduction to SIGN EXPO ASIA 1 UV Cured Printers 2 Solvent Printers 5 Chinese Printer Brands at SIGN EXPO ASIA 6 Water-Based Printers 7 Textile Printers 8 T-shirt Printers 8 Nice Colors & Graphic Design as Print Samples 10 3D Signage, 3D Rapid Prototyping, 3D Carving/Chiseling Equipment 13 Raised Relief 13 3D Creations 14 3D Printers 16 3D Holigrams 17 Flatbed Cutters 19 CNC Routers, CO2 Laser Cutters and Digital Flatbed Cutters 19 Inks 20 Media and Printable Substrates 21 Venue: Trade Show Area 22 Venue: Halls 26 Acknowledgements 27 Opening Ceremony 28 II

3 General Introduction to SIGN EXPO ASIA There was so much that we enjoyed seeing that we have issued six FLAAR Reports: a general introduction (which you are reading now) plus five separate discussions of other aspects. With this much to experience, we hope that you can see us from FLAAR at SIGN ASIA EXPO 2018 co-located with APPPEXPO Thailand COMING SOON 1

4 UV Cured Printers I was surprised to see the Azon printers branded by a hard-working company from Croatia, exhibited here in Thailand in the booth of DIM GREY. Otherwise most of the UV-curing printers were clearly from China. Dim Grey booth Dim Grey booth 2

5 Docan H1000 Mimaki JFX

6 Flora XTRA 2000HUV dilli HB1600 at Superior Inkjet Booth 4

7 Solvent Printers Mutoh has a large presence at Sign Istanbul (FOLPA booth) and here at SIGN ASIA EXPO. In distinction, in most other expos Roland and Mimaki have either significantly larger booths and/or more distributors. Mimaki SWJ-320S4 5

8 Chinese Printer Brands at SIGN ASIA EXPO From A to Z you got plenty of Chinese printer brand options. Allwin Blue Print FlyJet Fortune Gateway Gongzheng Group JHF Leopard Refretonic Sunjet Taimes Torim Xeda Xenons Xujli FlyJet Allwin Xeda Blue Print 6

9 Water-Based Printers For printing high quality photographs, most photographers still prefer a printer and ink specifically made for high quality photo enlargements. A decade ago we tested dozens of HP Designjet printers, Canon imagepro- GRAF, and other brands of printers for giclee and fine art photographs. The last one we had at our Guatemala evaluation center, an HP Designjet, we stopped using when HP decided to not make available spare parts or firmware upgrades. Since FLAAR Reports is a research and educational institute focused for decades on high-quality photography, it is sad that we no longer have a current brand to do test prints. So we are unable to comment on the quality of Canon compared with Epson or HP Designjet. Printer sample Canon at CST booth 7

10 Textile Printers T-shirt Printers There was a nice deep red-colored R-Jet textile printer. We provided them our T-shirt samples, but the booth personnel never printed them, so we are not able to write an evaluation of this brand of textile printer. R-Jet 5 8

11 I rarely see a Mimaki T-shirt printer. They have existed but most of what I see in a Mimaki booth are solvent and UV-curing printers. Same with Roland and Mutoh. Almost never see a T-shirt printer. Mutoh did have a T-shirt printer but I have noticed it only at one single expo this year. INKSUB booth In distinction, Epson exhibits their T-shirt printer at every Epson booth and at every sign expo around the world. The brother booth had their super fast GTX printer and they printed several tests for us, but not on an actual T-shirt; only on a piece of comparable material. But at least this helps our graphic designers. 9

12 Nice Colors & Graphic Design as Print Samples Since most of the 30 people who work at FLAAR are graphic designers, illustrators or working on animation (videos), I always like to see nice colors and designs at a trade show. Women in bikini, motorcycles, expensive cars are popular with booth designers, but those are so common they are rarely creative. I show here some of the designs at SIGN EXPO ASIA which caught my attention. Print samples 10

13 Print samples You will see a lot more nice designs in our FLAAR Reports on backlit fabrics, backlit signage material, etc. 11

14 Print samples at Superior Inkjet Booth 12

15 3D Signage, 3D Rapid Prototyping, 3D Carving/Chiseling Equipment Raised Relief Most brands of flatbed UV-curing printers can produce raised relief by laying down multiple layers of solidified ink. The booth with dilli printers exhibited raised relief stripes on zebras. Print samples at Superior Inkjet Booth 13

16 3D Creations There is much more to 3D technology than just signage: animated children s movie heroes, athletic stars: all kinds of themes can be designed and produced with a diverse variety of 3D carvers, chiseling machines, and other techniques. 3D Signage Systems 14

17 Another way to create 3D is thermoforming. And at virtually every sign expo in the world you see 3-dimensional creations out of either honeycomb sandwich material, or foamboard, or comparable thick material. The segments are cut with a CNC router or digital flatbed cutter (then the segments are assembled by hand). Foamboard 15

18 3D Printers Most signage expos lack adequate coverage of 3D printing options. So it was nice to see 3D printer booth here, Print 3DD. Print 3DD booth There was even a 3D scanner on exhibit, an EinScan-Pro from Shining 3D. FLAAR has several years experience scanning with 3D scanners but we have not yet had anything from this company to test. 16

19 3D Holigrams There was a healthy sized booth with HYPERVSN system from Kino-mo. Their team from UK was present to set the booth up (the day before the expo officially opened we were already taking notes). There was also a HYPERVSN exhibit at one of the entrances to the halls. HYPERVSN is a clever 3D hologram video development by a company in the UK. Just be careful you get the original equipment and not a copy-cat rip-off with low-bid parts from somewhere else. As soon as we can get one to test our designers can create innovative hologram videos. Kinomo Booth Kinomo Booth 17

20 Kinomo Sequence Hologram 18

21 Flatbed Cutters CNC Routers, CO2 Laser Cutters and Digital Flatbed Cutters JWEI was in the same booth as HandTop UV-curing printers: NATIONWIDE. JWEI Flatbed cutter JWEI Flatbed cutter samples at NATIONWIDE booth 19

22 Inks More and more ink companies appear at trade shows only as an incidental logo on the wall of a trade show booth. This additional FLAAR Report lists all the booth brand names in the APPPEXPO section of the two co-located expos (Sign Asia Expo and APPPEXPO Thailand). So in this separate additional FLAAR Report you will see the ink brands and printable substrate brands which were in the several rows in the APPPEXPO Thailand area. EPTAINKS 20

23 Media and Printable Substrates Most of the booths of inkjet media and printable substrates were in the APPPEXPO area. We list every single factory brand name in our separate publication on APPPEXPO Thailand Starlight Media 21

24 Venue: Trade Show Area There are many convention centers in Bangkok. The expo center selected for SIGN ASIA EXPO co-located with APPPEXPO Thailand is brand new yet fully functional. There were more fast-food restaurants of international brand names available than most convention centers in the USA. Also, this convention center complex is the size to rival the dual areas of the Orlando convention center. I would bet this Thai complex is larger than any convention center in New York City or Chicago. So IBRIX Co., Ltd. has done a good job in locating their expo. Venue 22

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26 Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth Founder and President of FLAAR Thailand is one of the most friendly countries that I have visited. Yes, I enjoy visiting everywhere in the world: I have lived in Beijing, Osaka, Zurich, Graz (Austria, 8 years), Germany (nine years) and of course Mexico, Guatemala. I have worked in Peru, Belize and Honduras and done studies in El Salvador. One of the best hotels in the world, in terms of friendly helpful staff, is the Shangri-La branded chain of hotels in China. However the personnel in the hotel in Thailand were outstanding for being helpful. I highly recommend visiting Bangkok and attending SIGN ASIA EXPO 2018 co-located with APPPEXPO Thailand 2018, 8-11 November

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28 Venue: Halls The halls were all connected with each other so you did not have to try to figure out where to find Hall XYZ. Main Entrance Hall 3 Main Entrance Hall 2 26

29 Acknowledgements I thank Pongsakorn Boonsai (Boon), CEO of Superior Inkjet, for giving me the teddy bear in his booth. I flew the teddy bear to Guatemala to give to the 2-year old child of one of our office workers. I thank Randi Kerkaert, Regional Account Manager Asia, for Summa (roll-fed-cutters) for assisting me at both SIGN ASIA EXPO in Thailand and a week later at KOSIGN in Korea. Dr Nicholas Hellmuth & Pongsakorn Boonsai We spoke with Evelyn Luo of APPPEXPO several times. We appreciate their invitation to attend this expansion of the brand name of APPPEXPO. During the expo we also said hello to Sakkachat Sivabororn, President & CEO IBRIX Co., Ltd, organizer of SIGN ASIA EXPO. 27

30 Opening Ceremony 28

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32 We look forward to seeing you at APPPEXPO Thailand 2018 November 8 to 11, Venue IMPACT Muang Thong Thani (Thailand) Hall 2-3 Bangkok Land Building 47/ Popular 3 Road Banmai Pakkred Chang Wat Nonthaburi 11120, Thailand 30

33 Check Out Our Latest Videos FLAAR Reports at SGI Dubai 2018 FLAAR Reports around the world 2017 Issues of inkjet printers, interview with Nicholas Hellmuth UV Printer by Structure infographic DRYTAC SpotOn SynPaper tested on HP PageWide Memjet at ISA APPPEXPO 2017 Opening Ceremony APPPEXPO 2017 Highlights APPPEXPO 2017 General interviews FLAAR Reports Around the World

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35 PLEASE NOTE This report has been licensed to Shanghai Modern International Exhibition Co., to distribute, since they are the organizers of APPPEXPO Thailand aspect and the parent APPPEXPO in Shanghai (Advertising, Print, Pack & Paper Expo), Shanghai. This FLAAR Report is also licensed to SIGN ASIA EXPO to distribute. Copyright 2017 FLAAR, but this PDF may be distributed as long as the source of the PDF is clearly credited to FLAAR Reports and mentions Copyright 2017 This PDF may be cited as follows: HELLMUTH, Nicholas and Andres MORATAYA 2018 General Introduction to SIGN ASIA EXPO. FLAAR Reports Trade Shows 33