The best of both worlds

The concept of hybridity has caught the imagination of many over the years. From the griffins and centaurs of ancient Greek mythology, to the future of auto-engineering, even to brown and white bread, the combination of the characteristics of two bodies or technologies in one comes with the promise that the resulting ‘creature’ will contain the best of both worlds.

In terms of the wide format industry, the hybrid press—a single machine with the capacity to print on both rigid and flexible materials—has risen through the ranks, fronting much of the technological advances of the last few decades. According to Tudor Morgan, marketing manager at Fujifilm SIS, hybrid technology is one of the bed-rocks of the signage industry. He says: “Hybrids have been around for a very long time going right back to when the industry first started.

“When UV chemistry began to become an interest—because you can print on both rigid and flexible material— people thought they wanted to do both on one machine. Really, it was driven by the sign industry as it was used to producing a lot of flexible materials. If it was a sign, sign-makers would print it, mount it, laminate it, and stick it onto a board or rigid material.”

Nowadays, with the rise of flatbed, sign-makers can print directly onto rigid substrates, but may retain a lot of flexible banner or vinyl work for other customers. In this case, continues Morgan, a hybrid option can offer many advantages.

He says: “Firstly, a lot of the benefits come down to economics, the space involved, and the labour. Following the recession, the most important thing is having the most versatile machine which allows you to add more value. Also, the machine requires only one operator, less space, lower service cost, and with one set of ink systems, it actually makes more economic sense.

“Secondly, hybrid really does fit around UV curing technology. Thousands of machines in Europe are being sold with UV curing technology. What that allows you to do, of course, is to do print in clear and whites, you can offer more special effects giving you the ability to be more creative and add more value, turning a £5 print potentially into a £15 print.

“Thirdly, if you’ve got a campaign and the customer wants hanging signs, banners, and popups and they want them all to be the same, it’s going to be much easier to control colour for the rigid and flexible output. This is be-cause you’re using the same chemistry and the same ink systems for both.”

Leading the way

The fact that UV technology and hybrid machinery have matured tog-ether, this means, says Morgan, that LED? UV? technology has been pushed forward by hybrid engineering, offering sign-makers a much more environmentally-friendly option.

He says: “The wide-format print market is also one of the most dynamic industries when it comes to the environment. With the hybrids, technology is are moving towards LED curing, which has been around for a long time but not necessarily in this industry. The energy consumption and therefore the impact on the environment is significantly lower for the printer than it was before.”


Morgan does go on to make the point that the two different types of hybrid—machines which are predominantly for roll-to-roll with additional flatbed tables, or dedicated flatbeds with a roll-to-roll option attached—are suited to different firms depending on their output. He explains: “The first question anybody needs to ask when considering hybrid is what their key requirements are. If it is mostly flexible media, with some rigid material, around an 80/20 split, you really should be buying a roll-to-roll printer with flat-bed capability. But if your key requirement is rigid material, then you should be buying the machine which handles the majority of your material first.”

He stresses that it is important to consider carefully exact requirements of the business before investing in a wide-format hybrid press because there are some downsides to the technology, starting with the price tag.

“The cost is always an issue,” says Morgan, adding: “These machines are expensive. If you were to buy the individual components—a roll-to-roll printer with latex or EcoInk—you would pay around a third of the price you would for a hybrid. That’s not because the manufacturers want to charge more, it’s because the engineering is far more advanced and it costs a lot of money.

“Also, there are always going to be compromises. If you have a roll-to-roll printer with a flatbed option, your compromise is you haven’t got a full vacuum. Your media selection needs to be preselected. It can’t be too bowed because it needs to lay down flat and it can’t lift or it will damage the machine. Also the machine’s registration—front to back and side to side—is going to be compromised for a roll-to-roll.

“On the other hand, with the flatbed with roll option, all the engineering has gone into the flatbed, so what you might find is the speed of the roll-to-roll is compromised. Sometimes the print heads have to go to one end, so it is offline and the productivity can be much lower. You also will have more media wastage: you might be losing one and a half to two metres on a normal roll-to-roll, but 50 to 100 percent more for a hybrid.”

The right option

Simon Casajuana, sales development manager at EFI, notes how the size of a business can make a difference when it comes to considering the purchase of a hybrid press.

He says: “The obvious strength in hybrid technology lies in the fact that a business only requires one wide-format printer for all applications, both flat-bed or roll-fed. This convenience factor is enhanced by the ability to work with a digital front end (DFE) that can be configured for a single device yet grow when users invest in additional output.
 
“For smaller companies, the advantages of owning a multipurpose machine are self-explanatory, such as a reduced overall footprint and strong return on investment. But care needs to be taken to ensure that the chosen option is suitable for both rigid and flexible materials, and that all media types can be handled without compromise.”

Vutek has been making hybrids for ten years, says Casajuana, so the range has been refined and honed to the requirements of wide-format print providers and sign-makers. He continues: “EFI’s wide-format options that handle rigid and roll-fed substrates include the benefit that Vutek is the only series which produces a true combination machine with a full 3.2m width. This means that single sheets and continuous boards can be printed as easily as reels of flexible media, with fast change-over.

“As this is an extremely popular size for sign-makers, display producers and other print service providers, hybrid machines are clearly an important requirement for the many businesses who want the best of all worlds from one device.”

Pushing boundaries

Steve Collins, wide-format inkjet account manager at Agfa UK, which supplies both hybrid and true flatbed options, also sees a number of benefits of hybrid machinery.

He expands: “One benefit is certainly the flexibility of the machines if you have a combination of flexible and rigid media to print. The reason for that is that you don’t tend to lose speed between one and the other. You will find some of the flatbeds will run at a slower speed for roll-to-roll but be-cause of the way that they use a belt, you don’t lose any speed.

O Factoid: The common usage of the word hybrid comes from the Latin hybrid—a variant of ibrida meaning ‘mongrel’—specifically meaning ‘the offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar’. O

“The second benefit is that you’re not governed by a dedicated table size. If you have a true flatbed at 4 x 8ft in size, that is the biggest sheet size you can sit on it. With a hybrid, because you can feed it through on the long edge, even a 1.6m wide machine, which is a smaller hybrid, can take a large 5 x 10 sheet. It gives you that flexibility of being able to do larger boards on one machine. With a dedicated flatbed you would have to go to a larger size table, therefore pushing the price tag up.”



Collins also says that it the hybrid is mainly ideal for sign-makers who have the requirement to print on multiple substrates, as he explains: “Whether it’s foamex, clear acrylics, corex and then also have a chunk of work that is banner and vinyl. There’s also a growth in textiles we are seeing so having a roll system on the machine—which is standard on ours—is becoming more popular. The quality you can get from some of the textile substrates out there now which are suited for UV are very good.”

Some industry leaders have said that side-by-side, hybrid, and UV technologies are pushing the boundaries of print technology across the board, simply because of the higher levels of engineering involved.



This is something which Collins agrees with, saying: “It’s true that many of the faster, high-end machines are hybrid-based. Vutek and Durst have been that way for years because they’re suited for higher speeds, and that’s where Agfa is with the iSeries now. We are going upstream with our products. The M2050 iSeries is some 30 or 40 percent faster than the M2050, so we are moving up that way. We need the technology to be able to keep up with those speeds and the loading and unloading of it.”



Unlike Fujifilm, however, Agfa is more cautious to adopt LED UV technology to hybrid printers, simply because it remains a relatively young technology and has experienced a few teething problems on higher production machines.

Collins explains: “We are assessing LED at the moment because we want to make sure that our products are moving more into that mid-range area and producing speeds around 60 to 70sq m/h. Along with that you need to have good adhesion. You have to make sure that the LED technology delivers at those speeds, it has to have adhesion levels that won’t see the ink come off when exposed to tough exterior conditions. We are assessing that be-cause there are benefits to that technology with LED.

“At 20sq m/h it might be fine but if you double that speed, taking into account the wavelength that comes from these lamps and their ability to cure—we have to make sure that technology is right.”

Like Morgan, Collins is adamant that a hybrid machine may not be for everybody, which is why Agfa offers both dedicated flatbeds—such as the Anapurna M2540 FB and Jeti Titan—and the hybrid Anapurna range, the iSeries.

He says: “I went to a customer yesterday and all they want to do is print on glass. In that case, obviously they would just want make sure the glass is in place and flat so for that kind of work, they would require a flat table. I firmly believe there’s a place for both and that’s why we have both technologies.

“We do find that we tend to sell more of the hybrid. Generally it’s 50/50. Most customers are quite happy to accept both kinds of technology and find out what is best for their business.

“In this day and age you do find that there are customers that you would never think would want to print any-thing. They sell furniture. You’d think it would be the last thing they would want to do. The whole industry you call ‘sign’ is fascinating; it’s evolving into different things.”

A different approach

Not everybody in the industry, however, is lauding hybrid technology unequivocally. And a surprising company to be striking out with a new approach to the sector is one that literally put its name to it. 

Hybrid Services, the UK supplier of Mimaki presses, recognises that hybrid has its advantages in facilitating sign-makers to respond to an array of work. Stuart Cole, national sales manager industrial products at Hybrid, makes this very clear: “It’s all about choice for the sign-maker. We’ve been saying for years, that being able to answer ‘yes’ to a customer instead of ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ is far more compelling in a business sense.

“We do have a hybrid printer, the Mimaki UJV 160, but we’re approaching things slightly differently with our new and very successful true flatbed, the JFX 200. Rather than offer a roll-to-roll option on that machine, we are offering a very attractive pack-age of an additional printer with the choice of either a solvent, latex, or roll-to-roll.

“A typical package would be a JFX 200 partnered up with a JV300 solvent printer. That printer churns work out, over 100sq m/h for banner work and 50 to 70sq m/h for higher quality applications. To have that sort of capacity, you’re really starting to compete with the big boys in terms of the volume you can produce on a relatively inexpensive machine.


“The UJV 160 is still very much available, at a price point and a speed that works for a lot of people. But in reality, for an attractive price you can have a dedicated roll-to-roll and the most talked about UV flatbed printer in recent times.”



Cole goes on to point out some of the disadvantages of hybrid machinery, especially in larger production houses, over having two separate machines: “By having a partner roll-fed printer, you can do two jobs at the same time. If you’ve got a hybrid printer you’re either doing flat sheet or you’re doing roll fed, so whilst it may have the benefit of the smaller footprint when you’re doing the roll-fed work, it’s compromised in the sense that you can only do certain things. Also often putting a roll-fed option on a machine is trying to make a flatbed printer into a roll-fed machine. Far better to have a dedicated flat bed and dedicated roll-fed machine if this is an option.”

Cole continues: “You can also have different ink types—latex, or solvent, or SUV are well suited for a lot of the roll-fed applications and all of the benefits of flatbed. We think this offer answers the requirements far better and we think it’s a more elegant solution that gives an awful lot more power to the sign-maker. Choice and productivity are key and being able to offer it at an attractive price point is beneficial.”

A future for hybrid?

With such a well-known wide-format press supplier focusing on offering flatbed and roll-to-roll machines in one package to create a hybrid production process, what does this spell for the future of the technology combined in one machine? Cole is clear that, despite their experience with customers, hybrid will stick around for the foreseeable future.

When asked whether hybrid has a future, Cole responds: “There’s no reason why not. For some people that will be a solution that works for them. The UJV 160 is very cost effective, so the barriers of entry are quite low and it works very well for a lot of people that have a variety of jobs to produce. However, considering the breadth of kit that Mimaki has, there are often many answers to one question.”


Fujifilm’s Morgan, however, has a forthright vision for the technology’s future—the only way is up. He says: “Hybrid will only get better. Machines will get faster, better quality, and cheaper. I do think that hybrid will be where people will go. But it really depends on your volume or output. When I talk to customers, they are looking for better quality, more options, more versatility, and want to do as much themselves as possible. That’s ultimately where hybrid helps them.”

Though a hotly debated topic bet-ween manufacturers and suppliers, hybrid technology is clearly here to stay, and potentially pushing forward press technology manufacturing across the board. What kind of beast it will become into in the following years is uncertain, but the potential is there to make the wide-format market more diverse and dynamic than ever.


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