Roland has announced a new printer, the VersaUV LEF2-200, which as the name suggests is an updated version of its existing LEF200 though it’s not really clear in what way Roland has improved this printer, other than changing the colour of the cover from green to white.
The LEF2-200 is the mid-size model in Roland’s series of small flatbeds aimed at the industrial print market. This new model has the same specifications as the existing version. Thus it will take materials up to 538mm wide, 360mm long and 100mm in height, as well as up to 5kg in weight. It appears to use the same Eco UV ink, and has the same six channels for CMYK plus a combination of white, primer or gloss (which can also be used to add textured effects). As before, it uses LED curing and appears to use the same printheads, with the same 1440 dpi resolution.
Roland seems to have mainly made small improvements to the cleaning regime. This includes a new Head Refresh feature to clean ink away from the surface of the printheads. There’s also a Start Timer Function that automatically starts the machine up and cleans the printheads so that it’s ready to go when you start work or whatever start time you tell it. To be fair, head cleaning is always a good idea and will help extend the life of the printer
Roland has also added a positioning jig to help users align items on the print table. It’s possible that Roland may also have improved on the dust cover. Naturally, the new printer comes with Roland’s VersaWorks 6 RIP software.
Kohei Tanabe, president of Roland DG’s Digital Printing division says that it can print realistic images on a range of materials, adding: “To be able to offer this print capability even to people who are inexperienced in using this technology, we focused on ease of operation and the highest levels of reliability so that everyone can enjoy printing graphics and textures with confidence. In summary, this LEF2-200 adds incredible value and opportunity for business growth.”
It’s listed as £19,999, which is £500 more than the older version, and it’s not clear that whoever wrote the press release for this new version has any idea as to why this is. It feels to me as if Roland has made a series of very minor improvements that could, and should, have been introduced to the existing model throughout its production run.
You can find more details on this printer at the Roland website.
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