Roland DG has announced a new large format flatbed printer, the IU-1000F, which appears to be a rebadged Ricoh Pro TF6250.
The printer uses 12 printheads, which are configured in a staggered 3-row arrangement. These are greyscale Ricoh Gen 5 MH54 heads, which fire three droplet sizes. The maximum resolution is 635 x 1800 dpi. It’s a UV machine with two LED lamp arrays.
There are four colours plus white, gloss and a primer. There’s a choice of two inksets depending on the materials to be printed to though Roland hasn’t said anything about them. Curiously, Ricoh offers three types of ink for its version, with one for high adhesion on industrial substrates, one for better colour gamut, and one that strikes a balance between adhesion and colour gamut. I think that it’s a reasonable assumption that Roland is using the same inks, or at least two of them. In any case, Roland says that it can print to a wide range of substrates such as acrylic, PETG, foam board, wood, aluminum composite plate, and even on metal and glass that are generally difficult to adhere to.
It takes media up to 2510 x 1310mm, and up to 110mm thick. The bed can be split into four independent vacuum zones. Roland says that it will print around 15 rigid boards (1220 x 2440mm) per hour in Standard four-colour print mode, which equates to around 48.5 sqm/hr. This drops to 10 boards in Quality print mode and if white is used then it falls to around 6 boards per hour in Standard mode.
It comes with SAi’s PhotoPrint RIP, which is the same RIP as Ricoh supplies with its Pro T6250 printer. It’s a reasonably common RIP though I would have expected Roland to use one of its own VersaWorks RIPs. The printer also boasts an ionizer to remove static electricity and media alignment pins for placing materials in the right place.
Kohei Tanabe, president of Roland’s DP business division, commented: “It is a powerful solution for the sign and display or print production business that seeks more efficient and faster-turnaround production capability. By offering increased productivity, material compatibility, image quality, ease of use, and all the other aspects of this product, I am confident that the IU-1000F will achieve increased profitability for printing businesses.”
It’s available now and costs £112,500. Further details from rolanddg.co.uk, though to be honest there’s a lot more information on the Ricoh website. It’s worth noting that this is the second Ricoh printer that Roland has rebadged.
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