Ensuring stable feeding of elastic materials while being sustainable with the ability to handle small fabric lots, Mimaki launched the Tx500-1800B, an addition to its family of digital textile inkjet printers. The Tx500-1800B delivers high speed, high quality digital printing on a wide range of textiles, including cotton, silk, hemp and rayon. The new printer joins the TS500-1800 and Tx500-1800DS to complete the company’s broad textile printing portfolio.
“We continue to improve and expand our textile printing capabilities based on customer feedback. With Tx500-1800B, we have again raised the bar in terms of the cost, quality and flexibility metrics for high quality small lot printing of textiles, even when using stretchy fabrics,” said Mike Horsten, General Manager Marketing EMEA for Mimaki Europe.
[bleft]The printer has a speed 1.6 times greater than conventional Mimaki textile printing products of 60 square metres per hour at 600×450 DPI. [/bleft]
The printer is equipped with a specially designed conveyor belt that feeds fabric without tension, enabling high quality printing on elastic materials, even with unattended operation. Having a print speed 1.6 times greater than conventional Mimaki textile printing products of 60 square metres per hour at 600×450 DPI, the printer is equipped with an automatic process for cleaning and drying the conveyor belt between or during projects to ensure that material is protected from staining or dampness. The plate-less on demand printing reduces plate costs and enables the small lot fabric printing in up to 8 colours.
With this printer, apparel manufacturers will be able to produce vibrant small lot products on unique materials that were not readily available for digital printing in the past. “We believe that the Tx500-1800B will speed up the gradually growing transition to digital printing in the worlds of textiles and apparel,” Horsten concluded.