Exhibition and signage specialist Digital 23 has installed a 1.6m-wide Mimaki UV printer after finding another recently installed Mimaki so economical that it was producing nearly all of the company’s work.

The UCJV300-160 UV LED, a print and cut digital press, was installed in August, just eight months after Digital 23 bought its 3.2m-wide UJV55-320 printer to bring the firm’s fabric printing in-house.

Calvin Hedley, joint owner and one half of Digital 23, told Printweek: “We were finding that [the UJV55] was such a good machine that we were printing all our vinyls on it as well.”

Hedley and co-owner David Pape had even found themselves swapping out 3.2m rolls for 1.6m rolls every few hours to run work off the UJV55 that they otherwise would have run through their old Mimaki 1600 solvent printer.

“It was clogging up the workflow,” said Hedley.

The pair therefore took the chance to replace the 1600, the firm’s only solvent printer, with another UV LED, the UCJV300-160. 

The installation enabled Digital 23 to switch back its vinyl work to the 1.6m and smooth out the production process, leaving the 3.2m to handle the company’s fabric work.

“Since then, it’s worked really well, [the 1.6m] has had a really good impact. It’s a nice quick machine.”

The UCJV300 prints at 1,200dpi; Digital 23 bought it with four colours and print-and-cut capability, to match the old solvent printer it replaced.

By replacing the older solvent-based Mimaki, the company has made a double win: the purchase has allowed it to rationalise its material stocks, as it no longer prints with solvent inks at all.

Training with reseller CMYUK was swift, according to Hedley, at around four days, and it was no problem adapting the press for use with Caldera RIP rather than Rasterlink, which comes with the Mimakis.