Meijet, a US owned, Shanghai based digital system manufacturer, announced that it would exhibit its latex printer series at APPPEXPO in Shanghai, July 10th, 2013. 

Meijet LX printer series is a family of revolutionary printers designed around Meijet’s latex inks.  It includes a roll-to-roll basic version and a higher end hybrid version that prints on both roll and rigid materials.  They are designed to help the environment and to improve workers’ health, to save labor and materials for print shops, and to obsolete harmful eco-solvent and solvent printing. 

The wide-format digital printing industry started over a decade ago with aqueous dye ink printing as the only option.  Years later, aqueous pigmented inks replaced dye inks to take printing from indoor to outdoor.  More years later, solvent and eco-solvent inks replaced aqueous pigmented inks as the dominating technology as it prints on uncoated materials such as banner and self-adhesive vinyl.

The popularity of solvent and eco-solvent printers comes at a price.  Solvent released pollutes the environment and damages the health of printer operators.  Eco-solvent has less smell but is about equally harmful.  Latex ink provides the same benefits as offered by solvent and eco-solvent inks, without their detrimental impact on environment, and is capable of printing on more uncoated materials.   Latex printer is posed to replace solvent and eco-solvent printer to become the next standard.

Instead of delivering a me-too latex printer, Meijet took the popular latex technology up a level, resulting in the world’s one and only hybrid latex printer.  Meijet hybrid latex printer prints on foam board, PVC board, aluminum panels, wood, acrylic, and glass, etc, providing a “Green” alternative to UV printing.

Other features of Meijet’s latex printer include:

? Semi-Permanent Piezo Print Heads, reducing the cost of print head replacement.

? Instant Printing, without waiting for heat to build up inside print chamber. 

? Lower Curing Temperature at 60 ?C, enabling printing on more heat-sensitive materials,

? Print Width up to 3.2 m (128 inches), extending the power of “green” printing into grand format.

? Finest Ink Drops in its Class at 1.5 pl, resulting in finer image quality and sharper text. 

Besides printing on traditional signage materials, Meijet latex printers also found application in interior decoration market for wallpaper printing and in soft signage for direct printing onto untreated fabrics.  Latex printing is opening up many new opportunities for printing professionals, while doing good for the environment and for printer operator’s health.