Mimaki TS500P-3200 Superwide Dye-Sublimation Printer

- The maximum printable width of 3.2 m is practical for sublimation transfer printing on extra-wide fabrics for curtains, bed linens, and other home furnishings.

- The maximum print speed is 180 m2/h*1 for 4-color printing and 105 m2/h*2 for 6-color printing.

*1 Print conditions: 180 m2/h, 4 color, Draft mode, 360 × 360(HQ) dpi, 2 pass

*2 Print conditions: 105 m2/h, 6 color, Draft mode, 540 × 360 dpi, 4 pass

- 12 new-type printheads rapidly eject ink to ensure high speed, quality printing at high printhead gap settings.

- AMF*3 is capable of feeding media up to 3.2 m wide and of 130 kg. Moreover, AMF can maintain stable feeding to achieve high-quality printing.

- Cockling-reduction transfer mechanism*4 supports high-speed printing on a wide paper.

*3 AMF: Front and rear tension bars apply the appropriate tensions to the media in order to maintain stable media transportation.

*4 Cockling: Wrinkling of the media surface due to ink absorption. The printhead tends to make contact with the cockled paper surface when the head gap is narrow, resulting in undesirable contact damage to the printhead and inferior print quality.

- Nozzle Check Unit (NCU) automatically detects and cleans clogged nozzles.

- Nozzle Recovery System (NRS) uses only good nozzles as substitutes, when the clogged nozzles are not recovered after cleaning.

- The large ink containers (3 liters) are installed in the external ink supply unit. The inks can be filled into the container during long-time continuous printing.

The TxLink4 offers simple RGB and CMYK color replacement on raster and vector data, as well as the ability to produce different color patterns. Moreover, various color replacement functions can represent desired colors.

TxLink4 Standard or RasterLink6Plus is bundled according to user's request.

The maximum mountable paper width is 3,300 mm and printable width is 3,290 mm. Generally, home decor fabrics for curtains, bed linens, and carpets are coordinated using the same printed patterns. However, the colors cannot be different when all of the coordinated fabrics are printed by the same printer.

To achieve high printing speeds, 12 printheads are arranged in a staggered 3-line array. A range of printing modes is offered to suit the finished print appearance from a high-speed (180 m2/h) draft mode to a high-quality mode.

Cockling is well known to reduce product yield and quality and frequently occurs on transfer papers during printing. With its cockling-reduction transfer mechanism and new printhead, the TS 500P-3200 can print on cockled papers with a high head gap setting while maintaining beautiful print quality. Previously, thin papers were used for low-cost printing and thicker papers for high-quality printing. Now, the TS500P-3200 can simultaneously provide cost reduction and high-quality printing on both thin to thick papers.

Low-cost thin transfer papers tend to cockle. To prevent contact between the printhead and raised surface, a high head gap setting is required (FIG.2). In conventional models, such gap conditions reduce the accuracy of ink droplet placement (FIG.3). The new TS500P-3200 employs a new printhead with a high head gap to ensure accurate ink droplet placement, thereby enabling high-quality printing on thin paper types (FIG.4).

1) The media attach to the platen by vacuum suction. Under suction, the cockled media surfaces are smoothed out.

2) Auto Media Feeder (AMF) automatically applies the appropriate tension to various types of the paper from thin to thick rolls up to 130 kg, thereby maintaining stable and precise media feeding/take-up for achieving high-quality print results.

3) Two post heaters are vertically installed on the front side to accelerate ink drying. The temperature of each heater can be controlled separately. To reduce cockling, the temperature of heater 1 can be lower than that of heater 2.

Each ink color has its own specific gravity and viscosity. To achieve precise placement of the ink droplets onto the media, Mimaki designed an optimum waveform that allows the printhead to jet each ink color at the appropriate jetting angle without losing excellent ink droplet circularity even at the high head gap. Moreover, various ink droplet sizes are precisely placed from the minimum size 6pl to the maximum size 24pl. Small droplets create beautiful high-resolution printing, and large droplets are very useful for high-speed printing. Thus, the TS500P-3200 satisfies a wide range of needs including beautiful high-quality printing and productive high-speed printing.

Generally, swath boundaries are straight lines. Therefore, a slight misalignment between boundaries causes banding or uneven color printing. MAPS4 reduces banding and uneven color printing with blurred boundaries similar to gradation printing.

Clogged nozzles are detected automatically by monitoring ink droplets with sensors. When clogged nozzles are located, these are automatically cleaned, reducing waste printing. Nozzles are checked per transfer file.

If the clogged nozzles are not recovered after cleaning through the NCU function, the NRS selects substitute nozzles and then restarts printing. This is a significant novelty, since previously, when nozzle cleaning fails, the printhead has to be repaired by a technician, and the printing operation ceases until the printhead is repaired. The NRS allows the printer to continue printing without interruption by using non-defective nozzles as substitutes for defective nozzles until the technician arrives.*

Large (3 l) ink containers are installed in an external ink supply unit. Ink can be filled into the container during long-time continuous printing. A degassing module is installed on the printhead carriage to allow the use of affordable undegassed inks.

TxLink4 Standard or RasterLink6Plus is bundled according to user's request.

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