UV LED is the future, states Paul Szep, CEO of Brisbane based Advanced Sign Supplies and the company that has an exclusive agency to supply Russian Sun LLC machines and Sunflower UV inks in Australia and New Zealand.

   

Paul Szep is known to many in the sign and wide format industry, having served his time with some of the large suppliers where he has learnt the skills of machinery distribution as well as the technology of the latest wide format inkjet printers.

  

Those that know him will also know that he has had to overcome enormous and unusual challenges to get to the point where he is now and, as such, has achieved enormous respect from his clients as a result.

     

Paul started working with offset print and then inkjet technology during his national service years in the army. Today, after serving many years with the some of the region’s most respected wide format inkjet distributors, he has built a solid reputation for customer focus and business integrity. Assets which have helped him to get Advanced Sign Supplies off to a flying start with a welcoming customer base.

  

Advanced Sign Supplies sells a broad range of products to the wide format industry, from printing and cutting equipment through to the every day consumables using normal financial transactions as well as Barter Card. A transactional combination that Paul has found works well for both his business and his clients.

 

The company is currently looking to appoint a General Manager for the Brisbane office with Paul moving down to Sydney to set up a new HQ down there at the end of this year.

  

The company has some interesting and exclusive products in its portfolio of wide format printers, the most notable being the Russian Sun and Sunflower ink dealership, a dealership that Paul is proud to state was refused to several larger distributors in Australia. Sun has achieved huge success in Europe with its unique LED UV technology and any observer of Sun and its technology should check out the report by FLAAR, the respected US research organisation: http://www.wide-format-printers.org/FLAAR_report_covers/705069_Sun_NEO_uv_LED.pdf..

   

Then there is the JHF range of wide and grand format solvent printers from China, modestly priced wide format machines with all the performance of their Japanese counterparts. JHF is one of the largest manufacturers of solvent printers in China and is in the early stages of spreading its wings around the world including Australia and New Zealand.

  

On the smaller side of the equipment side, Paul is an agent for the well known Uniform solvent range from the UK.

The excitement in the company is it’s current success in bringing UV LED to Australia and New Zealand. The company received several orders from the recent Gold Coast show where the technology was shown for the first time running on Sun’s Allegro 1.6m machine.

  

Paul states that it is simply far cheaper to run this technology due to lower power costs and the relatively low cost of lamps compared to conventional UV lamps; The longevity of the lamps can go for many thousands of hours, if not years; it emits no harmful radiation or burns to operators, thus allowing the removal of the protective hoods typical to UV printers and cold cures the inks resulting in no possible burning or warping of substrates, thus allowing for a far greater range of printable substrates.

  

The FLAAR report mentioned earlier that the colour gamut achievable on these machines with the combination of the Sunflower inks is excellent.

  

Paul will be in Moscow during June to attend a Glass Show where the Sun Evolution 2.5m UV-LED printer will be featured printing on glass products. White ink being an important colour generally when printing on transparent materials.
 
Sun's Drupa exhibition has caused a stir because of further innovations that they are introducing, such as "Black Box' technology which will enable the machines to talk to the factory and in the event of a breakdown, the factory will have instant access to the Black Box and the factory can then diagnose the problem and advise a local technician or even the operator on how to fix the problem.

 

Whilst in Russia, Paul will travel to the head office of Sun LLC to be briefed on future technology innovations from Sun. While in Russia he will also be concluding arrangements for the employment of specialist technicians who will arrive on 2 year visa’s in July / August this year.  ‘We intend placing these specialists in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth for the purpose of installation and service.’

  

Paul stated that UV LED technology can be retrofitted to many existing UV printers from other manufacturers and he fully expects his Russian engineer to have their hands full with retrofits, albeit that a typical retrofit should only take a few hours work.

 

“LED UV technology has been tried and tested by several Western companies and some success has been achieved in the commercial offset field, but to my knowledge, only Sun in Russia has perfected the technology for the wide format market,”said Paul. 

  

Sun produce UV LED printers in the 1.6 metre (Allegro) to 2.5 metre (Evolution) as well as a larger 3.2 metre (Fenix) pure solvent printer. All the printers come in a variety of configurations as well as being capable of converting between flatbed to roll to roll in a matter of minutes.

 

Paul emphasised  it was not the price that made the Allegro so popular at the Gold Coast show, although it is marginally more economical than many of it’s competitors, it was the UV LED technology that is really the selling point. Other factors such as the fact that the whole gantry can be precisely lifted up to 200mm to accommodate really thick substrates; the cost of the ink, the fact that the machines are built the old fashioned way, very strong and very heavy which helps to resist bearing wear.

  

Then also the 8 colour resolution of 1440 x 720 achievable with the dual array Konica print heads is difficult to beat when combined with the excellent production speed of 16 square metres per hour.

  
   

  

  

  
Advanced Sign Supplies Pty Ltd
www.advancedsignsupplies.com.au