Mimaki Morningside shows off its latest machines at Brisbane Open Day

Mimaki Morningside's Jason Hay with Sign Essentials' Bevan Webb and Sean Strange

Mimaki Australia recently showed off the latest and greatest of its technologies – including its recently launched Mimaki UCJV330-160 – at the company’s recent Brisbane Open Day in Morningside.

Mimaki’s Kohei Kobayashi with the Mimaki UCJV330-160

Mimaki national sales manager, Jason Hay, who will soon relocate from Sydney to Brisbane, told Sprinter that the UCJV330-160 is part of the company’s 330 Series that offers high image quality, high production, and application versatility.

The UCJV330 Series is a print and cut UV-LED inkjet printer that combines productivity and image quality with Mimaki’s UV printing technology. This flagship model is also equipped with advanced UV-LED technology.

While inheriting the conventional two through five-layer printing functionality, this is Mimaki’s first roll-to-roll product that supports 2.5D printing.

This machine is also equipped with unique features such as watermark printing.

“The Brisbane Open Day has allowed us to showcase our latest technologies to our customers and dealers. Mimaki is a very innovative business. We’re the only company in six different ink technologies in the market. And at Mimaki Morningside, we’re trying to showcase as many of those as possible,” Hay said.

“Sustainability is huge for Mimaki – all of our machines on this showroom physically run off a 10 amp or a 15 amp single phase power point, which enables our customers to have far better power saving than our existing models, or even our competitors’ models.

“For example, the UCJV330-160 would probably use almost eight times less power than a conventional solvent printer or latex printer.”

Mimaki Morningside’s other equipment on display included its UJV100-160, its JV100-160, its CG-130AR, CG-160FXII Plus and CG-60AR cutters, its CJV300-160 Plus, its UJF-6042MkIIe, its JFX200-2513 EX, and its 3DFF-222 3D-printer.

The UJV100-160, which was launched about three years ago, is an entry-level UV-LED model with excellent operational performance. With two newly developed heads, NCU (Nozzle Check Unit), NRS (Nozzle Recovery System), MAPS4 (Mimaki Advanced Pass System4), and DAS (Dot Adjustment System), the machine reduces workloads on an operator.

The company has since launched the Plus model to this machine, which allows for three-layer printing and a new, unique ink saving function that’s available on its new current models – the UCJV330, JV300 and JFX600.

As for the JV-100-160, it is an eco-solvent inkjet printer that also consists of NCU, NRS, and MAPS4 technology. Mimaki Australia has developed a new ink set with a 35 per cent saving over the existing model. This entry level starts from $19,995 excluding GST and ink cost per cartridge is $165 for a 600ml bladder.

Mimaki’s CJV300-160 Plus is an older model that prints about 11 sqm an hour (sellable output), while the newer CJV-330 Plus models print at 21-30 sqm an hour in the same in colour configuration.

Its CG-130AR and CG-160FXII Plus cutters offer through cut and kiss cut capabilities, at different speeds. They both now work with Mimaki’s ID Cut feature.

Mimaki’s UJF-6042MkIIe is a flatbed UV inkjet printer for promotional products. This has further improved image quality and machine stability, while maintaining the operability that was highly acclaimed in its predecessor UJF-6042MkII model.

As for the Mimaki JFX200-2513 EX, it is the company’s fastest selling UV flatbed. It is a large format flatbed UV inkjet printer that combines high-value-added printing and high productivity, while being an entry model.

“This is the fastest selling four by eight flatbed in Australia. Today, it has the fastest return on investment for a machine that only uses three head technology. Our competitors use 10 heads for the same speed. It’s just the way we’ve got our print heads configured, which enable us to print at 35 sqm an hour and on anything up to 50mm in thickness for substrates,” Hay said.

In addition, it had on display its 3DFF-222 3D-printer, which is a desktop 3D-printer using Fused Filament Fabrication technology, and forms objects of sizes up to 200mm by 200mm by 200mm (W x D x H).

“Our growth in Queensland has been exceptional. We started Mimaki Brisbane in a small 45sqm office about eight years ago. Since then, we have gone from strength to strength – moving into a 125sqm unit in Murrarie, then relocating from there to our current Morningside unit. We’ve got about 250sqm of floor space here,” Hay said.

“The showroom is also good for our dealer networks as well. We use it as an education centre, an experience centre, an application centre, and use it to offer training courses for service engineers.”

Mimaki Morningside’s Jason Hay and Graphic Art Mart’s Pat Cybulski

Mimaki Australia has a national dealer network consisting of Spicers, Spandex, Graphic Art Mart and Fujifilm. Its localised satellite dealers are Sign Essentials, Velflex, G2 PSD and Charti.

Expanding team

Wayne Chapman has been appointed to manage the national textile business for Mimaki, based in Brisbane.

According to Hay, Wayne’s extensive experience with Konica Minolta, Fujifilm, Sensient Inks and Sun Chemical will provide additional benefits for the business.

“Wayne will be an important addition to the team with over 20 years of experience in the textile segment, and we expect he will strengthen our relationships even further. With the recent launch of TRAPIS, Mimaki will continue to be a key player in the textile market,” he said.

“In the Brisbane office, Wayne will be joined by both myself and Craig Dainty (Qld service manager, Stephen, Bevan (engineers), as well as Chris Dutkowski in marketing.”

Photos of the other machines at its facility: