Responding to the needs of the modern garment decorator for heightened productivity, best-in-class operation, and ease of use, Ricoh has launched its Ri 2000 Direct to Garment (DTG) printer.
The company said the next generation system supports the production of promotional and personalised goods.
The Ricoh Ri 2000 prints at 1200 by 1200 dpi resolution on a wide range of garments, from traditional t-shirts or tote bags to an extended application range of canvas shoes, baseball caps or long sleeve shirts.
It also supports the production of textile face masks and safety vests via the flexibility of the quick-change magnetic platen mechanism and the automatic table height adjustment that easily switches between garment types.
“The new generation of DTG printer represents Ricoh’s continued commitment to deliver industry leading inkjet solutions, empowering our customers to grow their business,” Ricoh Europe director of industrial printing Graham Kennedy said.
“Working closely with early adopters in the continuously growing DTG market during product development, Ricoh customers can now enjoy the benefits of a DTG turnkey solution.
“The Ri 2000 meets the needs of innovative digital print providers, custom apparel online retailers, as well as traditional businesses offering added value by printing on garments. It joins Ricoh’s DTG portfolio that already includes the Ri 100 and Ri 1000 devices as the production flagship.”
Kennedy added that the Ri 2000 “sets a new benchmark” in terms of productivity and efficiency in its class, achieved by integrating end-to-end hardware and advanced software.
Other features include: enabling colour consistency, automation of production workflows and creation of white layers for printing on dark garments with ColorGATE’s Textile Productionserver; continuously monitoring ink supply, temperature and humidity levels, reducing human interaction whenever required; intuitively guiding the operator with a seven-inch colour touchscreen display providing maintenance alerts for all tasks that are not automated; simplifying maintenance with automated cleaning and a head cleaning jig that eliminates the need to manually maintain print head nozzles.
Ricoh has also announced that it is offering its scalable workflow automation solution, ProcessDirector, in a subscription pricing option as of 1 October.
With multi-year subscriptions available, it said this new pricing option “significantly decreases” upfront costs for clients looking to streamline operations, improve process integrity, reduce errors, and drive efficiencies with Ricoh ProcessDirector.
Ricoh Europe commercial printing group director of continuous feed and high-end software sales Clive Stringer said this approach enables access to the powerful software for those preferring to pay for their investments as an operational expense rather than a capital expenditure.
“As print providers adapt to the new world of work, a robust tool like Ricoh ProcessDirector is invaluable,” he said.
“Our clients have told us that they’re looking for more flexible ways to access the power of Ricoh ProcessDirector’s capabilities to fit into their various business models – either subscription-based or as a perpetual licence. With this new offering, we are pleased to say that this choice has now become available”.
With the release of Ricoh ProcessDirector version 3.9 on 2 November, the company said Ricoh ProcessDirector will be cloud-ready, further improving its scalability and flexibility, including the ability to be hosted in a client-managed virtual environment.
Additional enhancements include improving data collection and reporting capabilities such as custom data visualisations, ease-of-use administrator and operator productivity improvements, enhanced vulnerability scanning and ease of scalability with containerised components.
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