For the past 18 months, experts from IIJ and Konica Minolta have been working together on a solution to speed-up the printing production of wallpapers or stickers. Although printing wallpapers using inkjet is pretty common, the speed today is quite low and the technology is mostly restricted to short-run applications.
But now, the new technology can compete with conventional printing methods on both productivity and cost-per-roll.
At the Heimtextil show in Frankfurt, IIJ and Konica Minolta unveiled how companies can digitally print wallpaper at full production speeds. With this technology, a wide range of typical wallpaper media can be printed at linear speeds of up to 70m/min.
John Corrall, IIJ managing director said that there is a growing demand for digital printing of wallpaper and wall stickers at full production speeds. Thanks to the improvements in inkjet capabilities, wallpaper printing is about to see a massive shift to digital technology.
Ink performance and cost, print width and speed are all now within reach. He states that when they started, the main difficulty was in developing an ink that meets all of the requirements from the wallpaper industry. “It’s not just the appearance, the ink has to work on a very wide range of common wallpaper media and it has to meet standards for emissions and wash and scrub tests.”
After 18 months, they were finally there. Now you can print stunning wallpapers and stickers faster and more effectively than ever before, and offer your clients the best possible print solutions.