For that you get a 1,370mm (54in) wide printer/cutter with RIP. With a price tag of £25,999, the £3,000 difference is 12% of the total price. Because there's only a £3,000 difference between the two machines his view was he couldn't afford not to buy the MT." "He was buying for the first time to bring wide-format in-house and wanted production speed and the ability to handle everything thrown at him. He cites one of the first firms to order the machine, a commercial printer, who was looking at the non-metallic version. "At a time when margins are being squeezed, it offers a way to improve profitability." "Metallic opens up the market place, it's different and higher quality and therefore commands a higher price," he says. What it comes down to in the end is escaping the commodity trap by offering something different that adds value. A photographer is looking at it to enhance his work, and for sign makers the effects possible take you back to the use of gilt." "We've also had an order from a high-end label printer who wants to use it for concept proofing, production proofing and short runs. "For vehicle graphics, for example, the effect under sunlight and on a moving vehicle adds a whole new dimension," he says. As for those applications, Newman believes the additional standout achieved by the metallic ink in addition to white is attractive for many markets.
The applications that the MT can handle are very broad, as the metallic ink is an addition to what was already a versatile machine with CMYK plus white printing, cutting, creasing and perforation. "For them the pricing was immaterial, it was the applications it opened up," says Roland DG UK head of product management Brett Newman. In fact, such has been the demand for metallic that when the firm gave a sneak preview of the machine at Sign & Digital Ireland back in September, it took its first order 90 minutes into the show, from a customer so desperate to get their hands on the machine that they weren't even bothered that the pricing hadn't been set.
Metallic ink has been on the wish-list for a long time, but it's a tricky technology to crack, so it's understandable that the Soljet Pro III XC-540MT has attracted a lot of interest from a range of different markets. Roland DG's launch of an eco-solvent wide-format inkjet machine with metallic capabilities is a milestone in the development of digital print.