34 Issue 254 - August / September 2024 www.signlink.co.uk quality, time after time with the minimum amount of operator intervention. Should there need to be a printhead change, again Epson has not turned away from providing a solution that reduces service interventions. Rather than reach for the telephone and request a service intervention from an Epson engineer, within 60 minutes the operator can complete the exchange of a replacement getting you back up and running with minimum fuss. Keeping Things Simple The operation of the SC-R5000 could not be simpler; the printer is controlled via a handy but intuitive 4.3” LCD touchscreen panel. The panel contains all the functions needed for operation along with system alarms and status monitoring elements to not only plan and set the printer, but also keep it running at optimum levels. Substrate is also not going to present any issues thanks to the touchscreen which features a media control device called Advanced Auto Tension Control (Ad-ATC) making sure the substrate is held with high dimensional accuracy such that the tiling of images can provide almost seamless overall printed images for wall covering and window displays. Further operator control can be provided by the Epson Production Monitor which comes via the Epson Cloud Solution PORT which the operator can control and monitor several machines over a number of sites, or several on one. Finally, as with a lot of the Epson solutions, they come in a one box solution meaning the printer can be out of the box and online with the least amount of technical intervention possible. Epson claims the PrecisionCore Micro TFP printheads can produce almost perfectly round dots with great precision. The PrecisionCore Micro TFP printheads have a print chip less than one hundredth the width of a human hair in thickness. By using materials this small you can have a relatively small print engine and large ink deployment. The PrecisionCore TFP printhead can place dots extremely accurately in both size and position in the colour gamut which is why Epson claims the raw specification of DPI is now an “obsolete way to compare print systems”. Epson also argues that resolution measured in dots per inch (DPI) is not necessarily the best way now to quantify print quality. The manufacturer does agree that DPI is part of the methodology, greyscale, and accurate dot placement is also a key consideration. Wrapping up the printhead technology is Nozzle Verification Technology (NVT) which ensures the optimum condition of the printhead itself. NVT monitors the signals sent to each nozzle; it expects to see no resistance to the impulse squeezing the Piezo Electric film. Should it detect a rebound signal from the drive impulse, this is almost certainly due to the nozzle being blocked and the NVT technology adjusts the nozzle pattern to override the blocked nozzle, maintaining print quality. Supporting Roles The dot is laid onto the substrate with the help of patented technology called Look-up Table (LUT). LUT technology has been developed in collaboration with the Munsell Color Science Laboratory at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the US. The purpose being to increase the colour fidelity and give a smoother graduation between colours. This means the SC-R5000 prints high-quality images integrating three Epson technologies: Halftoning, fully optimised LUT, and micro weave which all ensure the minimum amount of graininess and banding, giving the repetition of The printer comes in a complete solution within a box containing everything needed to get up and running UNDER THE HOOD / EPSON SC-R5000 Brian Sims Principal Consultant, Metis Print Consultancy, www.metis-uk.eu
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjM0NDIxOA==