MUTOH ANNOUNCES BLIZZARD

New high-speed printer series incorporating Mutoh’s patent  pending intelligent interweave print technology

Phoenix, AZ Mutoh America Inc. wide-format piezo inkjet printer manufacturer announces a new line of high-performance variable drop mild-solvent printers, called the Blizzard series to be deputed at SGIA in Orlando, FL located at the Orange County Convention Center booth #2254. These new Mutoh printers offer impeccable output quality at 430 square feet an hour and can reach top speeds up to 861 square feet an hour in production mode. The new Blizzard printer series is an addition to Mutoh’s existing Spitfire Extreme mild-solvent printer family. This new Mutoh printer line consists of two models: Blizzard 65, printing widths of 64.5 inches and Blizzard 90, offering a printing width of 87.8 inches.

“Our new Blizzard printers are specifically targeted at sign shops looking for a flexible machine capable of speeds up to 860 square feet an hour, as well as top quality print work, says Randy Rickert, Director of Sales, Service and Marketing.

Mutoh’s Blizzard series printers print directly onto standard available uncoated vinyl, banner and soft signage. The machines are targeted at small sign businesses needing versatility or larger operations wanting to extend capacity while gaining flexibility. Application possibilities encompass corporate signs, stage and window graphics, backlit box signage, construction announcements, vehicle graphics, indoor graphics such as photo blow ups, and floor graphics. The new printers feature a completely innovative look, a high end LCD display with blue background and white text and a large viewing window providing an excellent view on the output. The integrated light source allows for production monitoring and facilitates maintenance operations.

The Blizzard utilizes Mutoh’s high-performance mild-solvent ink, specifically tuned for the sign industry. The ink will resist cleaners, detergents and commercially available degreaser’s as good as true solvent printer inks and offers an outdoor durability on compatible media up to 3 years without lamination. For heavy duty applications where mechanical stress is involved (floor & vehicle graphics), lamination is required. The Mutoh mild-solvent inks are available in 220 ml and 440 ml cassettes. The Blizzard printers also accept Mutoh’s award-winning Eco-Solvent Ultra inks, for users wanting to use the printer in regular office environments without forced ventilation.

The Blizzard features two head sets in a micro-staggered layout (one color per head), allowing both speed oriented production work at impeccable print quality and top quality print work. Each of the eight incorporated drop-on-demand piezo inkjet heads has 2 x 180 nozzles. Each 180 nozzle row is delivered by an independent ink channel. Using Dynamic Variable Dot Imaging Technology, each ink droplet is individually adjusted to provide high speed and high quality with low ink consumption. Each head allows print resolutions of 360 x 360 dpi, 720 x 360 dpi, 540 x 720 dpi and 720 x 720 dpi.

The new printers incorporate Mutoh’s Intelligent Interweaving print technology (i² - pronounced i-squared). Mutoh has taken a totally new approach with its i² technology. Ink is laid down carefully in optimized wave forms, not in straight lines used in traditional printing practices. This approach will drastically reduce or even eliminate typical inkjet printing artifacts such as horizontal banding, step mismatch banding, ink mottle, etc. In short, i² will allow bi-directional printing of all images, even the most critical jobs.
 
The Intelligent Interweaving print technology enables a constant print quality, which apart from that is easily reproducible by the machine operator. Moreover, i² defines guaranteed output quality, away from print passes and print resolutions.

The new Blizzard series printers will be delivered as standard with an ink starter kit (2 x 4 CMYK) and a fully motorized heavy-duty unwinding/winding system for media loads up to 100 kg, allowing unattended roll-to-roll printing. Mutoh Blizzard 65/90 printers have been developed and engineered at Mutoh Europe’s R&D center. The product will be manufactured at Mutoh Europe’s production site in Belgium. Blizzard 65 and Blizzard 90 will be attractively priced at respectively $39,995 and $54,995, The printers will become available for shipping near the end of November 2007.

About Mutoh
Mutoh Industries, Ltd. was founded in 1952 in Tokyo, Japan, to manufacture and distribute mechanical drafting products. Mutoh later introduced a broad line of flatbed and roll-fed pen/pencil plotters that established Mutoh as a worldwide leader in X-Y motion systems and printer and plotter technology. Since then, ISO9000-certified Mutoh Industries, Ltd. has become the world's foremost manufacturer of large format piezoelectric printers. Mutoh manufactures printers and related peripherals for some of the biggest names in the pre-press, sign and graphics industries. Mutoh has key engineering manufacturing and distribution centers in Japan, Belgium and Tempe, Arizona, home to subsidiary Mutoh America.

For more information about Mutoh America, please email us at sales@mutoh.com or by calling 602-414-4613, or 800-99-MUTOH (800-996-8864).