Page 18 - PWM2024_September Ebook

NEWS TECH

The printbots are coming

Some people were pre- Drupa were delta type placing precisely is rela-
dicting this was going to be robots, which resemble tively easy, but it’s harder to
an AI Drupa, or an automa- four-armed spiders hanging pick from pallets that may
tion Drupa. But most visibly, from a gantry. They are not be in the right position,
it was certainly a robot extremely fast for pick and or the stacks are uneven.
Drupa. placement on belts, but they Recmi uses a camera and
All over the halls were
robot arms reaching to grab don’t have the reach and ver- then a laser edge finder to
and place things, some giant satility of articulated arms. identify positions for
ones safely imprisoned in Robot arms and deltas can pickup.
cages, others trusted outside be used to pick up objects, Cobots (collaborative
cages as cobots (cooperative which may be a stack/pile or robots) are designed to
robots) with arms reaching The MoviGo Sharko 10 AMR on the HP stand transporting a reel individual sheets, labels, work alongside human
around production cards or box lids, and place operators, without risk of
machines to help the opera- got in the way. applications, with some them precisely somewhere harming them. They tend to
tors. Some, called AMRs Robots have been building Drupa examples. else – typically on a feeder or be small and slow moving,
(autonomous mobile robots) cars and other heavy metal Robot arms were the most delivery tray, conveyor belt, with elaborate safety sys-
were on wheels, scurrying since the 1970s and AGV common. They tend to be on cutting table or flatbed print tems to slow or stop them if
around carrying pallets or (automated guided vehicle) a fixed base from which they bed. a human is at risk of getting
reels. Most impressively, roll and pallet trucks have rotate, reach, pick up and At Drupa, the French in the way.
Konica Minolta was confi- been in large printers since place things, though some
dent enough to allow one the late 1980s. But now they were on movable bases. robot developer Recmi At Drupa, Heidelberg was
called FORXai to roam the are getting smarter, easier to Many have interchangeable Industrie was showing an showing a StackStar C cobot
aisles of its stand without integrate and, crucially, eas- end tools, such as suction arm for de-palletising and with a small barrier, but this
obvious supervision, weav- ier to afford. Here’s a run frames for sheets, or finger palletising functions includ- was just to keep the visitors
ing around strolling visitors through some of the main grippers for stacks. ing case packing. CEO Gilles out of the way – in a factory
and politely stopping if any types of robot for printing Less common this time at Bodereau explained that it’s not needed.

DTG vs DTF: The direct approach to apparel

Printing to garments and minutes to fully cure the ink. growing over the next cou-
other accessories is an excel- In the last couple of years a ple of years.”
lent way to get into the new approach, printing The main advantage of
growing apparel market, direct to film, has arrived, DTF is that it will work with
covering everything from driven largely by low-cost a wide range of different
promotional clothing
through to fashion and machines from China that materials, including polyes-
sportswear. Traditionally have caught most of the ter, cotton and nylon. In
this has been mainly done by established players on the addition, it’s a relatively
screen printing but in recent hop. cheap process, with reason-
years we have seen a number Alex Mighall, product able productivity since
of direct-to-garment (DTG) marketing manager for RA there’s no need to apply a
printers developed. And, Devices from Azon, Brother, Kornit, Polyprint and Ricoh Smart, notes: “Nobody was primer.
more recently, a new tech- expecting it to boom as The technique is split
nique, direct-to-film (DTF) need to apply some kind of garment is stretched on a quickly as it has done. But I across two stages, starting
has appeared. pre-treatment to hold the platen and the image printed am sure that we will see with a roll-fed inkjet
With DTG, the ink is jet- ink. With many of the directly onto it. Most ven-
ted directly onto the gar- smaller desktop machines dors offer a range of platens more and more OEMs that printer, typically around
ment. It works best with this has to be sprayed on for holding t-shirts, hats or we know coming out with 600mm wide. The design is
natural fibres, such as cot- manually, while some other items. Afterwards, you their own machines because printed onto a transfer film
ton, linen, bamboo or blends machines will do this imme- just need to place the gar- for sure it’s here to stay and using a water-based inkset
thereof. You will usually diately prior to printing. The ment in a heat press for a few we are only going to see it formulated for this purpose.

16 PrintWeek MENA September 2024