Briter gets better with 1st Australian Océ flatbed

Melbourne screen printer Briter Australasia achieves tight turnaround on short run work after installing the first Océ Arizona 360 GT UV flatbed in Australia.

According to general manager, Justin Wong, the determining factor behind the purchase was print quality and productivity. Like most screen printers, the company found it often impossible to meet short turnaround deadlines by traditional processes.

“The Arizona means we can now accept these jobs and produce them within very tight deadlines and our customers are delighted with the quality of the work they are receiving. It’s already being used for more than 30 per cent of our output,” he says.

Complementing work in screen-printed labels, overlays and membrane panels, the Océ Arizona is primarily being used in printing larger types of work, predominantly decals, posters and vinyl panels.

“In selecting the Arizona we were looking for a flatbed that could print on a wide range of substrates that had to include acrylic, adhesive vinyls, PVC and foam core,” says Wong.

Pictured: Briter’s Justin Wong with the first Océ Arizona 360 GT sold in Australia.


He added that a new machine prerequisite was that it must be able to print legible type as small as four-point and be able to handle very thin substrates that could be subject to distortion through heat.

“If the holes in a vacuum table are too large or the heat lamps too hot, very thin substrates can be distorted in the printing process,” he says.

To meet these challenges Océ showed Wong the new Océ Arizona 360 GT, with a new high definition feature that can print type as small as two-point. Opening the door to higher-profit technical and industrial applications such as lenticular lens and membrane panel printing.

The Arizona 360 GT also has a new-style vacuum table with small vacuum points and low heat lamps to enable printing directly to very thin or heat-sensitive media. It can print speeds up to 35 square metres per hour on its 1.26m x 2.51m table.