Magic Ink on the Eastech printers instead of UV-cured

Eastech is a company with an office+factory in Taiwan, an attractive modern headquarters in Thailand, and affiliations with an ink company in Japan. Robert Pan is the innovative force behind this company. Wasana Pongwattanasuk is the key person you also see at their trade show booth all over the world.

Eastech has exhibited Mutoh-related solvent printers for many years in the US and Europe, Then briefly they exhibited the Octra and Scutum UV-cured flatbed printers. Again, certain parts appear to be related to Mutoh Japan but the printer otherwise came from Eastech; their new factory is in Thailand.

For the last year (2007) Eastech has gotten away from UV-cured ink, including a short-lived relationship with GraphicsOne, who briefly tried to sell an Eastech UV printer as the Fuzion UV.

View of where the "Magic Ink" is placed on Eastech printer at Fespa Trade Show 2007.

During 2007 Eastech introduced an ink that they called “Magic Ink”. Originally I had the impression this was a water-based ink, but others have suggested it is a kind of solvent-based ink. The samples include literally every material you could possibly desire to print on: glass, ceramic tiles, vinyl, etc.

But everyone had many questions: What about pre-coating? The original brochures mentioned pre-coating?

What about abrasion resistance? Can they withstand cleaning?

The chemical components of this ink are not widely known either.

So I went to Taiwan to visit the Eastech headquarters there. Unfortunately there was no one to receive me, so I spent the week visiting GCC elsewhere in Taiwan instead. Three reports on GCC UV printers resulted from this visit. I then flew to Seoul where I visited both D.G.I. (solvent printers) and Dilli (Neo Venus, Neo Plus, and Neo Titan UV printers). If you look closely at an Agfa :Anapurna UV printer you quickly notice that the Agfa UV printers share most of the interior chassis with Dilli printers.

Eastech now has an impressive headquarters building in Bangkok, Thailand. This is where I spent two days testing and evaluating both their textile printer and their Magic Ink printer. The resulting FLAAR Report will be out shortly.

It was eventually possible to get an appointment to visit the new Eastech headquarters in Thailand in July 2008. I am very interested in unusual inks that can print on “everything.” But we cannot recommend any ink unless we know more about it. The first thing I learned during my visit is that the present ink is third generation, and a fourth generation ink will be available later in 2008. So today there is no need to pre-coat most materials with a primer. To document this, we all went together to the local equivalent of a Home Depot and got a diverse variety of materials off the shelf.

But as is normal with any ink, you naturally need top-coating on slippery polished surfaces.

Printer names are confusing?

One source lists the printer names as Eastech EJ-7000 magic, EJ-9000 magic, EJ-1200, EJ-1600, EJ-2600 magic. Yet a brochure lists the printer name as the Corona M1004 and Corona M1008. Is this just for textiles? But the brochure for the Corona name lists printing on wood, mirrors, aluminum metal plates.

It is also not clear the relationship between Practical Concept Printing System of Saitama, Japan, and Eastech of Taiwan and Thailand.

Nicholas Hellmuth showing some items of different materials printed at Eastech printer with the "Magic Ink" at Fespa Trade Show, 2007.

Lumocolor, from Staedtler, another magical ink that can print on “everything”

My favorite atypical ink is Lumocolor, from Staedtler. Unfortunately no printer manufacturer was willing to risk designing a special printer to handle it’s heating and laminating requirements on some materials. This is unfortunate since a heating unit is simple and in-line lamination has now also been achieved.

Although Lumocolor ink never made it into mass-production, a newer ink that “prints on everything” is becoming available from Sepiax.

HP latex ink, another innovative ink

The HP latex ink is so new, and its actual pros and cons are totally unknown outside press releases. But most of our thousands of readers will want to learn about it, so I cover HP latex ink on two of our sites: HP latex ink elsewhere here on the wide-format site and another page on the HP latex ink on the large format site (which is dedicated to signage printers).

Side view of Eastech printer that use the Magic Ink at FESPA Trade Show, 2007.

 

Most recently updated July 14, 2008, at Eastech facilities in Bangkok, Thailand.
First posted March 18, 2008. Updated June 5, 2008, at DRUPA.