We introduced dye solvent based inks printing technology (on the basis of mild ecological solvents) on the market 5 years ago. In the offer there are two kinds of these inks for plotters with the DX piezoelectric print heads: the dye solvent ink in 8 colors and mild solvent pigment ink in 6 colors and also suitable cleaning flushes.

After a slight modification of a standard piezoelectric plotter one can use the solvent ink:

• mild eco-solvent dye ink: 6 parts of the plotter such as: damper, head wiper, head station sponge, head station filter (better put a new main filter), ink drain tube and foam from caps should be changed with solvent resistant one. For example, these parts are used in Mimaki JV2S, Roland SolJet or Mutoh Rockhopper,

• mild eco-solvent pigment ink: requires the conversion of the usual piezoelectric plotter into solvent plotter.

ATPColor products ensure the rank of new advantages to the owners of piezoelectric printing machines such as e.g. Mimaki JV2/4, Mutoh Falcon and Falcon II, Roland Hi-Fi Jet, Epson 9000/10000 and most other plotters. One can easily transform a wide format printing device into a low cost outdoor signs printer with small change of ink supply system.

Offered mild eco-solvent inks and adapted cleaning flushes are not creating the health hazard of their potential users. These products are without strong smell and are not aggressively interacting with environment, therefore it is not necessary to use special air-conditioning equipment. These inks fulfill every required norms in the European Union. 

We offer indeed the ecologic mild pigment solvent ink for DX solvent plotters to print on uncoated media.
We recommend, however, to overcoat the media due to the fact that no one pigmented ink is so scratch resistant like dye ink.
The relatively scratch resistance problem is coming because the pigment ink is not going inside the substrate (printout base) but dry on while the dye is going inside one.
Overcoating also protects from torsional deflexion destruction when design is printed on a flexible media and is used as a flag or a banner.

We formulated  an UV and anti-scratch coat to prepare adapted UV coated media for our solvent inks.

• This coat reinforces dramatically the UV resistance of dye solvent and mild pigment solvent inks

• The UV coat can be used to prepare adapted media for ATPColor's solvent inks from any kind of raw substrates

How to print on non-absorbent media like overhead films, glass, fiberglass, metals, and some kind of very cheap plastic films?

•  You have to prepare the media with one of our pre-coat,

•  Left to dry, it is all, print.

• Glass, ceramic

• Hard plastics

• Polystyrene (e.g. printouts on inner parts of a refrigerator)

• Various flexible plastic media

• Wood

• Metal

• Printouts on linoleum before last treatment

• Floor advertising (indoor)

• Architect's plans (waterproof)

• Printouts on canvas (after pre-coating)

• Printouts on sport T-shirts

• Printouts on CD/DVD-Rom

• Printouts on PVC for personalized cards (card can be with chip or with magnetic band)

• Waterproof visit cards

• Personalization of cards, labels, etc.

• Mouse pads

• Printouts on safety films (indoor) or sun protection films for car, windows, etc

• On glass (pre-coat exists)

• On ceramic (pre-coat exists) for indoor decoration

• Production of personalized puzzles

• On pre-coated polystyrene plastic parts used inside refrigerator

• On pre-coated FOREX OSB for indoor and after overcoating outdoor using

• On hard plastics (pre-coated or pre-heated, depending of plastic) for indoor decoration

• Indoor signs on pre-coated metals, wood, plastic, etc.

• Personalization of wallpaper

• Printouts on fabrics, textiles for curtains, table set, etc.

• Mild eco-solvent dye ink can be used in every Epson office printer cartridges as waterproof, archival ink. Cartridges should be made from special solvent resistant plastic. They are available from ATPColor.

• Also are available various pre-coats adapted to the dye solvent ink with UV and anti-scratch properties. Due to their low price everyone can produce his own pre-coated media.

• Mild Eco-Solvent Dye ink: It can be used in every standard piezoelectric plotter with DX3/DX4* print head after replacing 6 parts of the plotter such as: damper, head wiper, head station sponge, head station filter (better put a new main filter), ink drain tube and foam from caps with solvent resistant one. For example, these parts are used in Mimaki JV2S, Roland SolJet or Mutoh Rockhopper.

• Moreover in solvent plotters: Mimaki JV2S, JV3, Roland SolJet, SolJet 2 and Mutoh Rockhopper.

• Adaptation are in progress to use this ink in RasterGraphic PP 5000, Xpress and Seiko oil based plotters.

*Examples of plotters with piezoelectric DX3/DX4 print head:

• Mild Eco-Solvent Pigment ink: DX based solvent plotters (Mimaki JV2S, JV3, Roland SolJet, SolJet 2, Mutoh Rockhopper, Tiara series, Eastech) or standard piezoelectric plotters with DX3 print head converted to apply solvent ink.

We recommend to comply with the following instructions:

1. Clean up deeply the previous ink with the adapted solvent cleaning flush

2. After printing, clean the head

3. The sponge on the parking should be every time moistened by the solvent cleaning flush

4. Temperature should be about 20°C

5. Humidity in the range from 35% to 50%

6. Assign one kind of ink to the plotter: solvent or water based

7. Use only a very good bulk ink system, 95% of all problems are coming from a bad one. Pay attention that a bad bulk ink system can destroy the print head in a few seconds

8. If you fill a 220 ml aluminum bag try to avoid filling it up to much; 200 ml or 210 ml is enough. Even with a very good bulk ink system avoid the pressure variation which are responsible for a lot of bad printouts and can also shorten a life of the plotter print head

9. Use only PP solvent resistant aluminum bag or bag  made from rubber. A standard PE aluminum bag can be dissolved by solvent included in the ink and it can clog a filter or a print head

10. Because of similar reason, use only the solvent resistant bulk ink system with teflon tubes

11. A bag or bulk ink system should be refilled in a very clean room with closed doors and all windows, without draft, using clean hands and in clean clothes

12. When using the first time solvent ink in a water based ink system it is absolutely necessary to check whether the cleaning was perfect. First bad printout have got at 99% origin in the presence of old dry ink in a pipe, filter or print head. Thus, the best solution is to use a new ink distribution system

13. Stock ink in a normal environment out of light, at room temperature in the range from 10°C to 20°C.

14. When using a heater pay attention that the heat flux is not going directly on the ink distribution system

15. Printing on uncoated plastic media: for some of them it is necessary to use heater giving 35°C localized in the entrance to plotter/printer.

We provide appropriate cleaning flushes for the mild eco-solvent dye and pigment ink, respectively.
The flush for the mild eco-solvent dye ink can also be used by end users in Albatros, Arizona and Toucan during continuous work of the plotter.
It is necessary to use the strong cleaning flush when the plotter was several days without printing.

Comparison of mild eco-solvent inks with OEM's pigmented inks (Roland. Mutoh. Mimaki. Epson)

Advantages of our mild eco-solvent inks versus OEM pigmented inks are as follows:

• Print quality is better thanks to more vibrant colors and a nicer dot shape.

• Prints with our solvent inks are water- and scratchproof and need usually no lamination to be used in indoor or outdoor environments. When prints made with pigmented inks are used outdoor, lamination is required because the prints are not water- and scratch resistant.

• Prints made on ink-jet media using pigmented inks usually absorb water very easily, which makes that penetration of water between the printed media and the lamination film a real problem. This problem does not exist when using our solvent inks, because media are not water adsorptive. They do not attract the water. On top of that you usually do not laminate.

• Usually media for solvent ink are cheaper because the coating needed is less complicated than the one used with water-based inks.

• When stretching or shrinking prints made with pigmented inks, usually the coating will break and pigment can easily come off from the media. Printout made with solvent ink can be stretched more than 400 % (if the media allows it) before it will break!

• If you really want it, you can laminate solvent printouts both hot or cold, without having the problems common with water-based ink-jet printing.

• Because of all the above advantages, when making a cost comparison, you will save on average more than 40 % per square meter on the finished prints.

• Thanks to the durability, your printer can be used for much more applications than the ones possible today with pigmented inks.

• Customers can coat media themselves, which is not possible when working with pigmented inks.

Disadvantages of our mild eco-solvent inks versus OEM pigmented inks :

• Customer loose the warranty on the print heads because of using alternative inks. Our solvent inks do not shorten the lifespan of the heads, but because the inks are not supported by the manufacturers of plotters, you will have to pay for the replacement of damaged (latent defect) print heads. Make the calculation and you will notice that this cost is peanuts compared to the savings in media and laminates (see our special web page).

Comparison of mild eco-solvent ink with OEM solvent inks (Roland. Mutoh. Mimaki. Epson)

OEM-inks i.e.:

• Roland: Soljet-inks

• Mimaki: Mild solvent inks

• Mutoh: Eco solvent inks - Rockhopper inks

Advantages of our mild eco-solvent inks versus OEM sol-inks :

• Prints with OEM-inks are NOT scratch resistant and need lamination.

• Print quality with our solvent inks is better thanks to more vibrant colors, real blacks and a nicer dot shape.

• Our solvent inks are a real ecologic solution, where this is not entirely the case for the OEM-inks in a way that the coating used to produce media compatible with the OEM-inks are NOT ecologic at all.

• Media for OEM-inks are compatible with our solvent inks, but the opposite is not the case.

• Customers can coat media themselves, which is not possible when using OEM-inks.

• Media for OEM-inks are usually much more expensive than media for our solvent inks.

• Our solvent inks works with most printers using Epson print heads. So you don't have to invest in a new printer to make use of the OEM inks.

• There are more media available for our solvent inks than for OEM inks.

• Thanks to the durability, your printer can be used for much more applications than the ones possible today with OEM-inks.

• Because of all the above advantages, when making a cost-comparison, you will save on average more than 40 % per square meter on the finished prints.

Disadvantages of mild eco-solvent inks versus OEM sol-inks :

• Manufacturers claim that prints with OEM-inks can be used in certain conditions during 36 months outdoors.

• Customer loose the warranty on the print heads because of using alternative inks. Our solvent inks do not shorten the lifespan of the heads, but because the inks are not supported by the manufacturers of plotters, you will have to pay for the replacement of damaged (latent defect) print heads. Make the calculation and you will notice that this cost is peanuts compared to the savings in media and laminates (see our special web page).