HP has a new product, and our new product is a dye sublimation printer.
We have finally come to the dye sublimation market with all guns blazing, and it is called the Stitch 500.
The Stitch 500, the S500, is a new product that's going to completely revolutionize dye
sublimation printing.
What we're going to do is take all of what we know from DesignJet and Latex, and we've
applied it to dye sublimation.
It uses a thermal user replaceable printhead, twelve Picoliter drop, 1200 DPI in all print modes.
But we've innovated.
We've created a brand new ink that can run through a brand new set of thermal printheads
that allows us to print using thermal printheads
and not sublimate in the head.
Fundamentally, HP is an ink chemistry company and we develop this new ink.
It is a revolutionary new ink chemistry.
Along with that we develop our own printheads.
We manufacture thermal printheads, and we have for decades.
With this new print head and this new ink, we've engineered an entirely new product that
we believe is a game changer in the dye sublimation industry.
Let me explain some of the features.
For starters, this is a very thin paper.
In fact, I'm putting a fairly large ink signature on a very light paper.
This is a 45 gram paper.
The reason we can do that without having cockling or buckling is because we have a product that
allows us to place heat in the print zone using a drop and dry technology.
What we have are heaters, which are right here and those heaters allow us to keep temperature
here in the print zone and that prevents putting a lot of water onto paper,
which traditionally is going to warp and cockle, especially thinner paper.
We feel that with this technology and our very fast drying inks, that we can place larger
ink signatures on thinner paper than our competitors,
which is a significant cost savings over time.
Also, our printheads, what we have here is a mirror image printhead technology.
Effectively we have the printheads, two entire rows of them, printing a mirror image of one another.
I call it a palindrome printhead because the same printheads in one direction bidirectionally,
are completely identical printing in the other direction bidirectionally.
And when combined with our optical drop detection, the optical drop detection will find any missing
nozzles automatically.
When it finds a missing nozzle, it replaces that nozzle.
It can constantly find replacement nozzles, and now with two rows of printheads, plus
having the printheads in a mirror image configuration,
it's almost impossible to have meaningful vertical banding on this printer.
What that gives me, is a consistent regular print, even at high speeds, without any nozzle degradation.
1000, just under 1200 square feet an hour in one pass, is a completely legitimate speed
for certain fashion or some home decor applications with this printer.
This printer is designed to be very productive and very fast, and it uses this optical drop
technology to ensure that anytime you're printing,
even in high-speed modes, you're not going to have nozzle dropout.
One of the other key features if you look down on the bottom here, is you'll see bulk ink systems.
This printer is designed to be fast, it's designed to run constantly, and it's designed
to run uninterrupted.
One of the keys to uninterrupted printing is, can you take a roll of paper and then
take it up onto the take-up reel and not have it skew or telescope?
See, ultimately this paper is going to get transferred to a calendar press and if the
paper is irregular or it's telescoped or it's not on the take-up reel properly,
this is not going to work.
We have a new tension winder system on this 500 that is specifically designed to ensure
that the paper travels onto the take-up, without in any way having unnecessary tension.
It's essentially an extremely light touch, in which we've automated the take-up, so that
it matches the feed perfectly.
This allows you to run up 1,150 feet on this printer unattended.
That is a very long run.
These printers are designed for long runs.
We have the bulk ink system, we have the optical drop detection, and we have the new tension
winder that's built into the 500.
All key features that are necessary to run uninterrupted.
But there's more.
We've introduced, on this dye sublimation generation, an entirely new color calibration process
called Colorsmart, which utilizes the onboard spectrophotometer that's built into it.
Yes, that's right, we have an I1, and that allows you with one touch of the button,
to do a calibration on paper, on the printer, and dial it into consistent color over time on the printer.
But if you have another printer, or a second printer, or a fourth printer, we can do fleets
exactly the same way using the I1 to read a simple color calibration chart,
close loop, and then dial everything in, and that includes the accuracy of Pantone colors.
What we're trying to do is rationalize the color calibration process for dye sublimation,
like we did for DesignJet and like we did for the Latex.
It has the technology to constantly re-calibrate itself, simply with a touch of a button.
And all of these printers come with an HP in the box version of Ergo Soft that is custom
designed to run with these printers, including all of the Pantone tables, as well as Pantone accuracy,
that we feel is industry best.
No question.