The HB18UV is our new 1.8 m Hybrid UV printer designed for those print shops pushing the envelope of what's possible. Those who will print on anything they can feed through on a roll, but aren't giving up on cutting edge speeds and printhead technology. This machine can print almost anything you can feed through it: leather, banners, backlit media, vinyl, transfers, cloth, you name it!
45+ sqm/h
All four heads laying colour, in draft.
Production runs at 37.6 on the four-head. Give a head to white and it's 11.8 in draft, 9.7 in production - the extra passes cost speed. Media up to 1.8 m wide.
Built for mixed media
What it can print on is only half the story. The other half is layers: it can stack up to five layers of colour, white and clear varnish in one job, and each mix is a product you can sell. The jobs you want decide how the heads are set up.
Two-sided window signs
Colour, a blocking layer, then colour again, so people outside and inside each see a clean image.
Lightboxes that work day and night
It looks right in daylight with the light off, and still bright when it's lit up at night.
Bright colour on dark materials
White goes down first, so colour pops on black leather or dark vinyl instead of sinking in.
Spot gloss on the details
Gloss on just the logo or the lettering makes it catch the light. Matt gives a soft, flat finish.
On the four-head setup, it'll do gold and silver foil too. Traditional foil stamping needs a metal die made for every design, and that costs money and time before the first print. Here it's two steps, and there's no die at all.
Gold and silver foil in two steps
Print, then laminate
The printer lays down the design, plus a sticky varnish wherever the gold should go. The sheet then runs through a laminator under a roll of foil.
Gold only where you want it
The foil sticks to the varnish and nothing else, so logos, lettering and fine lines come out gold or silver.
What sets it apart from roll-to-roll printing
Instead of dragging the material through on pinch rollers, the HB18UV carries it on a moving mesh belt, with a section-controlled vacuum bed underneath holding it flat. Banner that curls, vinyl that slides and fabric that stretches all stay put, so the print lands where it's meant to. It'll take rolls up to 300 mm in diameter and 50 kg in weight. It can feed material up to 10 mm thick allowing for multiple types of printing.
White ink is heavy. It settles when it's left still, and settled white is what blocks heads. The HB18UV keeps its white moving through its recirculation system, fed from 1.5 litre tanks with ink stirrers, so it stays mixing while the printer sits idle.
Heaters on the heads keep the ink flowing evenly, and water-cooled LED UV lamps dry each pass the moment it's printed, so work comes off ready to handle. The ink is GREENGUARD Gold certified for low chemical emissions, which counts when the job is going into a school, office or home.
For a 1.8 m printer it's compact: 3.4 m long set up, and 536 kg. It runs on single-phase power, so there's no three-phase supply to organise first. It also takes over from the DQ1800UV in our range.
The HB18UV starts at $44,990 + GST with three heads, plus freight. The speeds on this page are for the four-head machine, and that's priced on request, as is every four-head setup, foil included.
Worth knowing
Test your materials first. Every leather, vinyl and backlit film takes ink a little differently, and a test print is the only way to see how yours will look and stick. Send us the materials you use most and we'll have them test-printed before you buy. One limit to know: it prints flexible material off a roll, up to 10 mm thick. Rigid boards are a job for the PRO.
HB18UV or HB18UV PRO - which one fits
The main thing the step up buys is printing rigid boards. The HB18UV PRO is the hybrid of the pair: as well as rolls, it prints board up to 40 mm thick, with feeder tables front and back to help load it, and a sensor that measures each board's height. In September at the factory we watched one print a full 2.4 x 1.2 m board in 4 minutes!
If everything you print comes as a roll, from vinyl, banner and backlit to leather and the odd one-off , the HB18UV covers it for less. If you keep turning away board jobs and don't have the space for a flatbed, that's the PRO.
 HB18UV
|
 HB18UV PRO
|
|---|---|
| Type | |
| Mixed-media roll printer | Hybrid: rigid board and roll |
| Max media thickness | |
| 10 mm | 40 mm |
| Printheads | |
| 3 or 4 | 3 to 8 |
| Print width | |
| 1.85 m | 1.85 m |
| Rigid board handling | |
| No | Extension tables front and rear, height detector |
| Magnetic linear motor and encoder | |
| No | Built in |
| Roll capacity | |
| 300 mm diameter, 30 kg | 300 mm diameter, 50 kg |
| Rigid media weight | |
| Roll only | Up to 200 kg |
| Net weight | |
| 536 kg | 1,384 kg |
| Price | |
| From $44,990 + GST | From $63,990 + GST |
Both come with installation, training, a 2-year warranty and ongoing support from the team you bought from. Prices are plus GST and freight, with no hidden extras.
Got an awkward material? Tell us what it is and roughly how much of it you print, and we'll get it test-printed before you buy.
GZ Australia. 0422 705 461 or info@gzaustralia.com .
Ask about a test print
