Editor's note: The purpose of this report is to generate open dialogue among industry members regarding the strengths and weaknesses of current inkjet printing technology, with the long-term goal of improving equipment to better meet the needs of the wide-format printing community. This report presents end-user opinions on outdoor printers. Two future Perfect Printer reports are planned for later this year; one dealing with fabric printers and the other dealing with flatbed printers.

Have you ever sworn at your printer because the heads crashed? Tapped your toe waiting for it to finish cutting media? Been frustrated waiting for the printer to warm up and print?

Within the large-format commercial graphics market, inkjet printers have certainly come a long way — from early, hard-to-use plotters (designed by engineers for engineers) to today’s high-production units. But printers still have a long way to go. They can be faster, more efficient, easier to use and higher in quality. In short, they still have a long way to go. Above all other factors, they must be designed and engineered so users can make money.

Given some printers’ flaws and attributes, would it be possible for any manufacturer to build a “perfect” printer? To find out, we polled our readers and asked what features they liked and disliked about their inkjet printer. Our hope was that the comments could eventually be turned into a specification -- a checklist that manufacturers could use in developing and testing the next-generation of customer-pleasing printers.

The idea for this project began about two years ago, when Rich Adams had the notion to identify the "ideal printer" for the wide-format graphics market. Twenty-four months later, with the help of Web Consulting and Digital Graphics magazine, Rich's brainchild takes a tangible form. But could there really be just one machine that would do it all?

The majority of shops participating in the survey are digital printers or commercial sign shops and average two wide-format printers per shop. They use a variety of inkjet ink technologies to produce outdoor graphics, but the largest group is uses solvent-based systems.

After considering today's diverse wide-format imaging market, with so many varied applications and technologies, we quickly realized we needed to take another tack. We made plans to look at three specific market segments — outdoor graphics, decorative textiles (soft signage) and rigid displays — and to cover these in three separate reports. We acknowledge that it's impossible to cover all areas and all applications, but these three segments include a diversity of users, technology platforms, substrates and applications, and together cover a significant piece of the wide-format graphics market. For each segment, we will embark on a separate "Quest for the Perfect Printer."

METHODOLOGY AND SAMPLE
Specific questions and topics were agreed upon by all contributors including Rich Adams, Web Consulting and the editors of Digital Graphics. The survey was designed, programmed and managed by Alan Anderson of Web Consulting.

The survey consisted of 42 questions and was posted on the Web site of Web Consulting for a period of six days. More than 8,631 e-mail invitations were sent and 328 responses were received. The data was collected, edited and analyzed by both Web Consulting and Rich Adams.

The majority of responses came from commercial sign shops and digital printers, a majority of whom said they serve the large-format outdoor graphics market. Most (49.4%) reported using solvent-based systems, while 17.4% use eco-solvent or other low-odor/light-solvent inks, 16.8% use UV-curable inks, and about 13.7% report using aqueous dye or pigment-based inks for outdoor applications.

Although the survey is fairly exhaustive, it isn't practical to present all the information in this article, as there wouldn't be room for other stories. In the interest of brevity, we present the most significant highlights below.

SATISFACTION LEVELS
Only 19.3% of respondents say they have no problems whatsoever with their printers. However, most shops express a great deal of satisfaction in specific areas. The top five areas of satisfaction are quality settings (88.0%), warm-up time (80.4%), media handling (76.1%), head crash recovery (73.7%), and maintenance (73.2%). The top three areas of dissatisfaction are maintenance (13.4%), media cutting (12.9%) and media handling (11.4%).

Overall, the data seems to indicate (in the eyes of end-users) that printer engineers have succeeded in building machines that can achieve high quality, but also suggests that engineers -- having mastered quality -- now need to turn their attention toward productivity issues (speed and efficiency), testing the equipment with a wider range of media (media handling, cutting, transport, loading), and reduction of down time and maintenance costs by building more reliable equipment with more user-replaceable parts.

A very small percentage (4.8

%) of respondents seem to be totally dissatisfied with their printers and can't think of anything favorable to say. Of those who do have favorable comments, the majority comment on printer quality, while others praise printer economy, low operating costs, speed, low odor and ease of use.

BEST AND WORST FEATURES
Respondents were asked to identify and comment on the best and worst features of the printers they currently use. Almost all who took the survey entered comments. We classified the comments into six categories: Quality (color, resolution), Productivity (speed), Ease of use, Reliability (including breakdowns, service and parts), Capability (versatility) and Value (cost of equipment and consumables).

When asked to rate their current machine’s best and worst features, respondents were most happy with print quality and capabilities. The worst features were in the areas of ease of use and productivity.

Best Features
Quality  - (34.2%)Answers to this question suggest readers feel that large-format inkjet printers offer high quality and versatility in printing outdoor graphics. Some specific comments relate to color consistency, repeatability, large color gamut, sharpness, resolution and durability.

Capability - (23%) Users cite assets such as direct-to-substrate printing, roll-to-roll capability, the ability to use third-party solvent inks, the ability to print onto substrates of varying thicknesses, and the ability to cut and print with one machine.

Ease-of-use - (15.3%) Desirable features cited include a take-up reel for printed media, low- or no-odor eco-solvent inks, quietness, PostScript compatibility, transport of paper and fabric, ease of operation, easy material loading and unloading, and flatbed roll-to-roll versatility.

Productivity - (12.6%) Users also cite speed, easy startup, instant dry time and the ability to change inks on-the-fly.

Value - (5%) Interestingly, only  a small percentage of respondents say that value is their printer's best feature. Those who do, cite satisfaction with price/performance ratio, good R.O.I., low acquisition price, low cost of operation and low consumables costs.

Worst Features
Ease-of-use - (28.2%) Problems reported in this area are the most-frequently cited and include awkward user interfaces, loading and unloading of material issues (lack of a take-up reel), hard drive crashes, lack of contour cutting capability, difficulty loading ink cartridges, poor paper hold-downs, solvent odor, rear-loading media, printhead clogging due to insufficient use, and difficult-to-use waste containers. Software problems cited include incompatibility of drivers and the failure of large files.

Productivity - (25.2%) Most oft-cited problems in this area include slow print speeds, slow drying times, slow scroll speed and long setup time.

Quality - (16%) Issues here include color accuracy and consistency problems, banding, the inability to print solid colors, substrate compatibility, UV and aqueous ink longevity, ink durability, front-to-rear registration problems, double-side alignment issues, inability to print good blacks, ink adhesion, and the inability to print an accurate four-color gray.

WISH LIST
Roughly half of the respondents are perfectly happy with most aspects of the performance of their printers, but a number of them express a desire for improvements. Many wish for shorter warm-up times and simpler control panel interface systems with better user manual documentation. Following is a wish list of potential improvements readers would like to see.

When asked to rate their overall satisfaction with their printers, roughly half the respondents report being very satisfied with most aspects of the performance of their printers; but a number express a desire for improvements in specific areas.

Built-in Cutters - A number of survey takers would like to see a built-in media cutting system with their printer. And for those with existing cutter systems, more reliable cutters and/or user-replaceable cutters and/or cutter blades are requested, as well as the ability to cut thicker media, such as heavy scrim vinyl, canvas and watercolor paper.

Maintenance - When it comes to printer maintenance, readers would like to see a simplified, less expensive and less time-consuming process. They would like more user-replaceable parts so machines can be fixed without a service call. In addition, easier access to the printhead assembly for cleaning purposes would be helpful; and some mention that feed calibrations could be easier to perform. In this category, users also wish to see user-replaceable printheads, shorter cleaning cycles, less ink and media waste during cleaning and greater reliability when the printer is only run intermittently. They would like manufacturers to supply detailed service manuals, especially when the printer is out-of-warranty or the shop is far from the dealer.

Settings and Optimization - Many users say that the procedures, test patterns and settings used to optimize media are well documented and work well. However, others comment that they would like to have more test patterns available for checking nozzle operation, media feed rate, heater settings and the like. They would also like to have all patterns and their corresponding settings documented in the owner’s manual. Users who print on material of different thicknesses would like to have printhead height adjustments simplfied, better documented and/or further automated. They would like to optimize settings with a minimum of media wastage.

Users also cite differences in quality achievable at the same resolution with different RIPs. For example, a user comments of the 720 x 360 dpi setting between one RIP and another, that “one is sellable and one isn’t.” A number of users very much appreciate the idea and convenience of having a built-in spectrophotometer that optimizes settings automatically and creates ICC profiles.

Head Crash Recovery - Head crashes occur when media buckles (often because of platen heat curling the media) up off the platen enough to make contact with the scanning printheads. This ruins the print and is potentially very damaging for printheads. Many users say they have never had difficulty with head crashes. However, others report that a head crash requires a system reboot, which can be time-consuming. Several users call for better media transport and holding mechanisms to help avoid head crashes.

Clearly, those who design printers with heated platens realize that some media curls when heated and potentially causes head crashes. Readers would like to see mechanisms in place both to protect printheads and to recover from a head crash — printhead cleaning and media removal made simpler.

Media Transport - A large-format printer for the outdoor sign market should have a simple, reliable process for loading and transporting media. Media tracking and transport are key factors in print quality. Several users cite problems with media loading and tracking. At least two respondents indicate that the feed motor on their printers cannot handle the weight of heavy media. Some users would like to see a simpler loading process, including more space for insertion of the media and heavier clamp pressure for the rollers. Others, citing bent and broken plastic knobs, would like to see sturdier media-handling mechanisms.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on this survey, it appears that manufacturers have done a good job designing and building printers that produce quality output. Over one-third of respondents cite “quality” as their printer’s best feature, and a majority mention “print quality” as the top feature they particularly like. Still, manufacturers need to work harder on making sure the printer’s full capabilities are accessible to users. For example, having well-documented media settings, controls, and setup procedures are essential, along with consistent color and available color profiles.

If manufacturers have mastered quality printing, they next could turn more attention to productivity. Users must make money with their equipment. Slow print speeds and prolonged down time adversely affect profitability, hence, user satisfaction.

From the survey, it appears that the wide range of third-party media presents a challenge to manufacturers in designing load, feed, and transport systems that can accommodate different weights, thicknesses and surfaces of media. Also, manufacturers need to think of ways to reduce downtime by having better documented service procedures, more user-replaceable parts and better tech support.

For more information concerning this independent survey, or to participate in the remaining two surveys, contact Michael Flippin at Web Consulting, -na.com.