Trade-show season hit full stride this week. With LOUPE Americas opening September 15–17 in Chicago and PRINTING United Expo following September 23–25 in Las Vegas, manufacturers emptied their announcement queues — and the pattern was hard to miss. Roland DG launched a new UV print-and-cut platform built around a faster printhead, Mimaki pushed four machines into its UV and DTF lines, DuPont committed to running automated direct-to-film production live on the show floor, and the label world picked up a closed-loop register alliance plus a new UV-LED flexo ink series. Nearly every one of these stories comes back to the same place: what the printhead can lay down, how fast, and how reliably.
WIDE-FORMAT UV · SEPTEMBER 10, 2026
Roland DG launches the TrueVis MG2 Series, doubling down on a new printhead
Roland DG introduced the TrueVis MG2 Series — the MG2-640 and MG2-300 UV printer/cutters — available from September 10. The headline claim is roughly twice the productivity of the previous MG Series, and Roland attributes it to a newly developed printhead with advanced waveform control. The machines run standard CMYK with optional Orange and Red for wider Pantone coverage, print up to five layers in a single pass using CMYK, White and Gloss combinations, ship with 72 built-in texture libraries, and move to 1,000ml ink pouches. Print-and-cut integration covers Roland DG, Summa and Graphtec cutters.
UV work needs a UV-specific head variant — the Epson I3200-U1 UV printhead is the version built for UV-curable ink, not its solvent or water-based siblings.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: “Twice the productivity” from the same class of machine almost always means the head is firing faster and placing drops more precisely, not that the gantry got quicker. Waveform control is what shapes each drop's ejection — and it is also what makes a head unforgiving once nozzles start to drift. Five-layer single-pass work stacks white and gloss over color in one go, which puts more ink through the head per hour and raises the cost of a single clogged nozzle. On platforms like this, daily nozzle checks and disciplined capping-station maintenance are the difference between the rated speed and a reprint.
UV & DTF HARDWARE · SEPTEMBER 8, 2026
Mimaki expands its UV and DTF lines with four new printers
Mimaki rolled out four machines, shown at The Print Show in Birmingham, with a reported 75-plus EMEA launch events to follow. The JFX220-2515 is a large UV flatbed with a 2500 x 1500mm print area, media up to 101.6mm thick, and a four-head configuration running dual CMYK at up to 42 sqm/hr. The UJF200-6042 and UJF200-3042 are compact UV printers handling objects up to 250mm tall and 20kg, with optional camera systems for media detection and alignment. The TxF330-800 is a DTF textile printer with a 16-cartridge ink system, increased white capacity, automated maintenance, and new Sky Blue and Pale Pink inks.
Multi-head UV flatbeds live or die on head-to-head alignment — heads in the Konica KM1024 class are the industrial workhorses behind that kind of array.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: The JFX220's 42 sqm/hr comes from a four-head dual-CMYK layout — parallel heads, not one faster head. That is the standard route to speed in UV flatbeds, and it means banding tends to show up as head-to-head alignment drift rather than as a single bad nozzle row. The TxF330-800 is the more telling one: extra white ink capacity and automated maintenance exist because DTF white is the hardest fluid in the shop on a printhead. Titanium dioxide pigment settles, and a head left idle overnight without circulation or a maintenance cycle is how shops lose nozzles on white channels first.
TEXTILE & GARMENT · SEPTEMBER 9, 2026
DuPont Artistri to run two automated DTF lines live at PRINTING United
DuPont announced it will demonstrate two fully automated direct-to-film production lines running continuously throughout PRINTING United Expo, built with equipment partner Brown Manufacturing Group. The pitch targets the unglamorous part of DTF: “no powder mess and no manual handoffs slowing production down.” DuPont frames the automation as both an efficiency and a sustainability story — less excess powder waste, fewer manual interventions, and a more resource-conscious line.
The Epson I3200-A1 water-based printhead is the workhorse behind a great many DTF machines — and the part airborne adhesive powder reaches first.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: Powder is the quiet enemy of a DTF printhead. In a manual shake-and-cure setup, adhesive powder becomes airborne and finds its way back onto the nozzle plate, where it bonds to stray ink and turns into deflected jets. Enclosing and automating powder application is as much a printhead-protection measure as a labor saving. If you run DTF manually, the cheap version of the same benefit is physical separation between the printer and the powder station, plus wiping the nozzle plate with the correct solvent rather than anything abrasive.
LABELS & PACKAGING · SEPTEMBER 10, 2026
AVT and Mark Andy form a strategic alliance on closed-loop register control
Inspection specialist AVT and press manufacturer Mark Andy announced an alliance combining print inspection with press control. The first output is a closed-loop register control system for Mark Andy Performance and HD Series presses that adjusts registration without operator intervention, handles invisible varnish layers, and registers both flexo and digital inks in hybrid workflows. A second piece feeds AVT press data into the MA ProWorx business intelligence module for production visibility across multiple presses and sites. Both debuted at LOUPE Americas, September 15–17 in Chicago.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: The detail worth noting is hybrid registration — aligning digital inkjet against flexo stations on the same web. That only works if the inkjet heads are placing drops predictably at speed, so closed-loop systems effectively make printhead condition visible in the data. A head with drifting nozzles shows up as registration the loop keeps chasing. As inspection data gets pulled into BI dashboards, nozzle health stops being a pressroom hunch and starts being a trend line you can schedule maintenance against.
INKS & INDUSTRIAL UV · SEPTEMBER 11, 2026
Zeller+Gmelin expands NUVAFLEX with the 171 Series for UV-LED flexo
Zeller+Gmelin added the NUVAFLEX 171 Series, a UV/LED flexographic ink line aimed at narrow-web label and packaging production. The company cites fast cure rates, strong adhesion and color strength, with Flexographic Product Manager Erik Jacob positioning it against “color, adhesion and quality problems commonly found in today's pressrooms.” Targets include labels, in-mold labels, flexible packaging, shrink sleeves and low-surface-energy substrates, available in process colors, extended gamut, mixing bases, metallics, opaque whites and dense blacks. It showed at LOUPE Americas at booth #911.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: This is a flexo ink, not an inkjet fluid — but the problem it targets is the same one inkjet shops fight on low-surface-energy films. As UV-LED curing spreads across narrow web, more hybrid lines pair flexo stations with inkjet heads, and the two chemistries have to live on the same substrate. For the inkjet side, the lesson is that adhesion failures on shrink and LSE films are rarely the head's fault — but a head pushed to lay heavier films to compensate for poor wetting is how you end up with over-saturation, slow cure, and residue creeping onto the nozzle plate.
BUSINESS & DISTRIBUTION · SEPTEMBER 9, 2026
Nazdar SourceOne opens a 5,000 sq ft Solutions Center for try-before-you-buy testing
Nazdar SourceOne opened a 5,000 square foot Solutions Center in Shawnee, Kansas, where printers can test equipment with their own files and substrates before buying. The appointment-only facility carries wide-format printers, textile systems and finishing gear from EFI, Roland DGA, Colex, M&R, Stahls' Hotronix and Graphic Finishing Partners, and also hosts operator training and troubleshooting sessions. “Buying a piece of equipment is one of the biggest decisions our customers make, and a spec sheet alone rarely tells the whole story,” said Mike Johnson, VP of Graphic and Industrial Products. The center opened August 26.
PRINTHEAD ANGLE: If you get demo time on a machine you are considering, spend some of it on questions a spec sheet will not answer: what printhead does it use, what does a replacement head cost, how long is the lead time, and can you source one independently or only through the OEM. A head is a consumable with a finite life, and on some platforms it is a meaningful share of the machine's value. Knowing the part number and its availability before you sign is worth more than another test print.
Whatever equipment you run — or are thinking about running next — the printhead is the heart of it. If you ever need a replacement head or a hard-to-find component, browse our full range of printheads and printer spare parts and accessories — our team is always happy to help you find the right fit for your machine.
