Printing on Paperboard / Chipboard & Laser Cutting

[Terry R Peterson]

A few of our projects recently required 18pt paperboard POP display boxes for the final retail product. We outsourced to print-and-diecut shops, but the back-and-forth took forever to get the prototype nailed. We'd like to take on more of the prototyping by printing our graphics and using our laser to cut and score the chipboard to get the design finalized before handing it off to an actual print-and-diecut shop to produce by the hundreds or thousands.


Does anyone own such a printer and can give recommendations on models to consider purchasing? I'm not even sure I should be considering UV, dye-sub, flatbed....? Any direction is highly appreciated. No exact budget but hoping it's a space we can play in for under $20K.

[Scott Shepherd]

We have a customer we do that type of work for. It would depend on what size you need to print. Some of their stuff, we can't do because it's too large, but a lot of it, we can. We have a Mimaki UJF6042, which is 16.5" x 24" of travel, but they make a smaller UJF-3042 that's not far from your budget. It's a UV flatbed printer. Roland makes them as well. We wanted the Roland until I saw it run and, compared to the Mimaki, it was like watching paint dry. Some inks dry hard and some dry a little flexible, so if you need to print, cut, and fold, depending on the graphics, it can crack hard ink in the fold. But if you don't have a lot of ink, you'll be fine. The paper matters too. It matters a lot.

I wish I could show some of the work, because it's really cool stuff, but it's an active customer and it's all their artwork, so I don't have the authorization to post photos of their design work.

You'd want something that prints white ink as well. Otherwise, printing on darker papers, you'll have no colors popping. Putting down white and then printing on top of the white, maintains the colors you have in your design.