The Falcon II series sports piezoelectric Dynamic Variable Dot imaging, which produces multiple unique dot sizes, thus producing finer detail, smoother gradients and solid crisp colors that are closer to true continuous-tone printing, according to Mutoh. The printer also features adjustable head height, automatic media thickness compensation up to 1.5 mm, and print speeds of up to 430 sq. ft. per hour. The Falcon II supports up to eight ink colors and features resolutions of 360 x 360 to 1440 x 2880 dots-per-inch.
The Falcon II systems feature adjustable ink configuration options — shops that run both pigment and dye inks can load sets of CMYK pigment and dye inks simultaneously, then switch from one set to another instantly. This way, print shops can be flexible depending on whether they’re outputting for vibrancy or durability. The printers incorporate a 128MB image buffer, a 21GB hard disk, a motorized media take-up system and automatic ink level monitoring. An optional 256MB image buffer and 100baseT Ethernet interface is also available.
The Falcon II printers communicate with a local area network via a PostScript-3 compatible network RIP server called the Thunderbird PS-1000. The RIP was developed by Mutoh and works with any Mac or Windows-compatible software. Thunderbird PS-1000 supports spooling from multiple jobs and multiple clients simultaneously; it also features automatic job status reporting, unattended print monitoring and a Web-based user interface.
Attendees of this week’s Big Picture Conference at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fl. will get their first look at the printers. Mutoh will debut the new RJ-8000 line in their booth, #325. Pricing was not immediately available.