Last week saw the arrival of two new digital textile printers at their new home at the MTEX Technologies Demonstration Centre at the heart of the Midlands, UK.

They are the first in a suite of dedicated textile solutions being installed at the centre, MTEX’s new base for UK and Ireland demonstration and testing for the sign and display market, as well as the home textile and fashion industries.

Expertise and knowledge

Unlike many print solutions in the sign market that were designed for production banner and vinyl printing with temporary textile printing capabilities, MTEX only manufactures dedicated digital textile printing and finishing equipment.

MTEX was founded just outside Porto in Portugal, in the traditional centre of European textile trade at Santo Tirso. The founders Eloi Ferrira and Marco Sousa and Managing Director of MTEX Technologies in the UK Stewart Bell, have many years of experience in the wide format print and imaging market. The company believes that combined, they have a very strong understanding of what true digital textile printing can achieve for sign and display graphics companies today.

New arrivals

“We are delighted at the arrival of the first two printers in our demonstration centre – the MTEX 1800 and the MTEX 5032Pro. They will be followed by the MTEX TurboSub and MTEX 500C for fashion fabrics later in the year,” commented Stewart Bell.

“The MTEX PAD, Steamer and W&D are also being prepared for shipment to the UK so companies with a need for pre-coating fabrics, steaming and post-print washing & drying will be able to put them through their paces. When all the machines are in, we will have the most comprehensive demonstration suite of direct-to-textile digital printers in the UK.”

“It’s a very exciting time to be involved with digital textile printing and it is our aim to help sign and display makers and creators, interior designers and fashion houses to harness the power of digital using our equipment and bolster the strong and lasting heritage of textile printing in the UK.”

MTEX printers

The MTEX 1800 was the first printer to be installed at the centre and is aimed at medium sized display graphic and home textile companies that want a machine that will print dedicated textiles with punchy colours. It is 1.8m wide and prints extremely high quality vibrant colours at up to 48sqm per hour and has a 2 litre bulk ink system for continuous printing.

 The MTEX 5032Pro has also been installed ready for demonstration and customer testing. This machine is a 3.2m wide direct-to-textile printer with integrated fixation and runs at 58sqm per hour. It is the second-generation version of the 3.2m wide MTEX 5032, which has a proven track record in the industry as the market leading direct-to-textile printer in Europe.

Different fabrics can have varying tensions across the roll, so MTEX developed an electro-pneumatic feeding system that handles the challenges inherent with printing onto textiles with ease, and prevents errors occurring during the print process. This printing solution aims to enable users to produce a wide range of fabrics for a huge variety of applications including soft signage, interior displays, home textiles, flags, retail point of sale, lightboxes and much more.

www.mtex.eu