Format is the first decision and the hardest to reverse. Bed size sets which boards you can buy, which jobs you can quote without tiling, how much floor the machine takes, and how much board you waste at the end of a panel. It is also the decision buyers most often make from a catalogue rather than from their own order book.

This comparison covers the three formats used across this range — 2500 × 1300 mm, 2100 × 3000 mm and 3200 × 2000 mm — and what each one is actually for. It also covers the two things that undermine a format decision made on paper: the difference between bed size and usable print area, and the point at which a larger bed starts adding cost rather than removing it.

Why does bed size decide more than the boards you print?

Format sets your material buying, not just your printing.

A bed matched to a standard sheet lets you buy that sheet at trade price; a bed that is slightly too small forces custom cutting or tiling on every job, which changes both cost and lead time.

The commercial logic runs backwards from the printer. Material suppliers price and stock standard formats, so a machine that accepts a standard sheet without cutting it lets the buyer purchase commodity board rather than prepared blanks. A machine that is a few centimetres short of that sheet turns every job into a cutting operation and every large sign into a two-pass tile.

The second-order effect is on quoting. A shop that can print a full panel in one pass can promise a delivery date based on one operation. A shop that tiles has to allow for alignment, a visible seam risk and a second pass that may need the machine to be free. Buyers should treat that difference as a capacity constraint rather than an inconvenience.

What does 2500 × 1300 mm cover?

The standard trade sheet, with trimming room.

The AJ2513G/R is published with a maximum print size of 2500 × 1300 mm, which is the 8 ft × 4 ft format used across signage and panel work.

This is the format that matches how board is bought and sold in many markets. It suits sign shops, panel processors and display manufacturers whose work is largely flat, rectangular and cut from stock sheets. The machine itself is correspondingly compact, which matters for premises where a 4 m machine would not fit through the door.

Configuration within that platform is scalable: the AJ2513G/R is published with three to eight printheads, a maximum print size of 2500 × 1300 mm, media from 1 to 100 mm thick at up to 50 kg/m², and production modes of 27.46 m²/h in draft, 17.71 m²/h in standard production and 13.02 m²/h in high quality. Ink is published as CMYK plus white, with light cyan, light magenta and varnish available as options. For a shop whose largest job is a trade sheet, this is where the specification ends.

What does 2100 × 3000 mm cover?

Tall panels, hoardings and architectural boards.

The AJ2130 series is published at 2100 × 3000 mm, a portrait format that suits vertical panels and full-height boards that would otherwise be tiled from a smaller bed.

Where the 2500 × 1300 mm format is landscape, this one is portrait, and that difference follows the work. Shopfront panels, columns, lift surrounds, exhibition walls and hoardings are typically taller than they are wide, and a portrait bed prints them in one pass. The same platform also handles standard board sizes in multiples, so a shop doing mixed work gets nesting flexibility rather than a single-purpose machine.

The AJ2130 platform carries the widest configuration spread in this range, which makes it the format most often chosen by buyers who are unsure what mix they will sell. Published configurations run from six heads on the AJ2130G/R with an extended eight-colour ink set of CMYK plus light cyan, light magenta, white and varnish, to sixteen heads on the AJ2130EX with a four-colour CMYK set, to twenty-four heads on the AJ2130Ultra, also four-colour CMYK, published at 140.7, 120.5 and 104.5 m²/h across its three modes.

What does 3200 × 2000 mm cover?

Wide panels and signage that would otherwise need tiling.

The AJ3220 series is published at 3200 × 2000 mm, the widest format in this range, and it is specified with a maximum media weight of 50 kg/m² on the AJ3220EX and 80 kg total on the AJ3220G/R.

This format exists for work that is deliberately wide: large architectural panels, wall graphics produced as single boards, and signage where a seam is unacceptable. It also nests economically, because two or three smaller panels can be positioned on the bed and printed in the same pass, which is how a wide machine earns its footprint on jobs that do not individually need 3.2 m.

Configuration follows the same pattern as the rest of the range. The AJ3220EX is published with sixteen Ricoh GEN5 heads and an extended seven-colour set of CMYK plus light cyan, light magenta, white and varnish, with production modes of 154.3 m²/h in draft, 111.5 m²/h in standard production and 89.6 m²/h in high quality. The AJ3220G/R is published with four heads as standard in three arrays and expandable to eight, CMYK plus white and varnish expandable to eight colours, and standard four-colour production at 35.88 m²/h.

How much usable area do the vacuum zones take?

Compare published print area, not platform dimensions.

Every machine in this range uses a hard-anodised aluminium platform with a four-zone vacuum system, so hold-down is strongest inside the zones and weaker at the outer margins of the bed.

Two numbers matter and only one is usually quoted. The published maximum print area is the figure to compare between models, because it accounts for the gantry envelope and the printable extent of the platform. The second number — the usable area inside the outermost vacuum zone — decides whether a board of a given size is held flat across its full width, and it is the figure a supplier can confirm against a specific board.

There is a practical test that costs nothing. Ask the supplier to place a board of your largest size on the bed, close the zones that will be used in production, and photograph the hold-down result at the corners. A panel that lifts at a corner will print with a soft edge and a colour shift, and no amount of head alignment will fix it; adhesion on the actual board is then verified with a tape test under the ASTM D3359 method (ASTM D3359). Andresjet publishes the vacuum specification per model, and the configuration-level detail sits on each product page within the wide format UV flatbed range.

When does a larger bed increase cost rather than reduce it?

When most of the extra area is empty.

A larger platform adds moving mass, footprint and floor loading, and can slow small-format work, so the format should be justified by the order book rather than a possibility.

Three cost lines move with format. Floor and access: the AJ2130 series is published at 4172 × 4250 × 1390 mm at 1850 kg, and the AJ3220EX at 5272 × 2842 × 1390 mm at the same 1850 kg, so a wider machine is also a longer machine and the delivery route has to accommodate both. Power: the AJ2130 series and AJ3220EX are published at AC 220 V, 50/60 Hz with more than 20 A required, which usually means a dedicated supply. And handling: a full-width board on a larger bed needs lifting equipment in proportion to the panel, not to the machine.

The counter-argument is nesting. Where a shop prints several smaller panels per cycle, a wide bed can absorb two or three of them in one pass and reduce total print time. That is a genuine saving, but it only exists if the smaller panels are part of the regular order book rather than occasional.

How do you choose between two formats that both fit?

Choose by waste and by the second-largest job.

If both formats cover your largest board, the deciding factors are how much board is wasted per sheet and how much of your regular work needs the larger bed at all.

Run the comparison on your own five most common jobs rather than on the extremes. For each, note the board size, the panel area used, and the leftover. A format that produces significant off-cut on most jobs is carrying capacity you pay for in material as well as in capital. A format that is a tight fit on your largest job leaves no margin for a design that arrives 20 mm wider, which happens routinely once a customer changes a display specification.

The second check is the finishing allowance. A printed panel is rarely a finished sign: it is trimmed, drilled or routed afterwards, and that operation needs material outside the print. Specifying the bed against the finished dimension rather than the printed dimension is the single most common format error, and it is also the easiest to avoid by stating the largest sheet your supplier delivers to you rather than the largest sign you sell.

What site limits override the bed decision?

Access, floor loading and power.

A format that cannot be delivered into the building is not a format, which is why door widths, corridor turns, lift capacity and floor loading should be confirmed before the specification is fixed.

For machinery placed on the market in the European Union, the applicable framework sets out the manufacturer's obligations and the documentation that should accompany the machine (European Commission, machinery), and customs and import documentation differ by destination market, which is worth checking with a trade adviser before shipping (US Commercial Service).

On site, the operating environment for several models in this range is published as 20–30 °C at 40–60 percent relative humidity, with the AJ3220G/R specified from 40 to 80 percent non-condensing, so a workshop with uncontrolled humidity needs that addressed as part of the installation rather than after it. Extraction duties follow national rules, such as the OSHA printing-industry guidance in the United States (OSHA) and the HSE printing pages in the United Kingdom (HSE).

What the decision comes down to

Choose format from the board your supplier delivers, add the finishing allowance, then confirm the usable area inside the vacuum zones rather than the platform dimension. If two formats both fit, compare waste on your five most common jobs and treat nesting capacity as a real saving only where it matches the regular order book.

Detail for each format is published within the wide format UV flatbed range and the 4x8 UV flatbed printers collection.