A flatbed printer is installed once and lives with its room for years, so the site plan has more influence on daily output than any specification comparison. Most of the problems that make a machine feel slow — panels that cannot be swung onto the bed, dust arriving from the cutting area, a supply that trips under load — are decisions taken before the machine is delivered.

This guide works through the site plan in the order the constraints bind: floor and access, power, ventilation, temperature and humidity, material storage, the workflow around the bed, and the safety provisions that belong in the plan rather than in a later retrofit.

How much floor space and access does the machine need?

More than the footprint, and the route matters too.

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.

Two numbers are needed before a room is chosen. The first is the machine envelope including its published dimensions, which for this range means a machine that is over four metres in one direction and, on the wider platform, over five. The second is the working envelope around it: the aisle required to bring a full sheet to the bed and remove it without dragging, plus the space for pre-print staging and finished output.

The delivery route deserves equal attention, because a machine that cannot be moved into position cannot be installed. Door widths, corridor turns, lift capacity and floor loading should all be confirmed against the published mass before the shipping date. Slab or suspended floors should be assessed for the load, since 1850 kg concentrated under a machine is a different question from the same weight spread across a warehouse.

What power supply must be arranged?

A dedicated supply sized above the published requirement.

The flatbed models are published at AC 220 V, 50/60 Hz, with more than 20 A required on the AJ2130 series and AJ3220EX, which usually means a dedicated circuit and distribution.

The published figures are the starting point for an electrician rather than the final specification. A requirement above 20 A usually means a dedicated circuit and distribution rather than an existing ring main, and the installed supply should be sized above the machine's requirement so that a second machine or an auxiliary load does not consume the margin. Where the site operates on a different nominal voltage, the configuration should be confirmed before ordering rather than adapted after delivery.

Two further loads are often overlooked. The first is the compressed air or pneumatic supply where the configuration uses it, which is a workshop utility rather than an electrical one. The second is the compact platform, which is published at AC 220 V, 50/60 Hz with power consumption of 3 kW or less, and which may be practical where a large machine's supply is not available. On the cylinder route, the AJ360i is published at 50/60 Hz, AC 220/110 with a requirement above 10 A and a ground wire, and a net weight of 350 kg.

Why does ventilation matter for a UV printer?

Because the room is an industrial process area.

Extraction, exposure control and material handling requirements are set by national regulation rather than by the machine supplier, so the site plan has to satisfy them from the first day.

Three practical considerations shape the ventilation design. UV inks release minimal solvent compared with some print processes, but the room still handles ink, cleaning materials and waste, and it should be treated as a process area with adequate general ventilation and local extraction where materials are opened or cleaned. Air movement interacts with the machine: strong draughts can affect curing and print quality and can disturb light substrates, so extraction should be arranged to move air away from the print zone rather than across it. And filter and waste containers need a location that can be serviced without moving the machine.

The regulatory references are national. In the United Kingdom, the HSE publishes guidance for the printing industry covering exposure and ventilation (HSE). Waste ink, cleaning materials and contaminated consumables carry their own handling obligations in most jurisdictions (US EPA). Where the machine is placed on the European market, the applicable machinery framework sets out the manufacturer's obligations and the documentation that should accompany it (European Commission, machinery).

How should temperature and humidity be controlled?

Keep the room inside the published operating band.

Operating conditions are published as 20 to 30 °C at 40 to 60 percent relative humidity for several models, with the AJ3220G/R specified from 40 to 80 percent non-condensing.

Those figures describe a band in which ink, curing and substrates behave predictably. Outside it the effects are indirect and easy to misattribute: humidity changes how board and paper behave on the bed, condensation forms on glass or metal that is colder than the room, and ink curing response changes with temperature. A workshop with uncontrolled humidity will spend more time diagnosing faults that a dehumidifier would have prevented.

The practical provisions are modest. A humidity reading in the print area, a dehumidifier sized for the room in damp climates, and a rule that materials stored cold are brought to room temperature before printing. For work on impervious substrates such as glass and coated metal, the last point matters most, because condensation on a cold surface is invisible on clear material and defeats both preparation and ink.

Where should material be stored and prepared?

Flat, in a controlled space, away from cutting.

Storage is part of the print specification: board stored on edge in a humid room takes a set, and dust from cutting travels into the print area.

A rack that keeps sheets flat, in a space that shares the print room's humidity, prevents more defects on board substrates than any print setting. The separation between cutting and printing is the second provision: sawing, routing and edging generate fines that settle on everything in the room, and those fines sit between the ink and the substrate. Where the two operations must share a space, physical distance and local extraction at the cutting point are the minimum.

Preparation space belongs in the same plan. Cleaning, film removal, priming and conditioning are all steps that need a bench, and if there is nowhere to do them, they happen on the printer bed — which puts the machine out of production while preparation is carried out on it. A separate preparation bench is one of the cheapest capacity improvements available in a small workshop.

How should the workflow be laid out around the bed?

Straight line, no reversing.

Sheet storage, preparation, printer, finishing and dispatch should move material in one direction, because reversing a full sheet between pinch points is where handling damage happens.

The first constraint is the loading side. A full sheet has to be brought to the bed and aligned without dragging, so the aisle on that side should be sized to the largest substrate rather than to the average one. The second is the unloading side, which needs somewhere to put printed material that will not mark it: a rack, a cart or a defined floor area, placed so that the operator is not walking around the machine with a printed panel in hand.

Finishing and inspection then follow. Where a job needs trimming, folding or assembly, those stations should be adjacent to the printer rather than in a separate room, because material that has to be moved twice is handled twice. And the operator station belongs within sight of the bed, since the published RIP and control workstation is where profile selection, channel setup and job settings are managed during a run. Dust control, static control and extraction all behave better when the workflow is arranged in a line rather than scattered across a room.

What safety provisions belong in the plan?

Extraction, containment, guarding and access.

Safety items are cheapest to install before the machine arrives, and most of them are layout decisions rather than equipment purchases.

The visible provisions are the machine's own: UV shielding and light containment around the curing module, guarding on moving parts, and an emergency stop within reach of the operator position. The AJ3220EX is published with an anti-collision system protecting the printheads and an anti-static bar, both of which also serve print quality. The site provisions are the ones that get deferred: extraction ducting that can be serviced, a waste ink location with secondary containment, adequate lighting at the bed so that colour and surface defects are visible during inspection, and clear access around the machine so that a fault can be reached without moving material.

Two further items belong in the plan because they are difficult to add later. A fire-safety assessment that accounts for the ink and cleaning materials actually stored on site, and a documented procedure for handling a spill during a print run. Both are ordinary requirements in an industrial unit, and both are simpler when they are drawn into the layout rather than applied to it afterwards. Process control practice for industrial print environments is covered by certification and research bodies in the field (Fogra), and the wider trade guidance on print operations is a useful companion when planning capacity (PRINTING United Alliance).

What does the site plan need to state?

Six items, confirmed before the shipping date.

Each of them is a decision that is easy to make early and expensive to correct once the machine is on the floor, so the plan should be confirmed against the published figures before the shipping date.

What the decision comes down to

The site plan is settled by six figures: the machine envelope and mass, the supply rating, the extraction route, the operating band, the largest substrate and the loading aisle. Get those into the drawing before the machine ships, and the installation is an event rather than a project.

Then arrange the room as a one-way flow from material storage through preparation, printing, finishing and dispatch, because that layout determines how much handling each job carries. Published dimensions and site requirements for the range are set out in the wide format UV flatbed collection, with installation and support terms on the support page.