Junction box manufacturer brings print in-house with Mimaki buy

Spelsberg UK's print operator Shane McNally with the firm's Mimaki
Spelsberg UK's print operator Shane McNally with the firm's Mimaki

Spelsberg UK has installed a Mimaki UJF-6042 MkIIe flatbed UV inkjet printer, meaning it no longer has to import custom-printed parts from its German parent company.

The firm, which is a division of German industrial enclosure manufacturer Spelsberg, has now been able to print branding, contact information and safety or instructional information directly onto the enclosures, which include junction boxes, terminal blocks, and meter housings.

“The interest has been off the scale,” said Chris Lloyd, managing director at Spelsberg UK, adding that previously long delivery times from Germany had made customisation impractical for the UK market.

“As a UK subsidiary it simply doesn’t work if customers need to wait 4 weeks or longer for a printed sample,” he said.

The Mimaki, installed in May 2022, joined the company’s CNC router, which it similarly uses to customise the enclosures. 

Lloyd was particularly impressed by the Mimaki’s capabilities.

“It’s a clever piece of kit,” he said. 

“The fact that it can print twenty different lids, depending on the sizes, with 20 different logos in a single pass is just fantastic.”

Spelsberg bought the printer from UK reseller CMYUK on recommendation from its German parent company, which bought two of the same Mimaki model in 2020.

After visiting the showroom, Spelsberg sent staff to the reseller's Shrewsbury base for training, a short drive away from its own site in Telford.

"My experience with CMYUK has been fantastic. Nothing was too much trouble," Lloyd said.

Spelsberg employs 12 people at its Telford site.