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Fleets of new companies were showing for the first time, and they offered an array of interesting and unusual products. Vizark Lighting had these amazing electric palm trees and fireworks explosions. They're manufactured in China, where this kind of stuff has been around for a while. You can bet they won't be the only ones importing this exciting new product to the US. Fawoo Technology of Korea showed a light plate just 8mm thick with remarkable brightness due to a unique 3D V-cutting method and cold cathode fluorescent lamps. Artisan Metals of Holland offered a non-toxic cold metal spray that feels, looks and acts like metal and bonds well to a variety of materials. Speaking of metallic, Speedbrite Brilliance, is looking for people to license their spray on "chrome" finish system. And Solar Technology Solutions showed a line of commercially viable, solar powered LED signs that require no costly electrical runs, and no permits. They say the new "smart chip technology" allows their products to operate up to 4 days on a 6 hour charge.

Delcam punched up the ArtCam software with a host of new features in new ArtCam Pro. Tri-Vision now offers their well-established Rotapanel moving sign, now combined with the new rotapole and lighting for a turnkey solution. The South African, Fleximount Company showed a very clever large format framing solution. They were confident enough to demonstrate how quickly they can change signs on the side of a Ryder truck with ordinary hand tools, right on the show floor. Impact Sign Services from England has a new CD of vehicle profiles that includes free updates of new models. Magnum Magnetics displayed a new packaging concept called "Sign in a Tube". The tube contains the materials for 2 signs, and then doubles as a protective storage unit.

LEDs continue to see exponential growth in the industry, as shown by the large number of companies offering this technology. Sloan LED showed a couple of advances. They switched to Aluminum housings with cooling fins to improve reliability and strength. They also launched ThinLED, an extremely flexible LED strip for reverse channel letter illumination.

Speaking of LEDs, German built Lighthouse LED panels were shown in a couple of interesting applications. One was the largest LED billboard in the US, and a stadium package that mounts in front of bleachers and runs the entire distance of the field.

Atoglas, also known as "the Plexiglas company" had a number of new offerings, including a new light diffusing acrylic sheet formulated expressly to reduce the pinpoint effect on channel letters with LED illumination, They had new colors for Implex Plus impact resistant acrylic sheets, a new color scheme for their color changing acrylic sheet line, and a whiter, brighter polycarbonate.

Several of the big corporations had a few new tricks up their collective sleeves. GE now offers SG410, with a 10-year warranty against color shift. They claim this is the first time anyone has offered long term protection against color changes. 3M had a couple of interesting additions: Reflective graphic film in both 18-month "changeable" and 7-year "removable" versions. Their popular 3700 inks get upgraded to the new 6700 inks that claim a better color gamut and more reliable jetting. 3M's other big news is a new line of "intermediate" products. How will they stack up against an already burgeoning field? Time will tell.

Mactac demonstrated the flexibility of their new MACmark PRO CAS films in a rather gutsy way: a blind flex test. Attendees were asked to feel two pieces of film, crumple them into balls and then tell the Mactac staff which product they would prefer to work. Can you guess whose product won? I can tell you this much. It wasn't even close. They also introduced a new more aggressive adhesive for their PermaFlex overlaminates and a new line of vinyl film for solvent inkjet printers.

To invigorate the competition in the cutter markets, Graphtec showed the 5100 series, their next generation cutting line. Intelligent tangential control, an optical registration sensor, and a 500-gram initial down force make it easy to cut a 10-foot strip faster than ever, and still end up square. The new algorithms also make for the smoothest curves yet, all the way from edge to edge.

Roland, never one to be outdone had it's own array of excitement, including new SolJet printers. The SC500 is a sub-$25k solvent printer/cutter that can handle material up to 54" wide. With an operating cost as low as $.34/ square foot at 720 DPI, this machine was getting plenty of attention. The SJ500 is the SC500 without the cutter and lists for under $20k. Roland also is very excited about their "Enviro" solvent-based inks. No smell, and therefore no need to ventilate, plus, they run clean. There is one case where a printer was left idle for ten days and worked perfectly without any startup cleaning routines. In addition, Roland has also launched a new line of engravers.

Summa showcased their soon-to-be-released DC3 a 36" thermal transfer print and cut and the follow-on to the DC2. Slated to release in July 2002, it will sport an automated six-color ribon exchanger, 34 inches per second cut speed and process, spot and spot metallic printing at a sub-$30k price tag.

One of the more exciting shipping printers at the show was the Océ Arizona T220 solvent based, flatbed inkjet printer. Because of it's design and secure vacuum table, an extremely wide variety of rigid and flexible materials can be printed multiple times to increase color density. It can handle material from as large as 5' x 10' to as small as a single business card. They showed an ordinary horizontal mini blind, printed with colorful graphic that was quite unique. They also displayed a 4' x 10' poster of a spectacular landscape, the resolution was outstanding, with an apparent resolution of 600 dpi.Amazingly it delivers that kind of output at 220 square feet per hour at a cost of around $.27 per square foot. It also maintains itself. It keeps track of how many times the heads fired, which colors were most recently used, or not used, and then performs the necessary routines to keep everything clean and functional, all automatically. Not so amazingly, it lists for just under $175k. Océ was showing their entire line including their Arizona 30 printing up to 30 square feet per hour with outdoor durable graphics onto 64" media with a 720 dpi apparent resolution. This is their entry level printer with the talent of it's bigger brothers, but a price to get most shops into the outdoor graphic pool at a list of $28.5K.

The big news from laminating powerhouse, SEAL, wasn't so much a product launch, as a co-marketing launch. Now VUTEk customers can roll their SEAL liquid coater into the same deal. This makes it easier to calculate ROI on the whole package, rather than trying to break things up. In another joint venture, SEAL and 3M agree to cooperate on guaranteeing the results of Scotchprint Graphics and AquaSEAL Liquid laminators. This is a similar deal to the Avery deal from 2 years ago, the biggest difference being that 3M will guarantee the output through the SEAL, whereas SEAL guaranteed the Avery output. They say it's just another way to help decision makers feel more comfortable about making these high dollar purchases.

Did everyone have a "good sail"? Most say yes. Was it busy, not as busy as most would like. Were people spending? Most were. Did I see all that I wanted? Alas, no. But that wasn't my only disappointment. You see you can't really "Sail the Seas" from Orlando. Not really. That's because the ocean is about sixty miles away. Maybe I will try to sail to Baltimore. I should be able to be make it there by say, June 14th…