Ricoh perceived that there was a light production gap in its portfolio, and added two new SRA3 colour digital printing engines
From paper through to finishing kit – it’s Digital Printer’s look back at the new products that caught the eye in 2013.
High speed inkjet papers on rise
Back in the March 2013 issue of Digital Printer, Arjowiggins Graphic announced the launch of Cocoon Jet and Cyclus Jet, a new FSC Recycled-certified paper portfolio for high speed inkjet printing which is made from 100% recycled materials.
The range is designed to run on all inkjet digital presses at full press speed and with improved colour depth and ink consumption.
The portfolio includes coated and uncoated papers with high whiteness, such as the coated Cocoon Jet Silk, Cocoon Jet Pro, a very high white uncoated paper treated with HP ColorPro technology, and Cyclus Jet Premium, a hybrid uncoated paper for laser preprinting, offset and inkjet printing.
Mondi and Sappi were among other manufacturers of new papers for high speed inkjet during the year, as this market continues to develop.
Locked into colour
PaperlinX became the UK stockist for Mondi’s DNS color print ‘extra smooth’ digital printing paper this year. The paper has a high whiteness level (170 CIE) and is suitable for laser printers, copiers, and digital colour presses. It is produced with ColorLok Technology, to achieve ‘vibrant professional- looking printouts’.
Available in grammages from 80 to 350 gsm, and in formats which include A4, A3 and SRA3, the paper’s smooth finish and high opacity has generated a great deal of interest, according to PaperlinX, allowing full colour reproduction with duplex printing, which is an attractive featurefor customers in both the professional and office printing markets.
Olin arrives for digital printers
The summer (remember that?) was at its height when Digital Printer wrote of the extension to Antalis’s uncoated paper range, which saw its Olin premium uncoated made available for digital printing customers for the first time.
Certified compatible with HP Indigo and dry toner presses, with sizes specifically cut for HP Indigo presses, the papers come in weights between 90 and 300 gsm, and provide customers with a choice of two finishes, Regular and Smooth, and two shades, High White and Cream.
Olin Digital papers allow customers to achieve the production of pure tinted areas and deliver brilliant colours, said Antalis. They are suitable for a wide range of digital printing applications, including photo books, portfolios on demand and personalised invitations, while also being suitable for more general applications, such as corporate communications and diaries.
New tools in wide format software
EFI’s Fiery XF Version 5 high speed digital front end and colour management workflow for wide to super-wide format production and proofing came onto the market in 2013. The combination of Fiery Color Profiler Suite and completely new spot colour tools are said to provide a leap forward in colour quality and ease of use, while with more than 50 new wide to super-wide format print drivers, customers can achieve the highest quality on all their printers.
Greg Priede from Canadian customer Category 5 said: ‘With the integration between the Vutek printer, Fiery front end and EFI MIS system, we see detailed job costing, and can calculate how long the printer actually ran versus how long the press operator took to complete the job. This allows us to address inefficiencies, reduce press down time and increase profit.’
Quick fix in the PitStop
New image and blend editing and correction features were added to PitStop Pro 12, the latest release of Enfocus’ flagship PDF preflight and correction tools, previewed in Digital Printer June/July 2013.
The software enables users to fix last minute problems in seconds, and is said to improve the efficiency of PDF editing workflows dramatically.
It can now apply pre-set image enhancement actions, has the industry standard transparency- flattening Adobe PDF Engine, and offers true 64-bit operation for greater memory access.
Top of the class!
Poole-based Intec Printing Solutions launched a new A3 colour digital printer this year, which it claims leads its class in cost per copy. The CP3000 is a toner-based system and is aimed at digital print companies, marketing departments and advertising agencies.
The company said it had calculated a cost per copy of 1.56 pence per sheet for sheets with 5% toner coverage, and said this compares favourably with all other A3 laser printers on the market. Available with a Fiery RIP option, its range of integrated finishing functions include folding, hole punching, saddle stitching,collating, and stapling on media from A6 up to SRA3 and banner lengths up to 1.2 metres long. It can print onto 400 gsm papers.
The company said that the CP3000 costs ‘well under £10,000’ and will be paid for through a toner fee that includes all maintenance and support, rather than a click charge. The CP3000 prints at speeds of up to 50 pages per minute (black) and 45 pages per minute (colour).
Perfect jobbing for peanuts
There was a new flagship offering from DTP Associates in 2013: the X-Press OnDemand 780, which was showcased in Digital Printer’s Centrefold in March 2013. It is an SRA3 4 colour digital printing system capable of printing up to 45 pages per minute on a massive array of substrates, with a professional finisher option to cater for users that need online booklet making or brochure creation. A spectrophotometer option is available for colour matching control.
Priced at under £6000, DTP claims it raises the bar in terms of quality and speed for small to medium sized printing companies. ‘In our opinion, the 780 is the perfect jobbing digital press with the perfect balance between price and quality – flexible enough to print thick cards or NCR sets,’ said David Humphrey, product manager for the system.
Lighting up print
2013 was the year that British technology LumeJet made its industry bow, with Altaimage in London becoming the first beta site for the S200 press, and buying the machine outright two months later (see page 11).
The LumeJet system in fact uses ‘photonic imaging’ in which highly accurate RGB light beams activate silver halide grains in the media to create an image. The output is extremely high quality and is suitable for short runs – corporate pitch books for architects, for example.
The £145,000 simplex device can print at around 40 metres per hour – equivalent to 250 A4 sheets. It is reel-fed, with a print width of 305 mm, printing edge to edge. There is a maximum cut-off of 1 metre in length, a minimum of 210 mm.
Jet Press jets in
First shown as a technology showcase at drupa 2012, Fujifilm’s Jet Press 540W digital inkjet web press became commercially available in spring 2013. Targeted at high quality, short run digital print such as leaflets, personalised magazines, books and newspapers, the press features a unique design that enables duplex printing within a single tower, giving it a compact footprint.
It can take both inkjet and non-coated papers between 64 and 157 gsm, with a maximum width of 540 mm. Top printing speed is 127 metres per minute, with ‘ultra-high’ quality printing of 600 dpi, upgradeable to 1200 dpi. It can integrate with Fujifilm’s own post press equipment as well as equipment from Hunkeler and Müller Martini.
The speed of light (production)
Ricoh perceived that there was a light production gap in its portfolio, and added two new SRA3 colour digital printing engines this year to close it. The Pro C5100S and Pro C5110S are aimed at commercial graphic arts and CRD/inplant and quick printers with average monthly print volumes of around twenty to thirty thousand. Speed, small footprint, and total cost of ownership were driving factors in their design.
The systems have maximum output speeds of 65 pages per minute and 80 pages per minute respectively, with resolution of 1200 x 4800 dpi. They can also scan at 220 pages per minute high speed duplex. An enhanced toner formulation in Ricoh’s PxP toner gives these systems a 10% wider colour gamut than the Pro C751 series of presses.
Five-a-minute more…
Among several new Xerox presses this year were the Color J75 and Color C75, both operating at up to 75-pages per minute on 300 gsm paper stocks – five pages faster than the 700i and 770 presses they replaced.
Both have inline colour calibration and profiling, as well as the new Simple Image Quality Adjustment (SIQA) toolset, which empowers the user with alignment and registration accuracy by automating registration control and density uniformity, eliminating the need to involve a technician. Xerox has described this as a ‘game changer’.
The Xerox Color J75 runs all paper stocks at full rated speed of 75 pages per minute, while the C75 is slightly more restricted on coated papers. It also features advanced scanning and copying capabilities, with optional mobile and cloud solutions.
Digital UV inkjet with white
In the field of digital labels and packaging there was a new press launch by FFEI in 2013: Graphium, a modular digital UV inkjet press with high opacity digital white ink that gives printers and converters the ability to respond to dynamic product and market changes. The company described it as ‘a new generation of digital inkjet press’ aimed at the narrow web market, with low capital investment, high quality print, unparalleled productivity and a versatile range of applications.
With up to six digital modules and six flexo stations, it offers the capability of integrating optional flexo and finishing stations in-line for conversion in a single pass. This capability significantly reduces production time and cost in comparison to traditional offline finishing.
A cool development
Mimaki’s JV400LX latex printer answered demands in the signage market for printing systems that are cooler running, and more energy efficient, yet able to deliver great print quality with a wider colour gamut, and using more ecologically friendly inks.
