See also: drupa part 2: software and drupa part 3: finishing
As expected, digital printing was the most dynamic sector at May’s huge drupa exhibition in Düsseldorf, Germany. In part 1 of Digital Printer’s drupa review Simon Eccles analyses the new digital press announcements. A shorter version will be published in the July issue of Digital Printer. We’ll look at software and finishing in the following issue.
Visitor numbers were inevitably down compared with the last drupa, with 314,500 recorded this year being about 70,000 down on 2008. The recession drags on and on. There are fewer printing companies, sadly, but those that remain may find they can’t spare so many people to visit drupa. Where some companies might once have sent a coach load of employees as a combined fact-finding mission and jolly, now they may send a car load. It’s likely though that key decision makers were still turning up.
Indeed, a lot was going on. We’re biased of course, but digital really did seem to be setting the agenda for the show, not just in printer terms, but in finishing and software.
Obviously there were plenty of new presses from established and new players, but the offset establishment is now choosing to adopt and adapt digital technologies rather than sniping from the sidelines about quality and productivity. It’s a welcome move.
Heidelberg, Komori and manroland sheetfed have rather bravely signed up for the unproven Landa digital technology, Heidelberg has adopted Ricoh presses into its own Linoprint C range, Komori showed inkjets jointly developed with Konica Minolta and will resell the latter’s toner presses, Ryobi and Miyakoshi are developing a fast liquid toner press, KBA has an inkjet web press, and manroland web’s partnership with Océ has seen a big digital newspaper order in France.
Provision for inkjet overprinters is also being added to many offset presses.
Another trend to watch is digital presses for folding cartons. Below we look at some of the new press highlights, listed in alphabetical order of manufacturer, with live URLS.
The Derbyshire based laminator manufacturer announced a new 52 cm width version of its standalone UV inkjet spot varnisher using Xaar heads and LED curing lamps. Its original SUV was intended to run inline with a 36 cm thermal laminator, so it did not need a pile feeder. A 52 cm inline model was also introduced. A 74 cm model is under development. Digital Printer’s July issue covers this and other coaters and laminators in more detail.
Didn’t have new sheet fed production presses, but European marketing director David Preskett said it’s doing pretty will with the existing imagePress and imageRunner series, to which it is progressively adding the option to drive by Océ’s Prisma front ends. Indeed after the show Canon reported that it had sold 390 printers into EMEA customers, of which 32 were for UK customers.
A high capacity stacker was introduced for the imagePress C7010VP and VPS models. This offers ‘unload-while-printing’ to boost productivity on long runs.
The Canon stand also incorporated Océ, though the latter’s branding was confined to the little red badges on the hardware. Océ’s former chairman and CEO Rokus van Iperen took over as president and CEO of Canon EMEA just before the show.
The latest Océ JetStream 4300 inkjet web press was shown, a fast 200 metres per minute colour model with a 762 mm web width. It’s intended for a wide range of applications including direct mail, commercial applications, and transactional applications, books and newspapers. Also new were the entry-level ColorStream 3200 and high-speed ColorStream 3900 inkjet webs, which join the ColorStream 3700.
A very interesting prototype on the stand was the Océ Project Velocity, a compact and very fast sheet fed 1060 mm wide format printer powered by Memjet inkjets. This can print 500 A0 colour prints per hour in colour. It uses the same six-roll media feed as the Océ ColorWave 600/650 gel printers, so it can either can run unattended for a long time, or switch media types quickly. Officially it was there to test market response, but it was running impressive demos and looked like a product that was close to production.
For the last few years the company has been commissioning a series of ‘Insight’ market reports concerned with digital print, and drupa saw the fourth of these. It’s subtitled ‘The Bigger Picture: your customers’ view of the value of print.’ This surveyed buyers and actual buyers of print about their awareness of what digital technology can do. A worryingly high proportion don’t know.
Demonstrated a new ‘smart’ version of its N600i UV inkjet label press at the show, with upgraded i-Tech features to boost efficiency. There was also the L100i, a thermal inkjet and a demonstration of the Bitjet+ V4.5 inline digital print system.
At the show it announced the acquisition of the German printer supplier MikroJet Systems. A few weeks after drupa it announced that it was acquiring all the outstanding shares in the Swiss company Graph-Tech, which builds the N600i and its overprinting version, K6001, as well as the print units for Landa’s demonstration presses at drupa.
Best known for fast monochrome ion deposition toner web presses, the company unveiled its completely new SRA2 format (450 x 640 mm) sheet fed colour inkjet, called elan. It was running at the show.
This uses Memjet inkjet heads and can output 500 A4 pages per minute, adding up to 3750 duplex SRA2 sheets per hour at 1600 x 800 dpi resolution. That’s 500 A4 pages per minute, a lot more than the fastest toner presses. The resolution can be increased to 1600 x 1600 dpi, but the speed is halved.
It uses a primer coating inline to allow the use of standard papers. The projected price for the press is ‘under $500,000 (about £310,000) with a standard feeder and high capacity stacker.
Delphax also said it will also be the master distributor for the Colordyne CDT-1600 series high speed labellers, which also use Memjet heads.
Mainly known for its large format, high image quality UV inkjets, Durst announced a new, wider model in its Tau narrow web label printing line. Tau 330 has a print width of 330 mm, up from 150 mm on the Tau 150. There’s also an ‘economy’ model, Tau 330/200, with a maximum web width of 200 mm. Speed is 48 metres per minute. The press is four colour as standard, with options for white, orange and green due soon.
Showed the HS100 Pro, an advanced new technology 3.2 metre large format flatbed inkjet, offering high throughput yet high quality imaging and lowered ink consumption, thanks to an interesting hybrid UV ink curing system. This uses LED lamps to ‘pin’ the ink so it partially solidifies, then gives it a blast with mercury lamps that make it smooth out. This solves the ‘sandpaper’ raised image problem of early UV ink and allows variable gloss levels to be set.
The EFI Vutek QS2 is a new 2 metre hybrid roll/sheet printer offering high image quality and decent speeds with a ‘competitive’ price. It uses flexible UV inks.
Orion OS is a new operating system developed for all of the EFI wide format and Vutek printers. It controls software and hardware so they work together to provide greyscale readiness, remote assistance, enhanced colour, integration and improved performance. There were other new Fiery RIP software enhancements, which we’ll cover in September.
The Jetrion 4900 UV label printing and finishing line was demonstrated with the laser cutting option producing dramatic puffs of smoke behind the clear covers. Although not announced until after the show, there’s now a higher resolution setting that takes printing up to 600 x 600 dpi.
Showed its latest large format aqueous inkjets, including a fun one built into a prototype kiosk that let visitors enter text and print their own canvas banners. SureColor is a new name for its wide format aqueous ink range, with new models gradually replacing the former Stylus Pros. There were five new SureColors on the stand.
But what really caught the eye was the prototype UV label press, the SurePress X. This is the company’s first single-pass printer, its first to use UV inks and it uses a brand new ‘line head’ Thin Film Piezo head technology that we’re sure to see a lot more of.
Surepress L-4033AW, a new version of the currently available aqueous ink multi-pass label press, offers seven colours including opaque white for the first time. Epson president Minoru Usui said the company’s goal is to quadruple revenues from industrial printing over the next few years.
On its stand was one of its UK built Caslon UV 420 mm web label presses, with a new spot white ink unit. This needs special inks and recirculation, so it is fitted outside the main print unit, either before or after. Caslon is a joint development with Nilpeter and the print unit sits on a Nilpeter chassis, inline with flexo and finishing units if needed.
A fun part of the stand was the cleverly designed cardboard model of the Bloodhound SSC jet powered supersonic land speed record project vehicle. Lucky visitors got a kit to take away. FFEI is a project sponsor and it commissioned the model design from card engineer David Bartlett, then transferred it to its RealVue 3D Packager software for production.
Took its largest ever drupa stand. This included some significant new digital presses, all using inkjet technology. It said it took 7000 leads. The sheetfed B2 Jet Press 720 shown as a prototype four years ago is now ready for orders, though at around £1.2 million for a single-sided press running at 2769 single-sided sheets per hour, it faces stiff competition from B2 newcomers, especially the £1.6-ish million HP Indigo 10000 (though that’s not hugely faster: 3450 sph when running simplex, but it can run duplex). The same technology has been adapted into a dedicated carton press, the Jet Press F (for ‘folding’ carton), with a new straight path to accept stiff board. This is due for delivery next year.
Brand new at the show was a compact inkjet web press, Jet Press W. It’s some way off delivery but looks like a competitor for the Océ JetStream compact models.
On the large format side, Fuji introduced the improved Inca Onset S40i high throughout flatbed UV printer and sold four of them at the show, plus the Uvistar Pro8, a hybrid roll/sheet model for POP and outdoor advertising work. It has new light inks and Parallel Drop Size technology to give good image quality at speeds of 300 m2 per hour or more. The first was sold to Glav Print in Moscow. Acuity LED 1600, an affordable new 1.6 metre LED cured printer launched at Fespa, was also there.
Its inkjet print head subsidiary Fujifilm Dimatix announced Starfire SG-102, a new head for the fast growing ceramics market. This will take on Xaar, which has also announced a new head for ceramic this summer. All the Fujifilm production presses use Dimatix Samba printheads.
However, the jointly owned Fuji-Xerox isn’t limiting itself to Dimatix: on the Caldera
stand was a remarkably compact Fuji-Xerox 1066 mm wide roll-to-sheet inkjet using Memjet heads, running at 585 m2 per hour at 1600 dpi, for 420 A0 sheets per hour. It could print on uncoated, coated and Tyvek papers, canvas, polyester and backlit films. So far it’s only intended for sale in Asia-Pacific regions.
Perhaps an unfamiliar name to many readers, but it’s a Swiss inkjet integration specialist that does work for other companies. At drupa it took a stand to promote its establishment of its Cube commercial inkjet division. Its first product is the Mono-Cube, a compact monochrome inkjet web press aimed at the book market.
A few weeks after the show the UK inkjet maker Domino, a part shareholder of Graph-Tech announced that it was buying out the company completely. Graph-Tech already makes the Domino N600i inkjet label press.
Bryan Palphreyman, commercial director of Graph-Tech’s Cube division, was UK CEO and then US CEO of French fast toner press maker Nipson until the end of April. He said that Graph-Tech was developing a full colour inkjet web press for Nipson, though this was cancelled last year. The Mono-Cube is based on that technology, so it has obvious future potential to become a Colour-Cube. Meanwhile Nipson quietly slipped into liquidation at the end of April.
Sprang a surprise a few days before drupa by announcing a partnership with Landa. It plans to develop a new press based on the Nanographic technology, though it was far to early to show anything yet.
CEO Bernhard Schreier said ‘We will look at how Landa technology can be integrated into our press line. We call it digital offset printing. We want to explore with Landa how far we can get and in the next few weeks we will discuss with Landa how to do this. We will make something available as soon as we can make a profit out of it.’
The company made its other main digital announcements ahead of the show: it is adopting the Linoprint name for the presses it sells. The commercial production colour toner presses it takes from Ricoh (Pro C751 and Pro C901) are now called Linoprint C751 and C901, with connectivity to Heidelberg’s own Prinect pressroom networks. The UV inkjet label press it now sells following its acquisition of C-Span is Linoprint L.
The big XL 105 press will in future be offered with inkjet integration – not necessarily as standard, but the presses will have built-in provision so it’s an easy fitment. The company also announced the long-awaited B2 implementation of its Anicolor keyless inking, on the Speedmaster XL 75. The ease of set up and consistency of the B3 Anicolor is why it pulled out of the DI press range with on-press imaging, it said.
‘We are moving into digital with our partner Ricoh,’ said Mr Schreier. ‘We offer a low cost flexible digital solution that complements offset.’
The company is also integrating the CERN cloud based MIS that it acquired into Prinect. It’s also going to integrate an web to print system based on Pageflex technology.
Its huge stand was the second largest at the show, beaten only by Heidelberg, although Fujifilm and Xerox were’s all that far behind. This one was packed with digital presses of all shapes and sizes, a mix of its Indigo liquid ink models, one of the big T410 inkjet web presses, and sundry wide format inkjets. As usual it gave a lot of area over to showcases of applications, with particular emphasis on packaging this time. The size and popularity of the drupa stand makes it a particular shame that UK visitors to Ipex will be denied the experience of an HP stand in 2014.
This was the first public demonstration of the new large format Indigos, the B2 sheetfed commercial 10000, B2 sheetfed carton 30000, and 762 mm web fed 20000. They’re certainly big presses, larger than B2 inkjets, and not cheap – the 10000 is likely to be around £1.6 million. However, unlike inkjet the technology is proven and the market is familiar with the quality levels and paper compatibilities.
While full deliveries are due to start next year, Betas will go in sooner. Gary Peeling, managing director of Precision Printing in London, signed up for the UK’s first 10000 Beta, which will be installed this summer. His picture appeared in 10 metre high HP banners dotted around the outside of the huge halls at drupa.
A relationship for developing folding carton solutions based on the 30000 was announced with Stora Enso.
The new SRA3 models were also there, the high throughput 7600 and the updated mid-range 5600. Samples were shown of the new facility to print raised images by building up ink layers with multiple passes, and a true embossing effect done by printing raised images onto a liner sheet on the impression cylinder.
There were also samples of the faster three colour Enhanced Productivity Mode feature being added to some presses. This prints in CMY with no black and because of the multi-pass nature of Indigo presses, it’s faster as well as costing less. The appearance was OK, but some users we’ve spoken to said that as the whole point of Indigo is print quality, they weren’t too interested.
All the T-series inkjet web presses got speed increases. On the stand was a T410, the top model, running in an L-shaped configuration with web turners between the two print units, saving space. Rather than waste paper at 200 metres per minute it was running real commercial book jobs for Rotolito in Italy. HP reported that it has installed more than 70 T-series models worldwide.
It also talked about its work with paper suppliers to develop inkjet grades at sensible prices using its ColorPro technology: a new gloss paper from Appleton Coated was announced, and new papers were said to be in development from Arjowiggins Graphic, Metsä Board and Sappi.
A French developer of very interesting inkjet web presses, which are sold worldwide but never seem to reach UK markets despite a big stand at Ipex 2010. We tackled the company about this, to be told that it does have representation from a company but it likes to keep it all low key. It turns out to be Xerox, which will apparently quietly point you in Impika’s direction if you need something that’s not in its own lineup.
At the show it had several new inkjet web presses. Most unusual was Genesis, a compact ‘concept’ inkjet press designed as an ‘intermediate’ between colour production copiers and continuous feed industrial printers. It’s a 210 mm wide web duplex printer with a sheeter at the end, outputting A4 cut sheets at speeds up to 160 pages per minute. The company wasn’t committing itself to this machine going into production.
Closer to the market were three new inkjet presses in the iPrint family. According to the company it offers several formulations of its ink that are tuned to specific paper types, such as coated, uncoated and newsprint.
The new top model is the big twin engine duplex iPrint eXtreme, offering up to 375 metres per minute on a 711 mm print width if you wind the resolution down, or 1200 dpi if you slow it down. The iPrint eVolution is a scalable general purpose model, for speeds up from 40 to 254 metres per minute at resolutions from 1200 down to 360 dpi. The iPrint Compact is a smaller single unit duplex model with a footprint below 10m2 and weight under 3.5 tonnes, aimed at data centres and transaction printers with limited space.
The company also makes overprinting heads: the iEngine 1000L is a double-width version of the original 1000, for print widths of 220 mm at up to 150 metres per minute in colour or 800 metres in monochrome.
The German offset press makerrevealed some more details about its RotaJet76 digital inkjet web press, which it demonstrated on its stand running inline with a Müller Martini SigmaLine finisher. This is a twin unit duplex model running at up to 150 metres per minute on web widths up to 781 mm. Although partly based on the ProteusJet technology developed by its partner RR Donnelly, KBA stresses that it builds the RotaJets in its own Wurzburg factory, with piezo heads.
‘Donnelley understands data handling and RIPping on the fly,’ said KBA’s inkjet project leader Oliver Baar. ‘The press design is all KBA.’ It’s a compact press for its format, the company reckons. It’s used its web offset experience on the paper feed, in particular constant tension to get good back to back registration. ‘We are bringing offset knowledge to the digital market,’ said Mr Baar. ‘It can also link into KBA’s offset workflows easily.’
Inks are water based. The company has developed a very compact IR drying unit for operation at 150 metres per minute. Mr Baar described it as a bit like the Dyson Airblade washroom hand drier.
He refused to be drawn on whether KBA is working on RR Donnelley’s other digital project, codenamed Apollo, which apparently uses inkjets to alter offset plate image areas, on-press. ‘You must leave us something to announce at future shows!’ he joked.
QualiTronic Mark is a new monochrome inkjet imprinting system that has been developed for the KBA 105 and 106 offset presses. This can use heads from its subsidiary KBA-Metronic, or Atlantic Zeiser.
Right at the end of the show, the company announced a return to profit in its Q1 results.
Was determined to shake off the Chapter 11 blues, so it branded its large and lively stand with the slogan Yellow Changes Everything. There was plenty to see, including the new, faster Prosper 6000XL digital web press and a very fast (1000 metres per minute) Prosper S30 inkjet overprinting head. A new metallic toner was demonstrated for the fifth units of NexPress sheet fed toner presses, with pearlescent and pink to come. An inline UV varnish unit was also demonstrated on a NexPress.
On other stands, Ryobiand KBA announced that they are integrating Prosper S-series head on their offset presses. Timsons also demonstrated its massive Book Press with Kolbus finishing at drupa – again this uses Prosper heads across a 1320 mm web width.
CEO Antonio Perez claimed that customer worries over January’s Chapter 11 filing have largely been allayed. ‘For a month it was confusing for customers,’ he said. ‘I and my team visited 250 plus of our key customers worldwide and after a month it was back to normal. Four months on life is how it used to be and we have customers who are continuing to place orders.’
However, Kodak’s constant stressing that its Stream inkjet technology and Prosper inkjet presses are its future was dented a bit by the revelation that there is now only one of the Prosper 5000XL colour presses in Europe. This is at Howard Hunt in the UK (see Digital Printer in December 2011). The only other European 5000XL was in Portugal and has been taken out.
The Howard Hunt machine remains officially a Beta model more than a year after installation. Kodak officials grew twitchy when pressed for the reasons, but it seems clear that there’s still an issue with getting paper that allows good print quality at high speed and affordable prices.
The Prosper S-series inkjet overprinting heads seem to be doing well in Europe and the rest of the world, as is the monochrome 1000 web press. While the 5000XL is selling into the USA and other territories (we can’t find out how many though), it seems that European direct mail printers have different price/quality needs and so far the paper isn’t available to suit them. While in Japan Toppan Forms has just taken a fourth 500XL, this is used for relatively undemanding educational books.
Showed the first fruits of its digital press development partnership with Konica Minolta, under the name DigitalOnDemand Solutions. The Impremia IW20, which was running on Komori’s own stand, is a four-colour web fed inkjet with a 520 mm print width (and 530 mm web, apparently), running at up to 150 metres per minute at 1200 x 1200 dpi. Maximum cutoff is 1270 mm. It uses aqueous pigment ink.
The Impremia IS29 is Komori’s name for the sheet fed B2 press that was demonstrated on the Konica Minolta stand as the KM-1, which it referred to as a ‘technical exhibit.’ This uses UV inks.
It’s unclear when either press will reach Europe, but they are evidently planned for production.
In the meantime, the partnership is resulting in Komori reselling the KM bizhub PRO C8000 SRA3 toner press, which it will call the Impremia C80. This will be integrated into Komori’s own colour management network. KM hinted that some of its other presses will also be available this way in future, but Komori has not confirmed it.
Announced several new electrophotographic (toner) production printers at drupa, and also demonstrated a B2 sheet-fed inkjet, developed in conjunction with offset press maker Komori.
The inkjet, called KM-1 by KM but Impremia IS29 by Komori, was officially billed as a ‘technology exhibit,’ but seems to be pretty close to a production device, particularly as Komori was talking about it as a coming product. It uses UV cured inks, initially in CMYK for the demo press but with five and six colours planned in future. UV-cured inks cost more than water-based, but virtually any paper can be used, drying is instant and the print is very consistent between different jobs and substrates. KM says it makes the inks too and has plans for white, clear and maybe metallic as well as process colours. The same technology underpins the Impremia IW20 inkjet web press shown on the Komori stand.
Due next year but shown at drupa, the bizhub PRO C1100 sheetfed toner press will fit above the current top C8000, offering faster speeds up to 100 A4 pages per minute on papers up to 350 g/m2.
Also announced were the bizhub Press 1052/1250 black and white production presses, aimed at commercial printers moving into high throughput digital work. Deliveries are due to start during July. A high speed twin engine monochrome 2250P prototype was shown, intended for transactional output and data centres.
The company announced Digital 1234, a business building programme. It’s also upgrading its software, with the Printgroove JT Web Suite 5. This comprises the JT Web 5 web to print system and JT Man 5 for print management. There’s also a new hosted web to print service, JT Web 5 GO, intended for small printers.
The highest profile newcomer at drupa, with posters everywhere and theatrical presentations that were booked solid three days in advance. The press demonstrations on its stand also drew crowds. Before drupa Landa announced that it had signed partnership agreements with Komori (which made the paper transports for the Landa presses) and Heidelberg. As the show opened it announced a further agreement with manroland sheetfed. All three say they will develop new types of press based on the Landa Nanographic technology.
Pretty impressive for a company nobody had heard of until a few weeks before the show, showing off a new technology that it admits won’t be ready for sale for a couple of years, with print results that, well, left something to be desired.
But we were convinced by the potential, which is why we’ve devoted three pages to Landa in Digital Printer’s July issue.
Emerged as a significant technology supplier. A few years ago it seemed to be all hot air, promising a high speed low cost inkjet revolution based on licensing its high resolution heads, but never quite delivering. Last year saw the first commercially available models, originally all A4 format document and label printers. At drupa the company announced a legal settlement with Silverbrook Research, the original developer of the heads, which should allow it more flexibility in future.
At the show there was an impressive range of Memjet based printers from all sorts of licensees, both on its own stand and others. Users of the heads ranged from Toshiba Tec, showing a small desktop copier-printer prototype, to Delphax, with the big new elan SRA2 sheet fed press.
As noted elsewhere Océ showed the Velocity prototype, a fast 1060 mm wide format printer with multiple roll feed. Xanté demonstrated its Excelagraphix 1066 mm wide hand fed sheet fed flatbed printer, able to handle anything from corrugated sheets to large poster.
Lomond, a UK company with Russian connections, announced a Memjet powered office printer called EvoJet last year, and at drupa added the improved EvoJet Office 2 and the copier-printer EvoJet Office Pro, both on the Memjet stand. The company has also commissioned the manufacture of special A4 inkjet papers which have been approved by Memjet and carry the label ‘Memjet Preferred Media.’
All licencees so far use Memjet’s Waterfall heads, offering 1600 x1600 or 1600 x 800 dpi resolutions and top speeds of about 30 cm per second for the lesser resolution (18 metres per minute). They all use water based inks, though the precise formulations can be altered for different substrates. Delphax uses multiple head arrays to achieve higher speeds. Jeff Bean, Memjet’s vice president of brand and communications, said the company is working on a second generation head that it calls ‘pure MEMS’, or ‘mechanical.’ It will incorporate minute moving flaps at the end of nozzles, which is not an approach taken by any other heads so far. Mr Bean said the heads will be able to jet a much wider range of fluids than Waterfall.
Had a lively stand with six new products. The French manufacturer took over its German components supplier Köra-Packmat just before drupa and renamed itself MGI Group as a result. On the stand was Alphajet, a prototype B2 sheetfed inkjet press, using UV inks. This won’t reach the market until mid to late 2013, but looks interesting. It promises speeds up to 3000 52 x 74 cm sheets per hour, in six colours at 1200 x 1200 dpi. Projected price is about 1 million Euros (£800,000 or so), which is significantly less than other B2 inkjets.
In the meantime the company announced new SRA3+ toner presses in its Meteor family. Shipping already, the DP8700 S is a new entry level version of last year’s DP8700 XL with a less sophisticated feeder, for a projected price of around £70,000. The drupa model had a lively inkjet wrap colour scheme.
The DP9800 is a new top model in the series, due for March 2013. It’s faster (100 pages per minute) and can handle substrates up to 400 g/m2, with a duty cycle of 800,000 pages per month. It’ll have the same 1 metre maximum sheet length as the DP8700 XL.
Nova UV is a forthcoming inline UV coater for the Meteor presses, due for the end of this year. It’s suitable for current Meteors and the older DP60 press.
ET 7540 is a four or six colour inkjet press with inline spot or flood UV coating. MGI says it’s suited to personalisation of offset printed calendars. It can print on substrates between 0.2 and 4 mm thick, with speeds up to 2500 sheets per hour and sheets up to 74 x 65 cm. It is now available for order.
The JetVarnish B2 format UV spot coater is joined by JetVarnish 3D, due to ship this autumn. It’s a much faster (3000 sheets per hour) model with the additional ability to print raised and textured clear coatings, with a new camera registration system. The concept is rather like Scodix. Unlike the original JetVarnish you don’t need to pre-coat or laminate pre-printed sheets.
This Japanese large format specialist showed its recently announced Latex ink printer, the JV400LX. Its stand was full of samples from its other wide format solvent, UV and aqueous inkjets. It had the latest versions of its popular little UVJ-3042 A3 format tabletop UV flatbed inkjets (handy for gift and novelty printing, as well as instrument panels), with one now able to take product heights up to 150 m. A prototype intelligent image recognition system on one of these used a camera to detect an object placed at random on the bed at any angle, then to align the printed image to and finally to print on it in accurate register.
Had a large stand next to HP, which was no accident as the companies are partners. Pitney Bowes sells HP’s T-series inkjet web presses into the direct mail and transactional markets. On its stand, facing HP, it was running an IntelliJet 20 press (its name for the latest HP T230) as part of demonstrations of its complete White Paper Factory concept, which provides software and hardware for complete end to end document generation, personalisation, print production and mailing. We’ll be looking at this in more depth in our finishing coverage next month.
Showed a new configuration of its 75DI B2 format digitally imaged offset press, with an inkjet personalisation unit inline using Kodak Prosper heads, plus an IR drier and coater. It has also developed an intelligent closed-loop colour control system for the press. This inspects every sheet and is said to be ‘half the price of the opposition.’ Digital press product manager Mark Sullivan said this could potentially be licensed to other suppliers.
Has gone from a standing stand in production colour presses at drupa 2008 to the point where its models are top sellers in Europe. At drupa it reported healthy orders. Its deal with Heidelberg is also paying off, with the latter adopting Ricoh presses into its range as the Linoprint C series. A prototype C901 on the stand was demonstrating integration with third party finishing lines: this may be extended to the C751 too.
The drupa stand was carbon neutral and it also announced that its current Pro C models all have International Association of the Deinking Industry (INGEDE) certification.
A new piece of kit was the Pro L4000 series, a large format printer with Latex inks in seven colours and a choice of 1371 or 1620 mm. This is actually Ricoh’s version of the recently launched Mimaki JV4000LX printer, using Ricoh printheads. Deliveries start next year.
On the InfoPrint side, the fast 200 metres per minute 520 mm 5000VP inkjet web press was shown for the first time in Europe. This is based on Screen’s Truepress Jet520ZZ, also at drupa.
Looking to the future, it demonstrated a new software concept called Clickable Paper, a variation on augmented reality that doesn’t need special codes to be printed. Indeed it will even work for old out of print books. All the way back to Gutenberg. It’s very clever, but Ricoh said it’s not sure if or how to market it.
Announced it is developing a high speed (8000 sph) liquid toner B2 press in advance of drupa, but in the event had nothing to show for it. The press is being developed in conjunction with Miyakoshi, which already uses the process on a web press. It’s unclear when we may see actual hardware.
However Ryobi was one of several press makers to announce a facility to mount inkjet imprinters onto conventional offset presses. In this case it’s using Kodak Prosper S5 heads on the B2 format Ryobi 750 presses. An optional inline varnishing station is offered, with takes expected to be direct mail houses.
Having launched its ‘digital embossing’ raised clear UV inkjet process to the world at Ipex 2010, Scodix followed this up at drupa with two new printers and two new processes. The Scodix Digital Press S52 and S74 are B2+ (52cm) and B3+ (74cm) machines, capable of producing even higher gloss and higher raised or textured images than the original B2 1200 model – now a max of 250 microns, up from 70. It now calls its process Sense.
The new Rainbow system is an optional unit that can applied coloured glitter to prints, in a digitally controlled pattern. Useful for personalised greetings cards and party novelties. Also new was Inkjet-Braille, a way to create raised letters of constant height that the company says will never flatten due to reading.
The company reckoned it handed out 250,000 sample prints in the course of the show and took orders from Russia, the Far East and the Netherlands .
An intriguing test shot on the stand was a flip animation made by printing lenticular lenses directly from variable-height clear varnish instead of using expensive extruded plastic. Admitting that the effect wasn’t perfect, marketing vice president Ziki Kuli said that this was a process still under development
Showed the sales ready version of its Truepress JetSX B2 inkjet press, four years after taking a prototype to drupa 2008. Newly announced at the show was the ability to take cartonboard up to 600 microns thick, making this press a rival for Fuji’s dedicated Jet Press 720 as well as the HP Indigo 30000 carton press.
Print quality and colour gamut are impressive and unlike the rival Fuji Jet Press 720 this is a duplex printer. It’s also compact compared to rival machines. On the other hand, it will cost in the £1.2 million range and is fairly slow at 1620 B2 duplex sheets per hour. However it’ll have to compete with the HP Indigo 10000 soon.
The company was actually placing more emphasis on the latest, fastest version of its inkjet web press, Truepress Jet520ZZ, which was demonstrated on the stand. This runs at speeds up to 520 metres per minute. One was sold off the stand to Italian direct mail printer Leaderform in Verona, which will be its second TPJ520ZZ. The TPJ520 series has been a sales success for screen, helped by Ricoh which sells it as the Infoprint 5000 series.
Brand new at the show was Truepress Jet1632UV, a 1.6 metre wide UV flatbed printer. The first one was sold to Best Digital in Welwyn Garden City as part of a £500,000 deal that also included a 2.5 metre TPJ2500UV hybrid printer.
One of the few remaining British printing press makers, Timsons staked a claim to the future with its huge inkjet based T-Press digital book press. This monochrome giant takes web widths up to 1320 mm (almost twice that of the HP T300 for instance) and speeds up to 200 metres per minute. It is based on arrays of Kodak Prosper heads. MD Jeff Ward says it offers the ‘widest, fastest, highest output inkjet technology in the world.’
It was demonstrated running inline with a Timsons T-Fold finishing system, which slit the web and superimposed the ribbons before cutting them into sections and folding them into either 64pp or 2 x 32 pp sections. After that they went to a Kolbus binding line.
The first machine is due to go into Clays in Bungay this summer, where it will run with Muller Martini Sigma Line finishing.
The Excelagraphx 4200 large format flatbed printer is a complete departure for the US company, which in recent years has developed short run toner presses based on tweaked OKI A3 engines. The new model is based on Memjet inkjet heads and water based inks. It was designed to print short runs on corrugated and display board, but could take cut sheet poster paper and the like up to 1066 mm wide.
Throughput is 545 m2 per hour and the price is 89,995 Euros, about £72,000. This makes it a competitor for KIP’s toner based C7800, which can handle A0 posters at a maximum of 325 m2 per hour.
Announced before the show that it was revamping its three main web toner production presses so they’re all based on the latest 8000 engine. The first UK order for the new base level, 160 A4 pages per minute 8500 was taken at the show, for Optichrome in Woking. The others are the 8600 (195 ppm) and the new 8800
Looking further ahead, the company had an early prototype of a brand new liquid ink electrophotography process on its stand, that it plans to make the basis of it future colour range. Hinted at before the show under the code name Quantum, its actual name will be Trillium. The stand machine was monochrome only and kept in a glass room behind curtains that were drawn back for running demonstrations. We were allowed in to photograph it.
CEO Wim Maes said that this will be the basis of the company’s future production colour presses, as it does not think that inkjet can provide the right combination of high speed with high image quality. He said that Trillium based colour presses will reach the market within one or two years. They will offer far lower running costs at significantly improved speeds, he predicted, while maintaining the high quality levels and eco-sustainability of Xeikon’s current dry toner presses.
Although Mr Maes said he is contractually obliged not to reveal the source, it’s clear from a patent search that it is the liquid ink technology developed by Alex Ozerov, originally at an organisation called Research Laboratories of Australia. An earlier version of this was licensed to Japanese press maker Miyakoshi, which uses it in its liquid ink web presses. An earlier version of the same process is also used in the sheet fed B2 liquid ink press that Miyakoshi is jointly developing with Ryobi.
Had one of the largest digital related stands at Ipex (HP’s was bigger). Apart from the fascinating kit on show, there was also the draw of regular performances by Cirque du Soleil in the theatre area.
The stand in general was a good showcase for digital print applications, with real life job samples. Print technology fans would have gravitated towards the CiPress 500, the first European demonstration of this ‘waterless’ inkjet web press. A prototype was shown at Ipex 2010 but the real thing is better.
It’s an inkjet technology, but the ink is a granulated resin based rather than water based. It’s heated to liquefy it and then fired through the jets. It immediately solidifies when it hits the cool paper below. This means it can print on virtually anything including cheap low grade uncoated papers, even newsprint, with no bleed and no drying time. It can take paper weights from 50 to 150 g/m2.
Print quality on grotty paper was surprisingly good, and better than the Ipex prototype on decent paper. It runs at 152 metres per minute on a 520 mm web. New at the show is ink optimisation technology that control the ink weight on the paper and appears to be a factor in the quality improvement.
At the show Xerox announced a lower cost, the CiPress 325, which is actually a tweaked 500. The 325 is slower: 100 metres per minute but higher resolution (600 x 600 dpi), and less expensive. It can be upgraded to CiPress 500 speed by a software change.
A new top sheetfed press was announced, the iGen150, with deliveries due in Q3. Rated at 150 pages per minute, it is 25% faster then the previous flagship iGen4 EXP, with a top resolution of 2450 x 2450 dpi. It also claims higher colour quality and consistency thanks to auto density controls, auto colour maintenance and a new ‘matte dry ink’ toner. It can handle textured, translucent and heavy cover-weight papers.
There were new monochrome light production presses too, the D95/D110, D125.
The sheet fed toner DocuColor and iGen4 presses gain new inline finishing options. New Freedom to Print software can route jobs among a cluster of printers, including third party models.
An interesting new Dual Mode Feed allows an in-line finisher on one press to accept and handle pre-printed output from other presses when operated in off-line mode. For example, applications printed on a Xerox Color 1000 Press could be wheeled on a CP Bourg stack cart (which can serve different press types) to the Dual Mode Feeder attached to the iGen 150 Press for booklet making. We’ll look at this in more detail in the finishing review in September.
