This year’s Hunkeler Innovationdays event last week in Lucerne saw a number of product introductions both from the host company and from press and complementary finishing equipment suppliers.
Hunkeler introduced the DocuTrim, its first offering for sheet-fed finishing, which cuts and perforates at up to 10,000sph, plus its RS8 flying splice unit for high speed continuous-feed inkjets which enables rolls of paper to be changed without having to stop printing even at up to 240m/min. This is complemented by the TR8 turret rewinder which similarly allows for take-up rolls to be swapped without halting printing. Other units and upgrades in the Gen 8 range were shown.
Canon announced a ‘heavy paper’ kit for the Océ ProStream 1000 inkjet press, allowing it to handle stock up to 300gsm for direct mail applications. A new nozzle failure compensation capability corrects for blocked jets, to maintain quality with no loss of print speed, and the RIP has been upgraded to 1200 x 1200dpi capability to match the print engine, bringing improved quality particularly for finely detailed type.
Ricoh gave the first public showing of its Pro VC70000 150m/min inkjet which it says offers offset quality on most paper types. It also introduced new business intelligence software, Ricoh Supervisor, and Communications Manager, a customer communications management (CCM) tool that integrates with other Ricoh and third-party applications to manage workflow and customer experience. A more detailed report on the event will appear in the April issue of Digital Printer.
