Xerox unveiled its ‘entry level’ Baltoro HF sheet-fed inkjet press at its Propel 2019 event, held last week in the south of England.
During the two-day event Xerox customers, resellers and industry experts gathered to discuss the company’s developments in its inkjet press portfolio, ‘hyper-personalisation’ via applications such as XMPie, CMYK+ printing and intelligent automation.
Introducing the Baltoro HF press announced in June, Marybeth Gilbert, Xerox’s vice-president of production solutions, stressed that ‘we don’t see xerography as dead and inkjet taking over the world – there is space for both’. She pointed out that the iGen toner press had recently gained a long sheet option and fluorescent toners and formed the centrepiece of the Xerox stand at Print 19 in Chicago.
A demonstration of the Baltoro took place at Xerox’s Innovation Centre in Uxbridge. The 197ppm machine, which prints at 1200 x 1200dpi on sheets up to 364 x 520mm, is able to print on matte, silk and satin stocks, was described as an entry level cut-sheet inkjet press, though no pricing was revealed.
The Baltoro replaces the Brenva model introduced in early 2016 and adds greater media versatility thanks to the High Fusion inks in addition to improved quality via AI-based control techniques. It is complemented by the Rialto and Trivor models which respectively offer roll-to-sheet and roll-to-roll printing and are typically complemented by Hunkeler or Tecnau finishing equipment; brief presentations by both companies were made at the event.
A panel discussion with two UK customers, Rugby-based Datagraphic, which has recently installed a Trivor inkjet press, and Cardiff-based McLays, which had both several Brenvas and a Trivor installed in January 2018, revealed that both were benefiting from their inkjet presses in transactional and secure document printing.
