Drupa update: when will concept become concrete?

PrintWeek.com By Simon Eccles Thursday, 31 January 2013

Predictions about the availability of digital machines shown at last year's show were pretty vague. Nine months later, we look at what's shipping now or in the near future.
Last years Drupa show was notable not only for the sheer number of new digital presses that were announced, but the variety of digital processes. Also significant was the long-awaited move to larger formats of B2 and above. It was impossible to miss the publicity around Landas Nanography process, but there were other, very significant revelations of new printing technologies, as well as advances on familiar processes. The question is: when will we see these presses installed and operating? Well, hardly any of those new digital devices were ready for delivery back in May, with predictions of availability ranging from "later this year/early next year" to "maybe Ipex" or even "maybe by the next Drupa". So, nine months after Drupa, lets take a look at whats shipping now, whats shipping soon and what remains veiled in the mists of the future.

New processes Inkjet, dry toner and liquid toner are the three processes that underpin all the new digital presses announced at Drupa 2012. The first two are no surprise. Less expected was the number of manufacturers announcing liquid toner presses promising higher speeds with more usable quality than established technologies can reach. Indigo pioneered liquid toner digital presses 20 years ago with its ElectroInk and heated offset blanket system. Its had the market to itself, with the exception of Miyakoshis announcement of a different implementation of liquid toner at Drupa 2008, which appeared in a web press thats not marketed outside Japan. That potential exclusivity is now over. Last year saw liquid toner project announcements by Oc, Ryobi and Xeikon, with Heidelberg dropping mysterious hints of something similar in development. All are significantly different from the HP-owned Indigo process. This ensures patent issues are avoided.

Oc says it will deliver its first liquid toner press, the huge B1-format web-fed InfiniStream configured for cartonboard work, to a beta user early this year. Xeikon is still in development with the process it calls Trillium, but showed a mono unit running at Drupa. Its initially aiming for the commercial document print market, and predicts that the eventual colour press, due in the next year or two, will be faster with a higher quality than its current dry toner range.

Ryobi wasnt giving much away about its B2 sheetfed liquid toner press, but it showed one running at Drupa on the Miyakoshi stand. Currently unnamed, its based on the Ryobi 750 multi-unit press chassis, with print units developed by Miyakoshi. The speed at Drupa was quoted as 8,000sph, but the target is to hit 10,000sph when it ships. No shipping date has been announced, says Neil Handforth, sales and marketing director at Ryobis UK agent Apex Digital Graphics. The most highly publicised new process at Drupa was Landa Digital Printings Nanography. Once you look past the dry ice and dancers in the Landa Theatre, it turns out to be a modified inkjet process. The water-based ink contains tiny heatactivated adhesive pigment particles. These are jetted onto a moving heated belt, which drives off the water, leaving sticky dry ink. The belt is brought into contact with the cool substrate where the ink peels off and transfers. No special coating or further drying is required. Landa predicts that the process will be fast and good enough to compete with offset for quite long runs, while also suiting a wide range of papers and plastics. Six models were announced, three sheetfed in B3, B2 and B1 sizes and three roll-fed models with 560mm or 1,020mm widths. Many industry watchers believe that theres little prospect of any presses being delivered for a couple of years yet, with Drupa 2016 likely to be the actual launch venue. However, the company is still confident that the first machines will be installed by the end of 2013. Heidelberg, Manroland Sheetfed and Komori all announced that they have licensed the Landa technology and are developing presses of their own, with similar vagueness about shipping targets. Given that the Landa prototypes at Drupa were built on media transports supplied by Komori, its possible that Komori will be one of the first to market. Not at Drupa was Lumejet, a small British startup that has invented a new LED and fibre-optic colour exposure system for thin photosensitive papers; it calls the technology photonic. It will show its first printer, the 305mm -web S200, at the UKs Digital Print show at the NEC in November. Priced at around 145,000, it is aimed at the high-end photobook, property books and agency pitch-book markets. It will run at 40m/min.

Sheetfed presses Delphax, best known for its mono high-speed roll-fed electron beam toner presses, announced a radical change at Drupa. Its Elan 500 is a sheetfed SRA2-format fourcolour press that uses Memjet Waterfall inkjet heads and water-based inks. It can output 500 A4 pages per minute, for up to 3,750 duplex SRA2 sheets per hour at 1,600x800dpi resolution, or 1,600dpi at half speed. An inline primer coater allows the use of standard papers. The projected price is around 310,000, which is about a quarter of the prices quoted by Fujifilm and Screen for their slower but true B2 format sheetfed inkjets. Delphax UK general manager Steve Hubbard says that other models are on the cards. A hybrid inkjet-toner press has been tested, he says, and there are hints of a web version in the future. One of the biggest digital announcements at Drupa was HPs new wide format Indigo press family, which enable B2 formats to be produced for the first time. Three presses were announced: the 10000 for sheetfed commercial printing; the 20000 rollfed press for flexible packaging (and 762mm webs); and the 30000 sheetfed press for folding carton work (see our Digital packaging report, out on the 22 February, for more on this). Only the 10000 models have reached any users yet, as HP goes through a beta test programme. The UKs first beta 10000 has been operating at Precision Printing in London since October, with Pureprint taking the second press. Industrial business development manager Christian Menegon says: "We cannot get three brand new machines onto the market at once, so anything we discover in the 10000 beta programme will quickly be applied to the 20000 and 30000." The finalised 10000 is expected to ship in 2014 for about 1.5m, followed soon after by the other two models. Konica Minolta announced several additions to its Bizhub Pro/press range of mono and colour production presses, though some arent expected before next year. The Bizhub Press C1100 is a new flagship in its sheetfed SRA3 line. The machine is able to run at up to 100ppm on weights up to 350gsm. This was announced as shipping in 2014. Konica Minolta UK market development manager Mark Hinder says that discussions are still going regarding the timeframe. It has just started shipping a pair of fast SRA3 monochrome presses, the Bizhub 1052 (105 A4ppm; 60 A3ppm) and 1250 (125 A4ppm; 70 A3ppm). They have 1,200dpi resolution and Hinder says they are producing very high-quality print. Theres a choice of Pro or Press configurations, with the latter providing an extended choice of paper input and inline finishing options. A twin-engined duplex high-speed mono prototype was shown at Drupa, but theres no further word yet.

Also announced at Drupa was a joint development alliance between Konica Minolta and Komori to produce inkjet presses. Two have been announced so far a sheetfed B2 press and a 520mm web. At Drupa, Konica Minoltas stand demonstrated the sheetfed duplex model, which it calls KM-1. This uses UV-cured inks and prints 1,650sph at 1,200dpi. Komori builds the chassis of the sheetfed model and calls it Impremia IS29. It isnt likely to ship until next year, says UK and Europe managing director Neil Sutton. "We continue to make progress and it will be shown again later this year at the JGAS and Print shows," he says. "We will start to take orders in Q3 and Q4 this year, with a view to production in Q1 2014." French manufacturer MGI showed an entry-level SRA3 toner press, the Meteor DP8700 S, which has a simplified feed system that cant take the very long (1,020mm) sheets of the DP8700 it launched in 2011. The S model shipped in the summer for about 70,000. A 100ppm next-generation sheetfed model, DP9800XL, was shown but wont reach users until next year, says marketing director Kevin Abergel. Another MGI Drupa prototype was AlphaJet, a 3,000sph sheetfed B2 inkjet featuring a new feeder system and UV-cured inks in up to six colours. Its intended for both commercial and carton work and may reach the market by the end of 2013, with a projected price of around 850,000. Xerox announced its fastest sheetfed press to date, the iGen 150, for 150 pages per minute, plus extended abilities to handle heavyweight and textured papers. It started shipping last December. Also new was the high-speed mono Nuvera 314 EA duplex press, capable of up to 314 images per minute or 157 duplex sheets. This shipped last autumn.

Roll-fed Swiss developer Graph-Tech, acquired by Domino Printing Sciences last summer, appeared at Drupa with the MonoCube, a brand new compact mono inkjet web press. Aimed at book and transactional printers, its now ready for shipping, with the first unit about to be installed at a printer in North Africa. The next two are being built for North American orders. Web widths between 446-783mm are offered. MonoCube will be demonstrated again at the Hunkeler Innovationdays event on 11 February. HP announced faster versions of all three of its T-series inkjet web presses at Drupa. The T230 (520mm web), T360 (739mm) and T410 (1,060mm) feature new printheads that enable faster printing at full resolution. All have been available for order since the show.

Fujifilm announced its first inkjet web press, the compact Jet Press W, and showed a prototype at Drupa. Its a single-tower duplex full-colour model, running at up to 127m/min on a 520mm web. Its due to reach users in Q1 this year. The prototype was built by Miyakoshi, which also builds Ocs JetStreams. This apparently explains the correlation in specifications between the Fuji press and the JetStream 1900 Compact, also announced at Drupa. However Fujifilm claims it will build production models itself, using its own ink and apparently a new version of the Fujifilm Dimatix Samba inkjet heads. Kodak showed the Prosper Press 6000 at Drupa as a faster version of the existing 622mm 5000XL full-colour duplex inkjet web press. So far it hasnt said if it will become a real product. "The 6000 was shown as a technology demonstration," says Erwin Busselot, Kodak EMEAR marketing director. "Its not launched, nor in the market, just yet." However, Kodak has said that new Prosper products will be announced at the Hunkeler event later this month. The 6000 runs at up to 304m/min, although quality drops to the equivalent of 133lpi offset screening compared to the claimed 175lpi of the 200m/min 5000XL. KBAs first all-digital press is the 150m/min, 781mm-wide RotaJet 76, demonstrated at Drupa and built by KBA in Wrzburg. In December UK managing director Christian Knapp said that two orders had been signed, though he couldnt yet reveal where they are going. KBA says this is developed almost entirely in-house, but it has licensed the concept of the common impression cylinder and the inkjet array from RR Donnelley. RotaJet 76 uses a complex web path that is intended to maintain register by preventing stretching. Knapp claims: "We know answers to web transport questions that HP and Kodak havent even thought of yet." He is also proud of its highly efficient drying unit, which operates at just 40-50C. The Drupa model was still a prototype, but the company let visitors take away print samples. The press will be shown again at the Hunkeler Innovationdays. "We will be printing the same demonstration jobs there, so we invite visitors to take their Drupa samples to see how much the quality has improved," says Knapp. Deliveries are probably about a year away, and the first markets targeted will be books, commercial print and newspapers, he says. Komoris joint venture with Konica Minolta includes Impremia IW20, an inkjet web press demonstrated at Drupa. It takes web widths up to 520m, running at up to 150m/min at 600dpi with two-bit droplets; or 75m/min with 1,200dpi and two bits; or 75m/min and 600dpi with four-bit droplets. Komori says that it features fast makeready and advanced web handling. A new water-based ink is under development that wont need specially coated papers.

Oc announced several variations of its JetStream presses in the run up to Drupa, the 1900, 4300 and 5500 mono and colour. All are now shipping. In December, the firm said that existing users of the 100m/min 1400 can upgrade to the 127m/min 1900 standard.

Screen announced the fastest version so far of its 520mm TruePress Jet 520 series, the ZZ model, that runs up to 220m/min. This is mainly achieved by reducing the resolution, but it can still manage high quality if you slow it down. Deliveries started around the time of Drupa. Timsons huge T-Press mono inkjet book press is the largest inkjet production press to date, with a 1,320mm width, running at up to 200m/min. It uses Kodak Prosper heads and was shown running inline with a Kolbus book finishing system at Drupa, Since the show, the first two presses have been installed in the UK, at Clays and MPG Biddles. The third press is being built at the Kettering factory, but no customer has been announced yet. Xeikon announced before the show opened that its duplex web toner production presses all now use its latest 8000 engine, replacing the 5000plus and 6000. The top model is now the 8800, for speeds of up to 19m/min. Xerox is now shipping two CiPress web press configurations and has three installations in mainland Europe. However, the firms not ready to name names, says UK marketing manager Robert Corbishley. Both are 520mm models, with the 325 running at up to 100m/min at 600dpi and the 500 at 152m/min at 600x400dpi. CiPress is notable for its unique use of a phase change wax ink in a production press. This is melted and jetted at the substrate, where it solidifies almost immediately. Xerox calls it "waterless" ink to stress that it doesnt have the ink-spread and drying times of the aqueous inks used by most competitors (although the handful that use UV curing enjoy similar benefits). The inks work with virtually any paper, including low-cost uncoated stocks and very thin materials. At Drupa, the CiPress 500 was shown printing on thin uncoated media for supermarket news sheets and the like. The print quality wasnt up to fine art standards, but seemed very acceptable, given the paper.