“Increasingly, we’re seeing customers who don’t want a digital press running side by side with their narrow web press,” said Søren Ringbo, digital product manager for Danish flexo manufacturer Nilpeter. “That means a separate workflow and separate cost-centre models. What they want is all the benefits of digital integrated with their existing presses.”
Aiming to open up that market, at LabelExpo last year Nilpeter introduced the Caslon, a digital inkjet module for its FA-Line narrow-web flexo presses. The response, according to Ringbo, was very big. Based on this, the company took the Caslon to drupa, a first-time for Nilpeter, although not for technology partners Xaar and Fujifilm Electronic Imaging (FFEI), on whose joint-venture stand the Caslon was demonstrated.
“We had more than 200 enquiries, which for a non-label exhibition is very pleasing,” added Ringbo.
The three-way joint venture began nearly three years ago when Nilpeter, tracking the development of inkjet, approached Xaar, which was then developing the inkjet head that eventually became the 1001 variable-size droplet head. The Xaar head was the development we had been waiting for, says Ringbo, and it started us off looking very seriously at how we could use inkjet as a technology in our presses. To handle ink, screening, colour management and workflow, the joint venture approached FFEI, then six months away from the MBO, and the development wagon began to roll.
Changing focus
Around this time, Nilpeter launched the FA narrow-web flexo platform, designed on a modular principle to allow different print and post-press units to be integrated into the same chassis. Initially, the plan was to build a press that used inkjet as its sole imaging technology, but development quickly focused on the addition of inkjet as a module in the FA range, alongside flexo, gravure, screen, die-cutting, laminating and foiling.
“We found that the most forward-thinking customers wanted a press that could print and finish inline in a conventional way, but could include digital alongside all the other processes – and even just print digital, bypassing all the other processes, when necessary,” added Ringbo. “So we got to thinking about changing the mindset of label printers by introducing a machine specifically intended for pressroom operation, to fit in the same workflow and the same production concept and for operation by printers rather than technicians. We wanted to make digital a conventional process.”
Successful partnership
Xaar’s 1001 side-shooter TF printhead is already causing ructions elsewhere in the graphic arts industries. The introduction of a variable-size droplet has brought a massive leap in quality. The ability to address eight levels of grey gives the Caslon an outstanding level of quality for flexo label production. The FA4 platform is known for its capacity to handle a wide range of substrates, including film and PVC, in thicknesses up to 500 microns. The combination of the 1001 printhead with the FA4 materials-handling ability and the UV ink means just about any label substrate can be printed. But there is a sacrifice in terms of speed: the Caslon produces just 50.7m per minute at its lowest dpi of 180×360 and at its largest droplet size of 42 picolitres.
The Caslon unit can be bypassed on the FA4, so that labels can be printed or overprinted digitally on a job-by-job basis. Exiting the conventional flexo print units, the web enters an infeed nip for the Caslon unit and through the corona treatment unit. It then exits into a register control that registers the inkjet head to the pre-printed web and through each of the four inkjet colours. Between each colour sits a 5Kw GEW UV lamp that ‘pins’ or partially cures the UV ink droplets, the purpose of which is to prevent the process colours mixing. The final pass is through a last lamp with a built-in water-cooler chill roller, important to maintain the substrate’s dimensional stability, particularly when printing on thinner films. The web goes through a servo-motor-controlled output nip and is then rewound.
Ringbo pointed out the benefits of inkjet over existing digital web technology. The basic inkjet technology is very
different from electrophotographic and much simpler. This is one of the main planks of Nilpeter’s claim to reduced downtime for the Caslon compared to other digital webs. Registration between colours and to pre-printed webs is also claimed to be very precise, because the Caslon is built from expensive Invar non-expanding steel.
Automatic cleaning
As for the inkjet heads themselves, Nilpeter has partly solved the problem of blocked nozzles by incorporating an automatic cleaning system. Head breakdown is fully covered under the unit’s first-year warranty, so in the unlikely event of all your heads blowing up, we’d replace them all, Ringbo said. In the meantime, users can draw comfort from Xaar’s prediction of up to five years’ average operating life.
“One important addition to the FA4 Caslon is a corona treatment system. It’s an option for all our presses, because of the surface dynamics of the web – you have to treat it to make sure it takes the ink consistently,” said Ringbo. “But with the Caslon it’s essential, as we’re working in a heavily colour-managed environment. To get the best colour reproduction and consistency, you have to make sure the surface behaviour of the web is completely consistent.”
At the front-end of the Caslon is a digital controller run via a touchscreen. The controller supports ICC profiles, taking in eight-bit TIFFs. Variable data currently consists of what Ringbo describes as sending a lot of individual TIFF files one after the other, but there are plans to harness the variable data capacity of the next version of Adobe’s Creative Suite, which will use Adobe’s definitions of PDF/VT.
The FA4/Caslon is currently available in web widths of 330mm and 420mm. Nilpeter plans to introduce the Caslon unit for the 508mm and 559mm models of the FA4 platform. Adding to the incentive is the fact that Nilpeter has already sold more than 200 FA4 machines in the two smaller widths and plans to offer the Caslon as a retro-fit to those existing installations as an easier means of recouping some R&D investment.
What digital offers to the label sector is obvious: the ability to profitably handle the growing demand for shorter runs and more personalised, shorter-term on-pack promotions, together with language or territory versioning. What Caslon offers to the label sector is more subtle, but perhaps just as significant: the ability to fully integrate digital as a production process within existing machines, staff skill sets and factory spaces, workflows and business models. Digital will become conventional, said Ringbo. You saw it here first.
THE ALTERNATIVES
HP INDIGO WS4500
A different kettle of fish from the Caslon, this is a toner-based electrophotographic engine housed in a dedicated web-fed chassis. Slower than the Caslon at 16m per minute in four-colour mode and, though it’s got a higher dpi, it doesn’t have the eight-bit colour depth either. However, it can reproduce up to 97% of the Pantone range with IndiChrome orange and violet inks added to the CMYK and a wide array of substrates includes film and paper.
Max web width 200mm
Speeds 16m/min (four-colour mode)
32 m/min (one- or two-colour mode)
Stock thickness range 40 – 350 micron
Price not available
Contact HP Indigo UK
XEIKON 3300
Punch Graphix’s new baby offers a challenge to the Caslon unit, at least in quality terms, as it uses four-bit inkjet heads and resolution of 1,200dpi. There’s a fifth colour in addition to the CMYK, which can be used for printing opaque whites, special security toners and a range of spots. However, its top speed is slower than the Caslon’s. There is a wide variety of substrates, including film, but no special facility for variable data in the X-800 front-end.
Max web width 330mm
Speeds 9.6m/min – 19.2m/min
Stock thickness range 40 – 350micron
Price tba
Contact Punch Graphix International
EFI JETRION 4000
The Jetrion range has been in production for several years, but the new variant now carries the same Xaar 1001 variable-size-droplet heads as the Caslon. Note, though, that this is a dedicated inkjet press, not a flexo or offset press with inkjet additions. Uses EFI’s Fiery XF colour management.
Max web width 210mm
Speeds max 30.5m/min (max resolution 1,000dpi+)
Stock thickness range not available
Price not available
Contactwww.efi.com
Read the original article at www.printweek.com.
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