Australian label press manufacturer Rapid is hoping its stall at this month’s Ipex exhibition will help launch its new XL220 into the European market.
Rapid is the only Australian company exhibiting at the London event and general manager Nick Mansell relishes the opportunity.
“We are used to being the only Australians in a sea of overseas competitors,” he says.
“It’s always important to have a presence, we have to make up for the distance by standing out with options and solutions.”
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Mansell says the new model’s first sale will be installed later this month at a Sydney printer making its first foray into digital, and there is strong interest from and discussions with another firm elsewhere in Australia.
The company is also in negotiations with a US label printer for what would be Rapid’s third XL220 sale, and is getting strong interest around North America from its stall at the Graphics of the Americas trade show, which ended this morning, and launched its X1 Light to the market.
The company hopes a working demonstration model of the Memjet-powered XL220 will be on show at its stall at Ipex, provided by its European distributor Impression Technologies Europe, but expects to sell at least two or three models regardless, along with its existing X1 and X2 lines.
“You don’t spend $100,000 on a trade show and not expect to sell units,” Mansell says.
“We also hope Ipex will give us a stronger dealer presence in Europe, and raise awareness of the XL220.”
The XL220’s 220mm web width design reflects an all-in-one approach where data goes in and finished products come out, enabling label printers to create one pass print and finished labels.
“It’s PDF files in and finished labels out the other end,” Mansell says.
“The growth in short run digitally-printed labels is such that sections of the market are calling for a simplified but efficient end-to-end press solution. This means a machine where files are sent over a network and the job can be set up from a central console, for all parameters including die-cutting, matrix stripping and laminating or coating.”
The XL220 costs under $100,000 and runs 18 metres per minute at 1600 x 800dpi or 9 metres per minute at 1600 x 1600dpi, and prints on any inkjet-receptive self-adhesive label stock, and says Mansell, produces finely detailed full colour labels with vibrancy, using Memjet water-based inks.
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