Samir Lukka's Drupa pick

Samir Lukka investigates and talks to his esteemable PrintWeek colleagues and shares ten things that "no one is talking about"

1) I liked Mimaki's large-format printers, especially the prototype of the new-generation ultra-high-speed flatbed UV LED JFX500-printer (which almost did not make it to Drupa). A Mimaki spokesman said, “At the last moment it turned out that the 2,500mm x 3,100mm printer bed wouldn’t fit into the airplane, so we had to reduce it to a mere 2,100mm x 3,100mm just to get it here." This machine which will be available in September is one to watch out for.

2) Also liked the Océ VarioPrint DP line. Spoke to a few digital experts who felt it is positioned between the Canon imageRunner Advance 8000 Pro series and the Canon Image Press monochrome series.For the moment, the Océ VarioPrint DP line consists of three models, the Océ VarioPrint 110, 120 and 135. One notable thing about the device is the Océ HeatXchange, which saves energy by transferring the heat used to fuse toner onto paper from printed sheets to new sheets entering the print path.

By recycling the heat in this way, print users can reduce their energy consumption by 25 – 30% compared to other systems in its class. Despite the low energy use, however, productivity is high because of an innovative technology called Océ EnergyLogic. This matches the power requirements of a print job with the available power in the system (should be a great asset in mid-town India) and ensures that the system starts printing quickly after a cold start or maintains maximum speed after changing to heavier media.


3) Print finishing and special effects are the norm in India. Companies like Sakurai and Demak have provided solutions. At Drupa, Steinemann offered interesting options for protective finishing to lamination with ultra-thin, metallic PET films through to creative special effects with UV lacquers. This is a good bet for folding box manufacturers, web-to- print providers and magazine printers.

The Lotus SF sheet-to-sheet lamination system, Steinemann Technology demonstrated live solvent-free lamination such as folding boxes and other print products with biofilms and ultra-thin PET films at a thickness of just 6μm. The Lotus SF need half the film material required by standard systems and consumes much less adhesive. The Colibri UV lamination system also uses fewer resources in a special way. With a low lacquer application of upto 2.5g/m2 and greater efficiency, it achieves shine values. Colibri is popular with web-to-print service providers thanks to its reliability and and efficiency. Offset and inkjet inks, as well as Indigo or toner-based printing inks, can be over-lacquered on this system.

4) I liked the Hunkeler device which uses laser technology, for punching and perforating moving paper webs. Applications for the HL6 system include the manufacture of cheques, coupons and direct mail items. At Stand C39 in Hall 9, Hunkeler highlighted the security printing aspects of the system as any perforation pattern, be it text, numbers, logos, etc. The laser module is available in the HL6-I and HL6-II models. In Version II, the system works at web speeds of 150m/min in 1-up or 2-up mode. The HL6 can be integrated into all Hunkeler configurations. A good investment for cheque printers.

5) Indians are familiar with Xante products. For me, it was super to visit the stall where Xante was demonstrating its new Excelagraphix 4200. The 1,070mm wide large-format printing system offers high output speeds of up to 305mm a second. It uses the ‘Waterfall’ technology developed by Memjet that uses inkjet printheads running across the entire printing width to output more than 3bn ink droplets per second, with a maximum resolution of 1,600 dpi. The waterbased inks are CMYK and print on flexible and rigid substrates up to a thickness of 9.5mm.

6) Technotrans is renowned for its boasting rights in cooling the metal monsters in the presses. At Hall 2, stand B46, the company launched its beta.c eco cooling unit, the beta.c eco+. The new unit features digital scroll technology for variable cooling capacity and Delta T technology for regulation of the flow pump. What's really cutting-edge is, the cooling unit cuts energy use by automatically adjusting the unit’s capacity according to the press’s activities. This means that, unlike conventional cooling units, the beta.c eco+ can operate at anywhere between 10% and 100% capacity. Although the beta.c eco+ unit, which is compatible with presses including those from Heidelberg, KBA and Komori, is around 10%-15% more expensive than traditional cooling units, the extra cost will be cancelled out within a year, a Technotrans official said.

7) Also liked the casting and foiling unit which is available in B1 format for the largely under-rated Ryobi series 1050, as well as for the 750er series in B2 format. In the Ryobi 1050, this unit can be integrated into one, four, five or six-colour printing machines. The single colour variant, with UV casting and foiling, can be used as offline finishing machines in conjunction with existing printing machines. Using the four or six-colour printing machines, four to six-colour prints, with holographic effects or foil finishing, can be produced in one single print run. As a result, productivity is increased considerably. During production, the CYMK and any special colours are printed first. In the coating tower, a UV coating is applied to the print substrate, either flatly or in geometric forms specific to the job, by means of a Nyloflex spot coating plate. Very nice.

8) I liked the polybagging insert system from Ferag called TapeFix. On the integrated line, insert collections can be either secured with Tape- Fix, collated in a wrapper in the EasySert or packed in foil in the PolyPacer. Besides use in the production of advertising freesheets, TapeFix is an inexpensive alternative for inserting supplements as part of the newspaper production process. Inserts can be collated during the lower-cost daytime hours using a pre-collate system (Roll- Stream or FlyStream), secured in the back using TapeFix and wrapped as a complete bundle on MultiDisc. Thanks to the use of TapeFix, it is also possible to make the further processing technology considerably smaller and to achieve the required performance with a correspondingly lower capital investment.

9) PrintWeek India's technical editor, Sachin Shardul told me I must include the Italian manufacturer Xflex X6 narrow-web flexo press with a Jet-Plus inkjet unit. Shardul, who attended the Omet open house at Pragati recently said what he liked about the Xflex is, it can produce products such as wine labels, which are characterised by complex graphics, soft colour tones, irregular margins and large areas of text. Shardul said, the JetPlus inkjet digital printing unit was suitable for printing runs of up to 5,000 labels. While for longer runs, the inkjet could be switched off and the flexo press used instead.

10) With the pharma industry booming in India, one product which is stealing the thunder is GUK. The firm used Drupa as a launchpad for the G&K-Vijuk MV-11 Double Knife outsert system, which features the ability to produce RTA (right-turn-angle) cross-folded outserts. This system can fold outserts that are 15% thinner with up to 40% more panels than previous models said a company spokesperson during a live demo. The system has been developed in response to the increase in type size for pharmaceutical outserts following changes to US Food and Drug Administration regulations and optimises the stacking of outserts in the delivery box by 25%. The system features a GUK FA 53 folder as the primary folder in the system with speeds of up to 14,000 cycles per hour and the capability to create 238 panels of size 29x29mm and achieve a smallest size of fold 15mm.

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