Xerox Color Press 1000

More than fifty installations in India, the press uses environment-friendly dry ink, which delivers sharper, richer, digitally mastered image quality to enhance its productivity on a range of media, state Rushikesh Aravkar and Noel D’cunha

15 Mar 2013 | By Noel D'Cunha & Rushikesh Aravkar

Launched at PrintPack 2011 in India, the Xerox Color 1000 on paper has a very compelling specification – in fact in many ways it looked like a challenger to nothing other than the firm’s own iGen. The 100 pages per minute (ppm) speed with emulsion aggregation (EA) toner technology and a fifth imaging unit offers spot and flood varnish effects. That said, the Xerox Color Press 1000 printing at 2400 x 2400 dpi resolution delivers sharp, rich, digitally mastered image quality, and can handle stocks ranging from 55-350gsm. Automatic collation and perfecting for upto 350gsm stocks at rated speeds gives the user maximum productivity in its class.

The manufacturer has pitched the models at the production of applications including photo albums, flyers, newsletters, brochures and variable data documents. 
 
Dry ink technology
The core technology of the machine leans heavily on Xerox’s patented ‘low melt’ emulsion aggregation (EA) dry ink technology, which uses no fuser oil, ensuring high image quality and enables smooth offset like finish to all the applications. Chemically grown, its small, consistent particles produce great quality with less EA dry ink for smooth transitions. The unique properties of EA dry ink are also environment-friendly. The advanced Xerox colour management technology with closed loop process controls enables vivid and consistent colour rendition.
 
Pankaj Kalra, associate director and head – production systems group at Xerox India, says, “It’s more robust and is designed for minimal intervention to achieve highest sellable quality.” He adds, “That reduces the total cost of ownership and it gives customers more control over image quality.”

To deal with the heavier stock weights, the firm has increased the power of the fusing unit. Instead of having two rollers, it uses a roller and a belt, because a belt can hold more heat, to complete the fusing process. After the fusing, there is a second cooling belt to take heat out of the paper to minimise curling. And this results in much lower power consumption. The 1000 requires just a single phase 10KVA power supply.
 
Kalra adds, “Utilising the new fusing technology, the 1000 is capable of producing a wider colour gamut that result in producing vibrant images that command and hold attention.”
 
Image-to-media alignment
One of the bugbears of digital print has been the registration of the images on each side of the sheet. In this respect, the 1000 has been improved, taking the registration down to +/- 0.5mm. This is down to changing the way the sheets are registered. Imagine you’re looking from above; older machines register from the front of the machine – the right hand edge of the sheet. The 1000 registers from the centre of the sheet, which Kalra says is more reliable and accurate.
 
“The user can quickly set up the best image-to-paper (front-to-back) registration for your media, save it to the paper profile and use it again and again. With the optional features, the operator initiates the automated image-to-media alignment,” he says.
 
Something else that Xerox has done with the 1000 is that it has put the paper input trays underneath the imaging unit, rather than off to one end of the press. This has reduced the floorspace of the machine, an important consideration where rent is expensive, and therefore, may particularly resonate in places with space-pushed shopfloors.
 
If the machine’s basic configuration of two trays, each holding 2,000 sheets, isn’t enough, it’s possible to add a high-capacity feed module increasing online storage capacity to 8,000 sheets in four trays.
 
One of the applications that the new machine targets is packaging, where Xerox is looking to make inroads. “The 350gsm maximum weight and oversized SRA3 sheet size makes the 1000 suitable for packaging applications,” says Kalra.
 
Colour management and profiling
Routine tasks such as colour calibration and profiling have been made simpler and quicker for the operators. 
 
The advanced profiling capability enables the operator to achieve accurate colours with the advanced profiling capabilities. “The advanced profiling feature automatically creates a superior, custom ICC-compliant destination profile for the specific applications by mapping RGB and CMYK source images to a desired output standard – like a press or industry standard,” says Kalra.
 
And for the photo-album segment, Kalra says, it’s the perfect foil. “The 1000 press prints at 2,400 x 2,400 dpi for excellent sharpness and uniformity. It delivers outstanding mid-tones, crisp text, pure neutrals, detailed shadows and bright highlights, and excellent photo rendering, for speciality photo applications. The press maintains the colour consistency, from page-to-page and job-to-job.”

Technical Specification
Speed 100ppm
Paper weight resolution 2,400X2,400 dpi
Max duty cycle 1.75 m
Workflow Xerox CX Print server
Contact Xerox India
Pankaj Kalra
+91 124 39400400
pankaj.kalra@xerox.com
Effects and finishing
There’s no doubt that the effects such as spot UV over matt lamination are popular. Xerox has thus expanded the printing capabilities and enhanced the efficiency and productivity of the 1000 with the addition of an optional clear dry ink station, which allows to apply spot or flood creative effects that bring prints to life. 
 
Though Xerox is not the first firm to offer a clear coat using toner technology – Kodak pioneered it with its NexGlossser and Canon has since added it to its ultra-light production C1+, but this is the first production digital machine with the feature available for one-pass production and does not require any additional separate offline process to achieve the desired results.
 
Feeds and finishing units are common with some other Xerox presses with a range of options including a punch, up to two high-capacity stackers, each holding a 5,000 sheet stack with a 500 sheet tray and a booklet maker with optional squarefold trimmer. But, as befits a machine that is designed for more productive environments, Xerox has developed an interface for the 1000 to its DFA (digital finishing architecture), so it can integrate with a wider range of finishing kit including Xerox’s standard finisher plus and tape binder, the GBC eBinder 200 and the PlockMatic Pro 30 bookletmaker.
 
Like the rest of Xerox’s cut-sheet digital colour press range, the 1000 has the option of EFI Fiery (EX), Creo Spire (CX) and its own Freeflow Print Server digital front ends. Fogra has granted the Color Press 1000 a validation printing certificate when it is used as a system with the Creo-based CX server. “Buyers increasingly want evidence that the machinery is capable of consistent colour reproduction,” says Kalra.
 
Customer speak
Though number of installations reported suggest that there could be 50+ Xerox Color Press 1000, Kalra is reluctant to share the exact figure, citing company policy. During the recently concluded PrintPack India 2013, JMD Color Scan signed up for the Xerox Color 1000 Press to meet the high potential need of the market. Four months ago, the firm had installed the Xerox 770 and has since then printed around 70,000 copies and hopes to double the business with the new Color Press 1000.
Between May and September last year, PrintWeek India reported three Xerox Color Press 1000 installations at Pune-based Apex Digital Lab, Chandigarh-based Ajanta Graphics and Sri BhagyaLaxmi Printers, the Hyderabad-based firm.
 
Kamruddin Chikodi, owner, Apex Digital Lab says his firm was the first colour print lab to be established in Pune. He says, “In the former days, most of the customers used to head towards Mumbai or down south for colour print jobs.” 
 
Chokdi says, “We have used the fifth colour clear dry ink unit of the press for jobs that required digital watermarks for artistic effect or security, variable text, and for high value tickets and coupons.” What he seems to be suggesting is, the Xerox 1000 has given his company a cutting edge in meeting key customer demands of quality, offset-like finish, and allowed the firm to play with a wide range of media.


The Alternatives

HP Indigo 5600
The HP Indigo 5600 features EPM, allowing colour printing at 90 ppm. A new red-fluorescing invisible ink for the Indigo 5600 model gives printers a path to pursue new security-printing applications, such as ID cards, tickets and high-value coupons.
Speed (in different modes) 68-272ppm
Resolution 2,438x2,438 dpi
Contact HP India
+91 80 26129000
appadurai.a@hp.com
 
Kodak nexpress 3300
The NexPress is designed to print on the widest range of substrates. The Kodak NexPress SX with fifth imaging unit solutions offers unique in-line dimensional coating, gloss and spot colour, in-line  water-marking, and a range of applications and options.
Speed 100ppm
Resolution 600x600dpi
Contact Kodak India 
+91 22 66416300
ramani.viswanathan@kodak.com