Ten must-see post-press stalls

During the PrintWeek-Drupa webinar on 24 May, Rushikesh Aravkar, technical editor, PrintWeek India said, "As they say, it isn’t finished until it is finished." Post-press is increasingly becoming important in delivering value in a print project, it is the finishing options that can help individual print services really stand out. Aravkar's wishlist of top ten "must see post-press stalls" at Drupa., Business

25 May 2016 | By Rushikesh Aravkar

Highcon
Since last Drupa several laser cutters have been introduced into the market and print firms have started adopting these machines for converting short-run jobs.

However, it has been observed that while lasers can only score or perforate, they struggle with folds, which weakens paperboard along the fold line. Highcon addresses this by extruding creasing rules from liquid polymer that’s then UV-hardened. Its current B1 Euclid III (1,500sph) has just been joined by the high speed Beam (5,000sph). A new 29in/B2 model called Pulse for 2,000sph will be shown at Drupa.

 
Nano-Metallography
Benny Landa is taking his nano know-how into a different area and aims to revolutionise foiling with a new metallisation system.
 
At Drupa, Landa will also unveil Landa Nano-Metallography, a zero-waste metallisation technology that it says will halve the cost of metallised printing compared to foil transfer processes.
 
The area to be metallised is printed conventionally (or digitally) using a trigger material that can be likened to a type of ‘varnish’ but with special properties. This passes under a donor roll that triggers the transfer of the metallic nano flakes, which are applied in a single layer just 50nm thick in what is called a “physio-chemical interaction”.

HP Pack Ready
At the HP stand, do see the Pack Ready solution and meet the innovator, Salant. Pack Ready solution for flexible packaging is a replacement for aluminium barrier. HP has developed a unique thermoplastic polymer resin, which is coated on the laminate to produce a thermo-activated laminate.
 
Pack Ready lamination requires zero cure time while achieving high laminate bonding performance.

Pack Ready film (developed by HP Indigo's R&D project manager Dr Asaf Salant), which consists of a laminate film and Pack Ready 'smart resin' (thermoplastic). This film is combined and bonded with printed film (in this case printed on the HP Indigo 20000) and the two films pass through a corona treatment unit to enhance surface tension and then merge at the nip rolls to be bonded at a heat determined by the media substrate.

Because the resin is already in the film, no coating is required, so the process can be solvent free, and again, because there's no coating, there is no drying or curing process involved, which significantly reduces the energy requirement for the process.
 

Masterworks Diana
The Diana Smart 55/115 folder-gluer is aimed at the mid-production market and offers short set-up times, inline inspection of the entire print image, excellent accessibility due to low side frames on operator and drive side, electronic speed control, and a touchscreen for machine operation, according to Masterwork. Its runs at up to 450m/min and is suited to a variety of applications, including lock-bottom cartons, multi-compartment cartons, miniature cartons, mailing envelopes and record sleeves.


Masterwork Diana Smart 55/115

On show will be two new versions of the Diana Smart folder-gluers for working widths of 550-1,150mm, including an offline quality inspection system with multiple cameras, to ensure that all added value effects and functions are precisely checked, qualified, and sorted, using a unique combination of cameras, angles and light sources. The Diana Eye 55 fully-automatic sheet inspection system has a working speed of up to 300m/min with a maximum sheet size of 550x500mm and a stock range of 90-650gsm. Masterwork said the system is unique in that it features an adjustable camera light source for multi-process inspection and complex processes such as holograms and foil stamping can be inspected.

Duplo
The Duplo PFi Di-Cut 300 is an on-demand die-cutter that can produce a variety of digital print and packaging products. It can perform multiple cuts, slits, slit score, kiss cuts, perforations and window punches for single or multiple-up pieces, on a wide range of paper stocks at 3,000sph.

Duplo said a major benefit is an industry-first X&Y automated registration system. Registration mark smart technology enables the machine to counter image drift. It is operated by a simple touchscreen panel that provides micro adjustments.
 
Scodix
Scodix said its new B1-format multi-function digital enhancement press, the E106 is ideal for short to medium-length runs that it said were previously not viable for printers in the packaging sector. 
Scodix said the E106 had “ultra-fast” production speeds of up to 4,000sph to help folding-carton printers and converters differentiate their offerings and boost profit margins.
 
Features include Scodix Sense, Scodix Spot, Scodix Braille, Scodix Digital Embossing, Scodix Variable Data finishes and Scodix Foil all in a single device. The foil system was developed by Compact Foilers, meanwhile Scodix partnered with Mabeg Systems to produce the Scodix E106 paper handling system. 
 
The E106 can handle substrates from paperboard to plastic and metalised boards, as well as offset and digital prints and water-based coatings and a wide range of laminated products.
 
Marketing director Lynn Kolevsohn said the E106 will start beta testing after the show and commercial deliveries will start in 2017. “The folding carton market is moving toward mass customisation, shorter print runs and a need for better and new embellishments,” she said. “Current technologies suffer from long set-up times, high cost of die and moulds and little flexibility.”
 
Lasx
Lasx will be showing its new CartonsInMinutes (CIM
technology, which incorporates a laser cutter with an inline creasing system. It is a folding carton finishing system that features laser processing technology and in-line folding/gluing for a ‘seamless, all-digital workflow’.

Printed boards can be fed to the creaser, which then passes them on to the laser for automated cutting, and then passed to a new robotic stacker or to a folder-gluer for boxmaking. 
 
The system is all digital, reading barcodes for creasing and cutting instructions, and can produce one-offs as well as short runs.
 
CIM converts printed materials to finished cartons in less than a minute versus traditional processes taking days, weeks or even months to complete, it is claimed. In addition to high speed throughput, CIM reduces cost by eliminating costly tooling and set-up, and reducing or eliminating WIP inventories.

Morgana Systems
UK post-press manufacturer Morgana Systems will be showing an enhanced DigiBook 150 entry-level PUR perfect binder, alongside a raft of its other machines. The DigiBook 150 has been upgraded to incorporate some of the features of the higher specification DigiBook 200, including automatic book block clamping and a new glue nozzle system, which has been upgraded to give better control of the spine and side glue application, according to Morgana. Morgana said the DigiBook 150 is ideal for conventional and digital printers who require short runs of PUR-bound books to a professional standard.

 

MGI Digital Tehnology
MGI Digital Technology will be debuting its new digital enhancement press, the Jetvarnish 3D Evolution, which it said is the first digital sheetfed enhancement press to be scalable from B2 to B1. The eight-colour inkjet builds on the original Jetvarnish 3D, first shown in 2008, but will allow owners to buy a B2 machine and then upgrade to B1 if they need to. The B1-format option can produce digitally embellished images, text, data and brand designs using spot varnish, 3D raised varnish and digitally embossed foil in one pass.
 

MGI-Jetvarnish

There are three available substrate size options: 520x1,200mm, 640x1,200mm and 750x1,200mm. The B2 version can operate at more than 4,000sph, according to MGI, while the B1 can run at 3,000sph. Also on show will be the new AIS SmartScanner sheet registration system, which uses “artificial intelligence” to automatically create varnish and hot foil registration for the management of inkjet heads and each printed sheet.

Air Motion Systems
Air Motion Systems (AMS) will be launching a new LED curing module based on a uniform blend of wide-spectrum UV and LED wavelengths at equivalent power levels – the first of its kind, the company said. MultiWave LED-UV has been designed for compatibility with many existing UV photo initiator packages, including low-migration formulas. The development means that the ink prices for LED curing can now be similar to those of existing high quality UV inks, according to AMS.
 
Chief executive Steve Metcalf described it as “a true industry first”. The company will also introduce a new low-profile LED module, called the XD Series, for conversion of space-constrained machines to LED printing. It is intended for use with 520mm-format machines with low-pile designs. It will also enable small-format presses to offer ‘offset-on-demand’ LED printing, including instant drying and the ability to readily print on many papers and synthetic materials, said AMS.