Last week I had the pleasure of being one of about 130 press, pundits and analysts to attend HP’s Pre-Drupa product introductions in Israel. I heard a fellow attendee say they thought HP stood for Hospitality Personified and I cannot help but agree…Nice Job HP…
The real reason I was there was to be one of the first “Packaging” People” to see what the Indigo team had cooked up for the Folding Carton and Flexible Packaging markets. For years Indigo has had narrow web presses that addressed a niche in the tag and label sector, this group has grown to sell more presses into that sector than any other press manufacturer. There are between 1200 and 1500 Indigo presses printing labels around the world. I will have more on that product line in a few days…
The stars of the show, from a packaging guy’s perspective, were the two brand-new machines based on the new platform that are specifically geared to packaging. The new platform is based on an imaging engine using the same Electroink that Indigo is famous for.
The Indigo 30000 for Folding Cartons
For the past few years Indigo has been gaining insights to the needs of the Folding Carton market through their installed base of narrow web label presses who also do small format folding cartons. Many of the same production dynamics facing Label Converters are facing Folding Carton Converters, shorter runs and faster turnaround times to mention the obvious. So Indigo has decided to leverage those lessons learned and apply them to their new press platform that has a larger printing capability. The Indigo 30000 has a press width two and a half times wider than before at 29” and length of 20”, which makes it a B2 press (that is 20” by 30” to those of us not familiar with the B2 name). This takes the viability of the platform into an area where Folding Carton Converters could see opportunity, exactly how much opportunity is still TBD…
The speed of the press is also impressive…from a where the technology has been perspective… Unlike conventional printing and most inkjet printing systems print speed with the Indigo technology is dependent on how many colors are being utilized. So there are varying speeds depending on how many colors are used. The speed for standard 4 color (CMYK) mode is 3450 sheets per hour, using the Enhanced Production Mode (EPM) the speed is 4600 sheets per hour. I will address EPM in a later post but it basically uses advanced algorithms to produce a full color image, including black, by printing in 3 color CMY mode. I was very skeptical of the quality they could get with this mode but the samples I saw were very impressive. While EPM is not suitable for all jobs it will be for some, let your eyes be the judge before you dismiss the idea. By using EPM the infamous ‘click’ charge is also reduced…another topic… Like the Flexible Packaging press (HP 20000 from another post) (link to that post) the 30000 can print with CMYK and white (a very opaque white) and can also be equipped to print with the 6 and 7 color HP IndiChrome ink sets.
Printing on board
The new system is also capable of printing on a wide range of substrates including boards with a thickness from 8 of 24 point. The input side offers a pallet feeder and two drawers with a stacker on the output side, look for more to come on the output side… On the input side Indigo has included an inline pretreatment process that allows untreated board to be used eliminating the need for ordering pretreated board just for the 30000 press. It is still and added step in the process and adds cost as well but it does address the issue of pretreating. This pretreating of the board allows the substrate to accept the Electroink.
In addition to pretreating the substrate HP has developed a process called One Shot Color technology, which transfers the Electroink to the substrate in a single step unlike the original process, which would do one color at a time to the substrate. This process is used on the 20000 Flexible Packaging machine to aid with registration and not affecting film stretching, on the Carton press it seems they have found it helps on image registration as well.
On the output side the company says they have integrated “a post-coating unit co-developed with leading vendors in the paperboard market, that integrates inline with the press, allowing inline selective coating [water-based and UV] with fast changeover, producing printed and coated output identical to a packaging offset press.” I cannot vouch for that statement myself but at Drupa the samples will prove the statement one way or the other.
There is so much more to this these new presses, I urge those with a need for short run folding cartons or flexible packaging that fits in the 29” wide frame to take a look at these presses. Drupa is coming and this is one of at least two new digital presses that I can speak of at this time that will be addressing the 29” and wider and single pass flexible packaging sector.
Coming in at over 14 tons (a far cry from the WS series machines) the 30000 can claim to be a Printing Press. Under the hood it looks a lot like the WS series of narrow web machines but a lot more robust.
Stay tuned
All during the HP event a number of attendees were tweeting voraciously. We all used the hashtag #HPDrupa and I included #Packaging. #FoldingCarton and #Flexible where appropriate. I was one of the few attendees with a packaging bias and focused my 100+ tweets on packaging worthy news. Included are pictures taken at the event. I invite you to search on the appropriate # and to begin following me at @DigitalKevin
If you are a Brand Owner looking at Digital Printing as a potential tool for packaging strategy click here to see our report Is Digital Printing Part of your Brand Strategy? (make link here)
Leading up to, during and after Drupa, Karstedt Partners will be taking the pulse of all things packaging and digital. This will include regular blogs and tweets about all the digital news that can and will affect packaging…see you there…physically or virtually.
If there is something you would like me to check out for you drop me a line kevin@karstedt.com.
