Live On The Show Floor: Advanced Pressroom Technologies

Within the South Hall at McCormick Place, an expansive display of the most innovative press and finishing technologies available today – or readying for the future – are on the show floor for attendees to explore. On exhibit at GRAPH EXPO 15 and CPP EXPO are digital, inkjet, offset, flexo, gravure and hybrid printing technologies, along with the range of ancillary products and services necessary for the commercial printing, in-plant printing, transactional printing, quick printing, package and specialty printing, mailing and fulfillment, book printing, wide-format printing, newspaper printing, creative services and print buying segments.

This year in Chicago, a number of exhibitors are showcasing products for the pressroom that incorporate LED-UV technology.

Air Motion Systems, Inc. (Booth 460), leading manufacturer of high-performance UV LED for the print industry, is showcasing its XP9 LED UV Curing System. Designed to run on sheetfed presses, XP9 ensures instantly dry sheets at full press speeds. LED UV has no IR heat, making it well-suited for synthetic substrates and perfecting presses with no marking or gutters. XP9 can be retrofitted to a press and installed with little or no UV preparation required.

KBA North America (Booth 213) is debuting VariDry LED-UV, for commercial and packaging printers from small to large format. Manufactured by KBA, the VariDry system is fully integrated into the press. The instant cure-to-print system offers very low energy costs to power LED-UV, flexibility to easily move LED-UV lamps interchangeably on press, as well as environmental and safety benefits. As a LED-UV unit, VariDry produces no heat on the printed sheet, thus eliminating distortion of plastic substrates. It contains no spray powders or other chemicals and is reported to yield more than 15 times the lifespan of conventional lamps.

RYOBI MHI Graphic Technology Ltd. (Booth 4213) is the fusing of two companies, Ryobi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Printing and Packaging Machinery. Live at GRAPH EXPO 2015 is the RYOBI MHI 925 LED UV 8-Up offset press – a 2014 Must See ‘Ems winner, running with Smart RPC automatic plate changing technology and InstaColor makeready workflow.

In North America, RYOBI MHI equipment is directly imported, sold and supported by Graphic Systems North America, RM Machinery and Sun Digital.

Additional Show Floor Highlights

One of the highlights of the action-packed HP (Booth 1202) is the T1100 Simplex Color InkJet Web Press, the first solution co-developed by HP and KBA since they announced their strategic collaboration at GRAPH EXPO 2014. The high-speed, four color, high-volume, 110-inch -wide (2.8 meter) simplex inkjet web press for pre-printing of corrugated top liner lets corrugators combine many individual jobs together on a roll or across rolls for short, mid or long runs. Unlike traditional analog preprint, every box can be different.

Konica Minolta also has a booth (1913) chock full of technology and products. For the pressroom, there is the bizhub PRESS C71cf digital label printer, a four-color, digital, roll-to-roll label press aimed at the mid-sized printer or converter looking for a solution between the entry-level desktop label presses and full production digital solution and the bizhub PRO C754e, an easy start in economic, high quality color, light production printing.

Magnum Magnetics (Booth 3048) is introducing its wide selection of aqueous inks and coatings for printing applications, including foil, film, laminated pouches, tags & labels, folding cartons and multi-walled bags.

Magnum is also unveiling its Magnum-UV line of protective and aesthetic UV-curable coatings for digital and offset printing. Magnum-UV provides an exceptional gloss or matte finish, notes the company, and features scratch- and scuff-resistance and superb adhesion to multiple substrates, including vinyl, film, paper, polypropylene, polyethylene and polyester.