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Keeping colour consistent
Barney Cox, PrintWeek, 02 October 2009
The lack of a standard for colour in digital has been troubling printers, but moves are afoot to fix the problem, finds Barney Cox
Colour accuracy and consistency are becoming increasingly important. In the offset world, the move is towards print produced to the ISO 12647 colour standard.
The problem for anyone producing digital print is that there are no standards for digital colour – neither toner nor inkjet. The ISO 12647 specification is process-specific and, while the most common part of the standard, ISO 12647-2, refers to offset reproduction, there are other parts of the standard that relate to other production processes, including gravure and flexo. Digital production was never included within the specification, so there is no part of the standard designed to reflect the realities of digital print.
“There is no official requirement for day-to-day and job-by-job consistency,” says Andreas Kraushaar head of pre-press at Fogra, the German research body that also offers colour management and technology certification. “There is no standard, and there is no research to base that standard on.”
Fogra proposes to carry out a research project into the quality and consistency of digital print, which it hopes to get the go ahead for by the end of the year.
In the meantime, although there is no digital standard, the rise of digital print and its use alongside offset means it is becoming more and more important that the output matches and is consistent, especially as strides are made in the offset market with ISO 12647-2 to introduce greater consistency.
According to Bodoni Systems managing director Ian Reid, the target people are attempting to standardise on is ISO 12647-2 for paper types 1 or 2, which are coated gloss and matt and commonly represented by the Fogra 39L dataset.
Immediately, most digital presses hit a problem because, bar the HP Indigo, they can’t use those coated stocks.
“The problem is down to paper colour and ink, but primarily where digital devices fall down is on the solid ink colours,” says Reid. “If you print a solid on toner-based presses it looks out (compared to 12647-2).”
For offset production, there is an ISO standard for inks, ISO 2846, which specifies the colour for ink needed to print to ISO 12647, there’s no equivalent in digital, the pigments in the toners and digital inks aren’t necessarily a close match to those laid down by ISO 2846.
Stumbling block
With no standard for digital press colorants, achieving a match is hampered from the off.
HP Indigo is an exception, as its inks are a close match colorimetrically to the ISO 2846 specification. Printers using Indigo technology report that ISO conformance tools, such as Bodoni PressSign and Mellow Colour ISO litho, show the Indigo conforms pretty much out of the box, as long as you practice regular maintenance and calibration.
Today, proofs are mostly produced using inkjet, but due to the rise of toner for short-run production and its lower
cost per page, it is increasingly being seen as a technology for proofing.
“With digital, you can proof and do production on the same device,” says HP Indigo product manager, strategic marketing, Lior Lewin.
Within the ISO 12647 standard, there is a specification for contract proofing, ISO 12647-7. As a proofing specification, the tolerances are much tighter than for production. As previously explained by Bodoni’s Reid, that creates a problem for proofing on toner-based printers as their colours aren’t a close enough match to litho inks.
To get around this, Fogra developed what it termed FograCert Validation Printing certification. There has been much wrangling about whether to incorporate this within ISO 12647-7 or to implement it as a separate part of the standard as ISO 12647-8. This is due to concerns about its broader tolerances and the potential for confusion in the proofing market.
Filling the void
Despite the potential to confuse the market, Validation Printing certification has been leapt on by digital press manufacturers in the absence of a standard for digital colour as a guide for printers looking to invest in digital technology.
“Since there is no standard for digital, the vendors are appropriating Validation Printing,” says Kraushaar. “It’s not dedicated for production machines – it’s missing specification for consistency on the run and from job-to-job.”
So, it’s not a guarantee that what you print will hit the standard, but it is an indication that the system you buy (and it needs to be considered as a system – it’s particular to the workflow and substrates as well as the press) is able to get quite close to the ISO specification.
While some experts question the relevance of the scheme, vendors have got behind it. “Printers don’t have money to spend on equipment that can’t hit the target,” says Xerox Europe graphic art marketing manager Job Rombout. “So they need tools that show their equipment can hit the target. Products that have this certification meet that benchmark.”
Canon European marketing manager Mark Lawn adds: “There is an increasing demand for quality and the issue is how you measure quality. Validation Printing is one of those tools.”
Canon has got FograCert for its ImagePress C1+, 6000 and 7000 series production machines.
Xerox has 13 printer and front end configurations in the 40-70ppm space that have Validation Printing certification from Fogra and aims for all machines and workflows to be certified in due course. At the higher end, the iGen4, in combination with CGS Oris workflow, has the certification and Xerox marketing manager for iGen and DocuColor Kevin O’Donnell says: “Our aim is to get compliance across all machines and all workflows.” Its latest machines, the 7002 and 8002, are currently awaiting certification as they use a new toner.
Validation Printing certification is fine as far as it goes, but it’s only part of the solution.
“It’s fine for showing what the kit is capable of doing, but there is still the issue of day-to-day operation,” says O’Donnell. “It’s just like an offset press, if you want consistency, you have to put the work in.”
Data issues
Finding precise data from manufacturers about the stability of their machines is hard, although, according to research carried out at Xerox’s Smart Centre, typically the colour consistency of a digital press varies by a delta E of two-to-three. In the worst case, there are instances where machines can show variation in some colours of 12-13 delta E. As delta E is a measure only of noticeable colour difference, it is clear a delta E of 13 represents a glaringly visible deviation.
“One of the biggest issues is good paper husbandry,” says O’Donnell. “People say a job has changed from week to week and we find they’ve printed it on a stock with a different white point, or just on the same stock but with different humidity.”
In digital, you need to find different ways of working to provide stable colour.
“With litho, you’ve got a colour bar on every sheet and in a 5,000 run you’ve got the time and the materials to take a couple of hundred sheets to get to colour,” says Bodoni’s Reid. “With digital, there’s no time or budget to adjust colour.”
“We’re trying to automate it, hence the inline spectrophotometers on our latest machines,” O’Donnell says. “With them we can measure and control consistency over time.”
The digital vendors use Validation Printing Certification as a benchmark for their machines, but acknowledge it’s shortcomings for production print. EFI sales development manager Kerry Moloney says: “Validation Print was designed for proofing, not for production, so the rules aren’t quite right. That’s where future standards will need to come in.”
BEYOND ISO 12647
Last month, the TC 130 committee – the group of experts who cover print technology for the ISO – met in Beijing to discuss the future.
Fogra’s Andreas Kraushaar chairs working group three, the group within TC 130 that is looking at the area of developing a future print standard.
As for plans for a digital production standard – nobody knows today, he says. My expectation is to start an all new print standard with a new number and, unlike ISO 12647, it won’t be a process standard. With digital printing techniques, it is impossible to differentiate by technical results. There are no longer clear sub groups by technology. Different parts of the standard won’t refer to different technology, but for usage cases with agreed criteria. Customers don’t care about the process, but about the result.
He believes that the key consideration will be achievable colour gamut, but other issues including resolution and light fastness will also be important.
It’s very early days at the moment, which means there is an opportunity for the industry to provide its feedback on what it considers to be important for the next standard.
There is no draft, there are ideas and concepts and the plan in Beijing was to get agreement to start work to create an all-new document, says Kraushaar. We’re calling for people’s thoughts and ideas.
Doing it digitally
Philip Chadwick, PrintWeek, 04 December 2009
A decade ago, digital print was a niche product, but, as Philip Chadwick finds, it has grown into a mainstream offering, capable of competing with litho
It is traditional in December to look back at the past 12 months to pick out the numerous highs and lows. However, this year it is also the end of a decade, so there is reason to extend the nostalgia to the past 10 years. For print, this is a useful exercise as, since 2000, the landscape of the print industry has changed enormously as many of the big technological advances have come through one sector – digital.
Although digital technology may not have been brand spanking new at the start of the noughties, it was certainly a market that had yet to mature. In the 10 years since, engine speeds, print quality and workflow have all come on leaps and bounds and the print industry has taken the leap and invested in the technology. Today, it’s rare to find a commercial printer that hasn’t got a digital press. But how did digital get to where it is now and how did the market shift so that the technology is eating into part of the litho market?
Humble start
“At the time [10 years ago], we were an emerging technology in a non-existent market,” explains Alon Bar-Shany, HP’s vice- president and general manager of the Indigo division. “The business was limited. In terms of the number of digital pages printed, in around 1998 it was significantly below 1bn. This year, it’s 10bn.”
Bar-Shany has seen the sector grow since he was part of Indigo back in 1993. By 2000, digital presses were being bought by niche businesses and pre-press houses. Ricoh’s UK associate director for marketing, Chas Moloney, supports the view that the early adopters were much smaller than the commercial printers that invest in digital presses today.
“Machines were being sold to smaller printers more akin to the copy shop environment,” he recalls. “The number of manufacturers selling products was also small while the quality was not as good as litho.”
Prior to joining Ricoh, Moloney was with Canon. At the start of the decade, Ricoh and Canon manufactured smaller devices that weren’t really suited to the commercial print world. But by the mid-point of the noughties, they were developing presses that could go up against the more established players like Xerox, Kodak, Océ and HP.
Improved quality
By 2006, Canon signalled its intentions in the digital colour production market by unveiling the ImagePress C7000VP. It received an enthusiastic response at Ipex that year, with several orders throughout Europe, including the UK. A couple of years later, Ricoh unveiled the C900, its first production colour press, following the lead of fellow newcomers Konica Minolta and Screen.
“At the start, there were discussions about quality,” explains Andreas Nielen-Haberl, Kodak CGC product category manager for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. “The question was: could digital achieve the same quality as offset. It took a while, but over the course of the years, those quality discussions have gone. It was the same for offset 50 years ago.”
Kevin O’Donnell, marketing manager for graphic communications at Xerox UK, explains that improvements in productivity and, crucially, colour have helped drive the market.
“It’s about colour consistency,” he says. “Our latest presses are capable of delivering consistent and high-quality colour. There have also been developments around substrates. Ten years ago, you had to coat the substrate or ask for a specific stock. Paper manufacturers have worked hard to change that.”
“The print quality of digital is not good – it’s excellent,” adds Steve Wilson, Océ UK business unit director for production print. “We have improved the speed, quality, workflow and finishing of digital. What’s been added to that over the past decade is a reduction in cost. Certain business models encroach on offset, but it depends on the application.”
With the ability to incorporate variable data, it’s no surprise that as the decade went on, digital manufacturers were
talking up the opportunity to do one-to-one direct mail. To help drive the market, the likes of HP, Xerox and Océ were pitching digital print not just at the printers, but also marketing agencies.
“Ten years ago, digital was just seen as a printing technology – now it’s seen as a marketing technology,” says O’Donnell. “Two of the greatest applications have derived from the UK. Back in 2003, DSI produced ticket booklets for Thompson Holidays. Inc Direct also produced a highly personalised campaign for the Carphone Warehouse. These are campaigns that have been recognised globally, but neither would have happened if we had not engaged the marketers.”
He explains that the nature of the customer has also changed. Back in 2000, clients didn’t know, or particularly care much about the printing technology – “print was a dark art” says O’Donnell. While some customers still don’t care and can’t tell the difference between digital and offset, some marketers have become more print savvy and understand that digital can represent the most cost-effective way to communicate to their customers on a one-to-one basis.
The rise of digital in the past 10 years has also meant that print companies themselves have shifted their focus, as well as understanding better how to sell digital print. There are still plenty of firms out there that continue to be common or garden “ink on paper” printers, but others have realised that they’ve needed to move away from thinking that print is a commodity.
Business focus
“It’s about business and the technology is simply the enabler,” explains Océ’s Wilson. “The most successful companies are the ones that are au fait with how to utilise the technology, the ones that have an entrepreneurial mindset.”
These print firms have not just embraced digital print technology, but other channels as well, such as the internet. They’ve become data handlers, not just printers. “More and more of our customers are becoming marketing service providers,” explains HP’s Bar-Shany.
Punch Graphix UK managing director Chris Matthews adds: “Those that have embraced this approach have moved a step forward. However, there are still some dyed-in-the-wool printers who will not change.”
Matthews’ words suggest that digital print hasn’t quite broken through into every market. While the digital print market is obviously more mature than it was 10 years ago, it is still maturing and Both O’Donnell and Bar-Shany agree that
digital has more potential.
“I still believe we are barely scraping the surface,” says Bar-Shany. “High-end printers are doing digital work, but the penetration rate is still relatively small.”
As the decade draws to a close, litho still dominates the long-run market and most in the digital sector acknowledge that it will remain the case for some time as digital has proved to be a complementary technology to litho. However, digital has made some significant inroads into the short-run litho market and the feeling is that if the application is right, then it’s almost a no-brainer not to run a job digitally.
Digital evolution
“B3 presses are hardly sold in the western world,” claims Bar-Shany. “Not too many printers will survive by being litho-only. There is certainly a need to evolve and there are several family-owned print companies that are now onto a second or third generation. They have to take the next step. Printing is not going away, but it’s evolving.”
“There will always be room for both litho and digital,” adds Matthews. “However, where customers in the past may have replaced a B2 litho with another one. Now, more are purchasing a digital press instead.”
The next stage in the evolution of digital is likely to throw in maturing inkjet technology, on-demand book printing and the powerful possibilities of web-to-print. It’s testament to how far digital has come that many commercial print firms now have a digital press sat in their factory. The next 10 years are likely to take digital on to an even higher level. If the experts are to be believed, in terms of new applications and market growth, the last decade was just the tip of the iceberg.
Konica Minolta C6500
PrintWeek, 20 February 2009
DP Direct managing director Nick Claxon has dipped a toe into digital colour print with this machine, chosen for its price and good image quality
What is it?
It’s a digital printer.
What does the machine do?
We use it to print all our colour digital work.
Why did you choose this particular machine?
There were three reasons why we opted for the C6500: economics, quality of images and paper stock range.
Did you look at any other similar machines?
We’d decided to dip our toe into digital colour print and the cost of HP Indigo presses was too great, so this machine provided a good low-risk option.
Why did you make the purchase?
It was down to a blend of providing back-up cover for our existing machines and getting into the digital colour market.
What features do you particularly like?
We like the large-capacity tray, the colour quality, the touchscreen and the SRA3 capability.
Is there anything that you dislike?
The capacity of the other paper drawers is too small.
Is there anything that you wish it had that it doesn’t?
A proper counter that gives actual counts as it prints.
How fast is it?
At top speed it can print 65 A4 pages per minute.
How reliable is it?
It’s no worse than our existing digital kit.
What’s the quality like?
We and our clients are extremely pleased with the quality.
How easy is it to use?
All our production staff find it easy to use.
How much time or money has it saved?
This is difficult to quantify. The gain has been in new customers and the ability to run paper stock that we would not have been able to run previously.
Has it won you any new work?
Yes. Take-up among existing clients has been good and we’ve acquired at least two new customers who continue to book in jobs on the machine.
Would you say that it offers value for money?
Yes.
Were there any difficulties experienced during the installation or after?
No.
What about the pre- and after-sale service?
The service has been very good throughout.
Who do you think the machine is right for?
We think that the machine is excellent for office use and small production runs.
Under what circumstances would you buy another?
When the opportunity arises, we’d be more likely to acquire the next model up in the Konica Minolta range.
CONCLUSION
User’s verdict
Speed 3/5
Quality 4/5
Reliability 4/5
Value for money 5/5
Supplier’s response
Gerry Mulvaney, managing director of Danwood’s graphics and production systems division, says: “DP Direct are very typical of the type of customer we have for the Konica Minolta C6500. They are first-time digital colour users with a wide range of jobs going through the device. The quality that their customers comment on is, in a large part, due to the unique toner technology that Konica Minolta has developed for this unit, which produces a much wider range of colours than other toner devices. It is very popular in corporate and public sector print rooms for the same reasons that Nick has identified: speed, productivity and cost effectiveness.”
Océ claims ‘world first’ as newspaper group upgrades to digital
Adam Hooker, printweek.com, 13 March 2009
A Spanish publishing group is to produce a range of local newspapers and magazines entirely on a digital press, described by Océ as the world’s first short-run production site for domestic titles in colour.
Imcodávila, a newspaper publisher based on the outskirts of Madrid and boasting 200 titles to its name, bought Océ’s Jetstream 2200 rather than make an investment in a new litho machine.
Up to 40 separate titles will be printed on the press – a mixture of dailies, weeklies and monthlies.
Daily print runs will begin at 6,000 80-page colour local newspapers, but the machine has the capacity to produce 24,000 a day.
Paul Krisson, the Océ’s development manager for digital document services, said that UK publishers could follow suit now that one company has made the jump.
He said: “This is a major breakthrough for us, and for the newspaper industry. I see digital working alongside litho. It makes financial sense to print a limited number of titles on a digital machine. We have seen in recent years a move away from the micro-zoning section in newspapers.
“You could print a regional title on a litho press and still run at 80,000 copies an hour, but ultra-local inserts could be printed on a digital machine. You maximise efficiency of offset and digital.
“And, if it is financially viable in Spain it is financially viable. I think publishers in the UK should be talking to digital press manufacturers about what digital can do for them and we are engaged in discussion with a number of publishers.”
HP Indigo 7000
Philip Chadwick, PrintWeek, 27 March 2009
HP’s latest press, the Indigo 7000, takes one step closer to narrowing the technology gap between digital and litho, discovers Philip Chadwick.
While there is still a place for both digital and litho print technologies, the gap between the two is closing. The level of quality offered by digital presses has come on in leaps and bounds over recent years. At Drupa 2008, the digital presses on display were more robust and more industrial – in simple terms, more like litho. That’s certainly the view of HP; it believes that its latest challenger to the commercial market, the HP Indigo 7000, is well placed to take digital to the next level in terms of quality and viability.
“We are close to a tipping point, where digital print is going to truly explode,” explains Robert Stabler, head of HP’s Indigo digital business for the UK and Ireland. “I think there are a lot of reasons to be bullish about the growth of digital. People are starting to think the unthinkable.”
The 7000 is one of HP’s flagship digital presses and is the next step up from the 5500 machine. While it doesn’t venture into any uncharted waters, it can serve a wide range of different applications from direct mail and photobooks, through to greetings cards and calendars. It sits nicely in the general commercial print market, which is why HP selected Precision Print to put the 7000 through its paces before it went to market. The Barking-based company is a long-standing HP customer and already had a 5000 in place.
Environmental benefits
“On the 7000 we found that the run length can be broadened and we are able to move more work from litho,” explains Gary Peeling, Precision Print managing director. “It means that we can make great strides in waste reduction – we use less material and that helps underpin our clients’ environmental programmes.”
The manufacturer is keen to flag up the environmental benefits of the 7000. HP says that the press offers an oil recycling system, lower electricity consumption, the ability to print on recycled paper and that its consumables last longer, resulting in reduced waste. Then there is what the digital market believes to be the environmental trump card: the ability to print the precise quantity required.
“People go for shorter run lengths because of the economics, adds Peeling. Digital printing allows them to have what they need, when they need it. It also allows us to use a different solution when dealing with the environment.”
Colour considerations
With the reduction of waste at the heart of this machine, even the design of the ink cans has been taken into consideration. The cans for the 7000 are much bigger than those for the 5500, which means that they don’t have to be changed as often, and can also be replaced on the fly.
With colour in the corporate world so important, according to HP, the inks for the 7000 provide a far wider colour gamut with four-, six- or seven-colour Pantone emulation, including Pantone Goe and off-press mixing of spot colours, which can be achieved with HP Indigo’s Ink Mixing System. As a result, the 7000 can match up to 97% of Pantone colours.
Other areas in which Precision says the 7000 scores highly include the speed of the machine and the workflow. The 7000 has been upped to a speed of 120ppm in four-colour mode and 240ppm in mono or two-colour mode.
On the front-end, HP has developed a scalable SmartStream print server offering a remote user interface, better variable-data printing attributes and an expandable RIP capacity. “It means you can control multiple presses from one digital front end,” adds HP’s Stabler.
By separating the RIP from the press, HP has developed a scalable workflow that can handle huge volumes of variable data. Customers can choose from three print servers from the SmartStream family to drive the press via the PrintLink protocol, which separates the pre-press tasks from the printing. According to HP, this allows press operators to concentrate on printing operations, thus maximising pressroom productivity. The three SmartStream products best suited for the 7000 are Production Pro, Production Plus powered by Creo, and Ultra. Also incorporated into the 7000 is the HP Indigo Print Care toolset, which offers on-press and off-press diagnostics and troubleshooting tools.
The 7000 can handle media weight of 80-350gsm for coated paper, while for uncoated it can handle 60-350gsm. Media thickness ranges from 70-400 microns. There are three 1,800 sheet capacity trays and there is an option for an extra 700 sheet tray. Media size is pitched at 330.2×482mm, while image size is at 317×464mm.
The ‘wow’ factor
It all adds up to a heavier-duty machine compared with the 5500. While the company isn’t making any claims that it’s the beginning of the end of litho, there is a feeling within HP that with the 7000, it can certainly bridge the gap a little better.
“The B1 market is still best suited to longer runs but there is now a middle ground where you can go one way or the other – the market has polarised,” says Stabler. “Run lengths are coming down and it is more efficient to opt for digital than a small litho press. This press goes up to SRA3 paper size and prints to a litho quality – ideal for customers working on high-quality applications.”
In addition, the 7000 is expected to exploit markets that are well suited to digital. Highly personalised direct mail has long been the mainstay of the digital market, but there are others sectors in which the technology seems to be finding favour, with the aforementioned photobooks, personalised calendars and greetings cards all benefiting from the combination of advanced variable-data and web-to-print systems.
“Applications like that still have a ‘wow’ factor,” adds Stabler. “It has grown over the last three years. People are now more aware that they can create their own photobooks or cards – my expectation is that the market will grow at an accelerated rate.”
On top of that, the 7000 may find additional applications in the on-demand books and magazine markets. The latter, in particular, might be considered uncharted territory for digital, but Stabler believes that there is a market with magazines of run lengths of 7,000 or less.
“If you look at specific applications, it makes sense to go digital,” adds Stabler. “The technology is very reliable, the economics have improved and the quality is very good. Also, this is a segment that is not commoditised.”
It’s a clear sign that digital print technology is approaching maturity with litho manufacturers scrutinising the latest developments with interest.
The 7000 is not the only heavy duty, industrial digital press in HP’s arsenal. However, it does give the manufacturer more confidence when going up against not only the giants of the digital sector but the previously untouchable litho market. That tipping point could be just around the corner.
SPECIFICATIONS
Max speed 120 A4 ppm
Average monthly page volume 3.5m
Max sheet size 330.2×482.6mm
Front end HP SmartStream Production Pro Print, Production Plus Print and Ultra Print
Price From £425,000
Contact HP 08452 704000 www.hp.com
XEROX iGEN 4
Xerox claims that its new flagship press has increased productivity by 25-35% through cutting downtime. Auto Density Control uses a high-resolution sensor to read colour patches on the imaging belt and the optional 364×571mm sheet is the biggest of any cut-sheet toner machine available on the market.
Max speed 110 A4 ppm
Average monthly page volumes 3.5m
Max sheet size 364×521mm (364×571mm sheet optional)
Front-end Xerox Freeflow, Creo, EFI Fiery
Price £380,000 including the engine and workflow
Contact Xerox 0870 873 4519 www.xerox.com
KODAK NEXPRESS S3000
Although Kodak unveiled the faster 120ppm S3600 press at Drupa last year, the 100ppm S3000 is the manufacturer’s main challenger to the iGen4 and the 7000. The NexPress has an optional fifth unit, which can be used for special colours and coating, including high-gloss flood coating.
Max speed 100 A4 ppm
Average monthly page volumes 2.2m
Max sheet size 520×356mm
Front-end V, Vcs, Vp
Price £299,000
Contact Kodak UK 020 8424 6514 www.graphics1.kodak.com
Tried & Tested: Xeikon 5000
Nosmot Gbadamosi, PrintWeek, 20 March 2009
This digital press’s ability to carve a market niche meant it prospered in an increasingly competitive market, discovers Nosmot Gbadamosi.
When Xeikon unveiled the 5000 in 2005, it was up against tough competition. The digital print market was showing signs of maturity and had already gained acceptance from many in the commercial sector.
It was a unique product, says Greg Neesham, UK sales director at Punch Graphix, the parent company of Xeikon. But we were still competing with the Xerox iGen3, HP Indigo 3050 and the Kodak NexPress.
Despite such strong rivals, the web-fed 5000 managed to carve out a niche for itself. The direct-mail sector was one
market that it appealed to, but there was an even bigger bonus for Xeikon: with the ability to handle substrates up
to 350gsm, the machine that evolved from Xeikon’s DCP 500D and the 100 series was also highly attractive to label and packaging printers.
Format flexibility
The Xeikon 5000 could handle paper widths of 500mm with virtually no restrictions in sheet length and accommodated formats up to A2 full-bleed or B2. The machine also came with a built-in densitometer, which reduced paper wastage. In addition, the 5000 had larger condition rollers.
But the two big selling points were, firstly, the option of a fifth colour, which could be a spot colour or clear ink for security printing. Xeikon currently offers two types of security toner (clear toner and white toner), which light up when exposed to UV light.
And secondly, the 5000 incorporated a new generation of form-adapted (FA) toner, which was added to the press in 2006. The Pantone-accredited toner was approved for indirect use on food products, a must for the packaging market. Better coverage also meant it used 11% less toner compared with Xeikon’s previous toners on similar jobs.
You were able to use less ink because it was rounded. This meant it printed on the page more smoothly and was a higher resolution, adds Neesham.
To date, there have been 30 machines sold in the UK and although the product has not been replaced, Xeikon’s next model up was the 6000 – a faster version of the 5000. While the 5000 could print at a speed of 130 pages per minute (ppm), the 6000 had a speed of 160ppm.
The Xeikon 8000, launched at Drupa last year, can go even quicker at 230ppm. The slimmer version also comes with an X-800 digital front-end that gets more out of high-end variable data printing.
Despite the launch of faster machines from Xeikon, the 5000 has been continually updated. In 2006, the resolution was doubled from 600dpi to 1,200dpi. You can still buy a machine with a 600dpi printhead, but the higher resolution printhead can be retrofitted on certain models, says Neesham.
Most of the refinements made to the 5000 have been software based, including improved functionality, which allows customers to print on a barcode for extra security.
According to Neesham, Xeikon doesn’t currently have many secondhand models. All the machines installed are still in use, but a used model would fetch around £220,000, he says.
Prices for new 5000s start from around £350,000. Machines bought new are sold with a 12-month warranty and service contracts are dependent on customer’s needs. There are 15 Punch Graphix engineers in the UK.
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