The P5 Pack series is a printing option tailored to the production of corrugated displays and packaging. The P5 350 HS Pack combines the versatility of a P5 hybrid printing system with the ability to print on a wide range of materials used in the POP/POS and retail markets.

Andrea Riccardi, head of product management, graphics at Durst, commented, ‘The modular design of the P5 technology platform enables us to develop new products for a wide range of applications. We identify market requirements and incorporate them into our development process. The P5 350 HS Pack is another result of our customer-oriented approach and expands our P5 portfolio.’

As part of the P5 Pack series, Durst is introducing a new ink set that is tailored to the requirements of display and packaging printing. The Luvera LED ink is characterised by low odour and high abrasion resistance. With this new ink, Durst has covered a wider colour gamut to give displays and packaging a high level of vibrancy. The Luvera inks are also Ikea and IOT-Mat compliant. 

The P5 Pack series is equipped with a material guide and a pressure rollers system, aiming to ease production. The series’ automated corrugated edge holders avoid collisions between the print heads and the substrates. The width and height are set automatically by selecting the media channel in the software, reducing set-up time.

In addition, the vacuum system increases the suction power on the print belt by approximately 40% compared to the conventional systems. This means that heavy and warped corrugated boards can be flattened and printed cleanly.

The P5 Pack series also includes the sensor-controlled Multitrack six function, which is managed by six independent printing queues, enabling up to six corrugated boards to be printed in parallel by manual feeding.

To maximise production potential of the printing system, the P5 Pack series, as all P5 printing systems, can be equipped with the proprietary Durst Workflow Rip/colour management and analytics software such as the Durst Automat MT.

With this new option for the automatic feeding and stacking of boards, up to four lanes can be processed in parallel. The multi-lane operation of the Automat MT works together with the Multitrack six function of the P5 350 HS Pack and is said to result in clean and fast media separation, even with difficult synthetic boards and thin substrates.

Continuous and stable production is ensured by pneumatically controlled flaps that prevent the materials from slipping during the loading and unloading process. The entire printing process is continuously monitored by surveillance cameras. The feed and delivery tables have also been further developed to ensure smooth transportation of the boards.

‘With the Automat MT, we can map different levels of automation, ranging from three quarters to full automation. This allows us to raise our customers’ productivity to a new level,’ stated Christian Harder, vice president of sales at Durst Group.

The availability of the P5 Pack series is planned for Q3 2024.

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Making its worldwide debut in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the 3.3m Vutek Q3h XP hybrid flatbed/roll-fed LED printer is designed to provide high-quality imaging and production-level printing for faster turnarounds, according to EFI. The printer is available with four (CMYK) or six (CMYK, lc, lk) colours and optional white and clear inks.

Featuring an industrial build for multiple-shift operation and 24/7 printing, the Q3h XP printer produces up to 905sqm/hr, equivalent to up to 96 8 x 4ft boards per hour, and features advanced board/sheet and roll-to-roll media handling and high-speed automation options, to minimise labour requirements.

The new 3.2m EFI Pro 33r roll-to-roll LED printer is based on the successful Pro 32r+ model, with a significant enhancement to overall printer performance – up to 35% faster in PoP mode – and higher imaging quality, reliability and dot accuracy with the new 5pl Ricoh Gen 6 printheads. Standard features that improve efficiency include an integrated mesh kit for printing on porous substrates, a wrinkle analyser to help avoid printhead strikes, built-in backlit proofing lights, and a built-in Fiery digital front end (DFE).

Value-added options that add versatility and further efficiency include white and clear (UltraClear Coat) inks, Y-slitters, automatic blockout and backlit printing. With print speeds up to 260sqm/hour, the Pro 33r platform is intended to help customers be more competitive and profitable, win more jobs, confidently commit to larger capacity runs, and lower their operational costs, says EFI.

Other exhibits on EFI’s stand at Fespa include the 558sqm/hr Vutek Q3r roll-to-roll LED printer, Fiery DFEs, and samples from the Nozomi 14000 SD single-pass corrugated printer and the EFI Reggiani EcoTerra pigment-based textile printing system.

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Aimed at the corrugated packaging market, the EFI Nozomi 14000 LED leverages EFI’s single-pass UV LED inkjet digital direct-to-board printing technology, which has been coupled with improvements that bring enhanced productivity, reliability, value and flexibility to the industrial packaging segment.

Available with up to six colours, including white, the 1.4m -wide press runs at up to 100 linear m/min, with new productivity modes offering ‘remarkable’ throughput while meeting corrugated packaging manufacturers’ needs for more compact production lines. The Nozomi 14000 LED also boasts a robust design for heavy industrial use, high reliability and high productivity. It is claimed to offer packaging converters high uptime plus the versatility to print nearly all board flute types, with enhancements to automatically reject damaged boards without stopping print production.

The new press is to take the award-winning and proven high-volume EFI Nozomi capabilities used by packaging businesses worldwide to an even broader swath of the packaging industry, with businesses from independent box plants and start-ups to integrated paper companies set to find the EFI Nozomi 14000 LED a, ‘durable, reliable, sustainable and efficient digital alternative to analogue corrugated production,’ stated EFI.

Users can choose from a range of configurations to complement individual needs, with single or dual bottom feeder options, a roller coater capable of applying varying amounts of primer, an optional varnish station for a range of gloss or satin finishes, and full or bundle stacker options. The EFI Nozomi 14000 LED press’s high viscosity inks provide ‘outstanding’ colour registration and coverage, and its high-speed, non-clogging, high-performance jetting printheads deliver accuracy and smooth colour gradients.

Evandro Matteucci, vice president and general manager, Packaging & Building Materials at EFI, commented, ‘This next evolution in EFI’s breakthrough Nozomi technology delivers a tailor-made solution to meet the current demands of the industrial packaging segment. This remarkable new press builds on the industry leading technology that defines our Nozomi platform to balance the many requirements crucial to successful day-to-day corrugated packaging operations in a manufacturing plant’

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Speaking first for EPS, CEO Gaby Matsliach explained that ‘expansion and velocity’ were key to the new company’s plans. Noting the confluence of pandemic, labour and supply issues, he suggested that investment in transformational technology would produce greater benefits in an unpredictable environment and stressed the company’s expertise and aim to be ‘the right partner’.

On the product side, Mr Matsliach and Nick Bekovitch introduced updates to iQuote, Print Flow and Auto-Count, with the latter two gaining a ‘4D’ suffix that Mr Benkovitch explained represented the four ‘dimensions’ of integration with third-party software as well as EFI’s offerings (achieved via the eFlow connectivity ‘backbone’), automation based on rules-based logic, communication of real-time data across the enterprise and analysis of that data.

Updated user interfaces are intended to bring a ‘modern but familiar’ look not only to these ‘enabling applications’ but also to the Radius and Monarch ERP software at the heart of the Packaging and Enterprise Suites respectively, while also introducing a degree of consistency across all of them. This will be achieved via a ‘phased delivery’ but Mr Benkovitch reported that customers were excited to see the new look. The EPS line is moving into the Cloud but software licensing terms remain flexible to suit user requirements, according to Mr Matsliach.

On the EFI side, new products in the inkjet printer business include the Pro 30h, a sub-US $200,000 3.2m UV hybrid printer that prints at up to 1200dpi with 7pl drops and supports white ink for expanded application versatility, including high margin work such as printing on leather. Packaging is is key target sector for EFI this year and to support this, a new corrugated printer, the MCORR is being added to the Nozomi line. Expected in the spring, the new machine will be a shuttle design rather than a single-pass but will set the entry investment level around the $1 million mark, compared to $3 – $5 million for the Nozomis.

Scott Schinlever, COO of EFI’s global inkjet business,  stressed the lessons learned from the experience of Nozomi users had resulted in significant reliability and uptime improvements. He also commented on the energy consumption benefits of LED UV curing, while acknowledging that the company would also be working on aqueous inks ‘in major ways’ to address food packaging applications. An aim for EFI in the packaging sector is to replace 10% of new offset and flexo placements within the next two or three years.

Updating on the Fiery part of the business, COO Toby Weiss said that during the quieter pandemic periods the engineers had ‘had their foot to the metal’ adding new features and improving performance in job execution, boot-up and user response time to meet increased pressures in production caused by the pandemic and labour shortage issues. A key new product is Fiery Impress, effectively a scalable and flexible off-the-shelf DFE solution for manufacturers with very specific applications and/or small numbers of units that would not normally be cost-effective for EFI to support via the normal OEM route; EFI will offer advice on which functionality is appropriate and anticipates selling to manufacturers of equipment in which imprinting is a secondary requirement. It is currently being tested at one such site and will be generally available ‘soon’.

The FS500 Pro is a new high speed DFE designed to support high speed cut-sheet and continuous feed inkjet presses, while Fiery Prep-It is a nesting and material optimisation tool for wide-format print that Mr Weiss said is now not only faster than previously but faster than any competing application. He also stressed the longer-term benefits of the Fiery platform in multi-printer sites, where the commonality of interface and operation makes bringing in new printers of any type simpler in terms of operator training and consistency of production and quality of output.

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Targeted at the high end of the signage and display market, the new model is 30% faster than the original Jeti Tauro introduced in 2018 and upgraded almost a year ago with the introduction of the four-colour version and additional automation options, all of which are also available for this new model. An upgradeable ‘entry-level’ model, the Jeti Tauro H3300 S, was added later in 2020.

Agfa says that ‘every component… is geared towards sustaining highly productive, reliable print operations with low maintenance requirements and high uptime’ and cites a high-speed auto-loader and large ink tanks in support of this. The H3300 UHS (UHS standing for ultra high speed) is also said to be suitable for printing on corrugated cardboard packaging, expanding the machine’s potential applications, as does the master roll-to-roll configuration which supports both single- and dual-roll printing, with an optional camera for accurate double-sided printing of block-out media.

The Tauro H3300 UHS uses Agfa’s Anuvia UV LED inks, which are Greenguard Gold-certified, and for which Agfa claims lowest ink consumption on the market. It is driven by Agfa’s Asanti workflow software.

‘The Jeti Tauro was already a synonym for highly productive hybrid printing with advanced automation, yet with the Jeti Tauro H3300 UHS LED, we have raised the bar even more,’ commented Reinhilde Alaert, product manager Sign & Display at Agfa. ‘When developing this new flagship, we went all-out to make it fit for extreme workloads. On top of that, it is a versatile all-in-one machine that can print rigids and sheets as well as roll materials at the highest quality and the lowest ink consumption.’

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Called the PKG-675i, the new printer has been developed and built by Portuguese wide-format and label printer manufacturer Mtex (whose New Solution digital label press line is also OEM’d by Konica Minolta) in collaboration with KM and is distributed exclusively through Konica Minolta in EMEA as well as the Americas.

The printer uses aqueous inks with FDA and equivalent approvals, which make it suitable for food packaging such as pizza boxes, and prints at 1600 x 1600dpi to a width of 1067mm across a maximum media width of 1200mm, at speeds up to 18m/min (in ‘low’ 1600 x 800dpi resolution, half that at full resolution). The colour set is CMY plus double black channels in order to get good density of colour images on higher quality white-laminated media and reflecting the reality that much print on natural kraft board is black-only. Five Memjet continuous-flow thermal inkjet print heads are used to achieve the quality and productivity in a single-pass design, though KM also said that this would make a white ink option impossible due to the required viscosity. Mtex president and founder Eloi Ferreira said that the company is looking at alternative ways to bring white ink into this sort of application.

Media transport is via belts that are wider and longer than in the NS Multi device previously available from Mtex, which has achieved some 130 installations and ‘had a good response’, according to Mr Ferreira. These are assisted by a vacuum system to keep the media in place throughout the feed-in, imaging and output stages, and further complemented by a cleaner/ioniser to remove dust that might clog printheads from the the substrate before it passes under the printheads. Board up to nearly 16mm thick is supported and a small degree of curvature can be tolerated. The media transport does not use crush wheels, so the substrate is not damaged.

The PKG-675i can print on flat sheets or pre-cut and scored boxes, coated or uncoated. Higher quality results are possible on coated and media settings profiles for different job types can be stored via the Windows-based operating system. No loading automation options are presently offered, as Konica Minolta says that it is aiming for an attractive price point for commercial printers and label converters to diversify their offering, rather than appeal to high volume packaging suppliers.

Applications in the range from one to 400 or 500 boxes are envisioned, with the ability to personalise via discount coupons or QR codes for easy re-ordering supported through the Caldera Rip that is used to drive it; this also handles colour management functions. Konica Minolta and Mtex presented a grid of ‘real life’ job costs that suggest that the savings on producing in-house with the PKG-675i could amount to over two Euros per finished box (on runs of 400 or 500) compared to outsourcing digital production. UK pricing for the new machine is £95,000.

The PKG-675i is available immediately.

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The ‘Plus’ model builds on the performance features of the Nozomi C18000 with significant improvements to deliver greater productivity, quality and versatility for post-print corrugated packaging and display operations.

Key enhancements for the 71in-wide, direct-to-board LED UV inkjet printer include a new advanced transport feed and patented vacuum table systems that eliminate warping while maximising printer productivity and uptime. The Nozomi C18000 Plus has an improved post-print quality inspection system to help users monitor quality and quickly identify inkjet nozzle issues or other defects.

The printer can now detect and recover from jams within seconds, with automated continuation of jobs in sequence – an important factor in variable-data work. An improved rush-proof feature can generate and output a proof within 90 seconds while another job is running on the printer.

Operating at speeds up to 75 linear m/min, and producing up to 10,000 890 x 890mm boards per hour two-up, new coater options include a quick-change anilox coater for improved performance. In addition to its standard CMYK inkset, the printer is available with optional orange, violet or white inks for an imaging gamut of up to 97% of Pantone Colors.

Nozomi C18000 Plus also includes important VDP, ink savings, and Cloud-based management capabilities for the printer’s EFI Fiery digital front end (DFE).

Job processing is cited as 5% faster thanks to the latest version of the EFI Fiery NZ-1000 DFE. In addition to the speed improvement, the blade-server based DFE features Adobe PDF Print Engine 5 for quick, high-impact colour rendering and smoother edges on graphics.

The Fiery NZ-1000 DFE Smart Ink Estimator tool accurately analyses image data for more-precise control of ink costs. Fiery Edge, EFI’s next-generation profiling technology for Fiery driven printers, is included as well. Fiery Edge provides powerful ink saving technology that combines GCR and black generation controls with proprietary technologies so users can further reduce ink costs with no visible loss to image quality. Plus, a Fiery Intensify within Edge is a reliable, high-quality rendering intent innovation that can increase colour and saturation while maintaining neutral greys and realistic skin tones.

Integration with EFI IQ, a new suite of free and paid applications, gives Nozomi C18000 Plus users the ability to better manage their operations by extracting value from operational data. This includes the EFI IQ Dashboard for a personalised view of the day’s digital printing activities; EFI Insight for deep historical data in an easy-to-use, interactive environment; and EFI Notify, which enables automatic distribution of reports and provides users important alerts for production-blocking events.

Evandro Matteucci, vice president and general manager, Packaging and Building Materials, EFI, commented, ‘Without exception, users worldwide consistently achieve double-digit increases in production year over year thanks to the Nozomi C18000’s ability to meet or exceed brands’ strict throughput and quality requirements.

‘The corrugated packaging world has never been the same after the appearance of EFI Nozomi technology, and we are excited to help our customers achieve even greater successes with the new EFI Nozomi C18000 Plus.’

Nozomi C18000 Plus is available immediately, while current EFI Nozomi users can purchase the Plus model as a field upgrade.

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