Product watch: Top five of the week

Speedmaster CD 102  6 + LX - Foilstar equipment

The Speedmaster CD 102 six colour + LX - Foilstar will be installed at Rave Scan in New Delhi. Rave Scan has been a Heidelberg loyalist. Their press ops have been bolstered by post-press from Muller Martini which includes the new generation Presto II.

 

Watch this space for more.

 

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Edale FL 5 Carton, FL5 Flex Pack and FDC 510

The talk of India is the Edale kit which is being installed at Kolkata-based NAP Printers in Kolkata even as you read this.

 

The kit supplied and installed by Kolkata-based Printers Supply, Edale's distributors in India, is a flexo and carton packaging kit. The highlights are: FL 5 Carton, a folding line; FL5 Flex Pack, a label and packaging printing press and the FDC 510, a flatbed die-cutting machine.

 

The FL5 Carton can handle substrates from 60gsm to 600gsm with 430mm to 510mm web widths at a speed close to 200m/min. The FL5 is a customised label and package printing press capable of taking web widths 430mm to 510mm with susbtrate thicknesses of 12-450 microns. The printing speed is 200m/min. The post-press kit from Edale, FDC die-cutter, comes with a retro-fitting option onto an existing web-fed press or to an unwind stand for off-line conversion of conventionally or digitally pre-printed webs.

 

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Autoprint's Repetto

Just learnt that there are five Repetto die-punching machines installed in the Mumbai market. This kit can hold a sheet of up to a maximum of 19x26inch, and is capable of speeds of 4000 sheets an hour.

 

The birth of the Repetto is interesting. In the words of C N Ashok of Autoprint: "When we spoke to our customers about the idea of manufacturing die-punching machines, two machines came up for consideration; it was the Bobst, which is a higher-end punching machine, and the other was a manual hand-fed machine which had no safety features embedded in it. We thought, why not manufacture a machine which is between these two spaces and which any printer could easily embark on in terms of cost and also safety. That’s when we opted for the idea to build the Repetto die-punching machine."

 

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Kodak's Prinergy

The Prinergy is perhaps one of the most popular workflows in India.

 

Now the proud house of Kodak has delivered Prinergy Workflow 7 which increases the level of automation in every core function of the printing process – job creation, collaboration, file processing, trapping, proofing, imposition and colour management.

 

The things that have impressed me are: the Preflight+ which allows the integration of callas preflight profiles for improved quality control and reduced manual touch points. Then there is the Layered PDF Versioning Enhancements – Improved error detection and better control over multiple layers of files making versioned printing more flexible, reliable and repeatable than ever.

 

The Prinergy 7 also enables centralised control over digital and conventional presses and equipment to deliver automated production of all job sizes to a fleet of Kodak and third-party digital presses and computer-to-plate (CTP) devices.

 

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Quadtech's service support

This is not a product. But a technical support agreement programme. This comes from the stable of US-based Quadtech who are offering a fully comprehensive “Titanium” level.

 

Service Advantage allows printers to choose cost-effective levels of service and support agreements to match budgets and business needs. The program also includes discounts for software upgrades, spare parts, field service labour rates, training, 24/7/365 technical phone support, and system-specific preventive maintenance.

 

The new Titanium level caps the annual system service budget, and provides top priority remote and on-site service, including technician travel costs. According to a company press releases, "The comprehensive plan was created to provide printers with total peace of mind that their service needs are covered—with no budget surprises—and their overall plan contract spend is much more cost-effective than purchasing service, support, spare parts, and maintenance off-contract on an as-needed basis."