Richard Danon, Dantex, and John Furley, JF Machines.
Don’t be deceived by the size of smaller label printing system. They are extremely productive and will supply high quality labels on demand, be it for GHS compliance, a local micro brand or wine labels in-house at the winery.
Neuralog LP has introduced its new line of printers for the GHS and prime label markets. The NeuraLabel 300x printer uses HP PageWide technology to offer a cost-effective, fast, flexible and scalable option for industries that require on-demand digital colour label printing.
‘With HP PageWide technology at the core of our printers, our customers are getting products that deliver superior quality with fast turnaround and easy operation,’ said president and CTO Ken Land. ‘Through our collaboration with HP, we are able to offer world class solutions with a lower cost of ownership and virtually no setup requirements.’
The printer produces labels at speeds of 30.5 m/min in a resolution of 2400 x 1200 dpi. Utilising water-resistant pigment inks enables printing on a wide variety of label substrates, suitable to any application, including BS5609 certified moisture and abrasion resistant synthetic media. It also offers the flexibility to print on pre die-cut fan-folded or rolled continuous substrates, from 3 to 8.5 inches wide, and sheet fed media is also supported.
The NeuraLabel 300x easily scales from a standalone desktop label printing platform to a web press attached to a complete label finishing system. It supports most popular Windows-based label authoring software and variable data printing and is covered by a two-year on-site service warranty.
Space friendly
Crewe-based Active Brand Concepts Ltd has taken delivery of the first Afinia DLP-2000 label printing system in the UK. The company specialises in brand development and also manufactures bespoke chemical cleaning products.
While ABC has larger print runs produced out of house, the company needed a solution for runs up to 5000 labels and decided that the DLP-2000 was a cost effective way of keeping smaller jobs in house.
Priced at under £48,000 installed, the label printing system measures a space friendly 1650 x 840 mm. The memjet-powered engine prints at 1600 dpi at a speed of 9.1 m/min with a web width of 245 mm. The die-cutting is performed by a RotoMetrics cylinder which accepts flexible dies up to 12 inches in length, for inline printing, lamination and die-cutting.
The DLP-2000 can also convert stock to blank labels, ready for printing. When fitted with a 14 inch flexible die, the DLP-2000 can run in full rotary mode at a rate of over 140 ft/min for this application. By adding a Wasatch SoftRIP printers can dial-in precise, consistent colour and utilise ICC profiles to more closely match the output of traditional flexographic and offset presses.
In total, 14 Afinia machines have been sold in the US and South America, while three have been installed in Europe since the end of 2014. A further seven are currently on order, three of which are going into the UK.
New partnership
Dantex has launched the PicoColour II high speed UV inkjet digital label press, developed together with JF Machines Limited (JFM), now a part of the Dantex Group.
JFM was established in 1989 and has been manufacturing narrow width digital label printing presses under the PicoColour name for a number of years. Founder John Furley, who is a mechanical and electronic systems engineer, will act as product designer and continue to advance the development of the PicoColour range.
The press has a printing width of 210mm and runs up to 35 m/min printing CMYK plus white in a single pass. If used with optional corona treatment, the PicoColour II can print on both filmic based media and paper.
Richard Danon, Dantex group chairman, said, ‘This acquisition has brought Dantex the expertise necessary to be able to build state of the art label printing presses using high speed UV inkjet technology. The PicoColour II will be our first offering and it will be launched at Labelexpo 2015.’
Sales of the press will begin in the UK, followed by Germany, France, Poland, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and the United States. It will be available from September 2015.
Epson’s new ColourWorks C7500.
New from Epson is the ColorWorks C7500 compact colour label printer which incorporates the company’s new permanent PrecisionCore Micro TFP line printhead, developed for use in the commercial grade, industrial labelling.
Designed to last the lifetime of the printer, the printhead offers the ability to print 600 x 1200 dpi quality labels on a wide variety of materials, including matte, gloss and synthetic media, in a wide range of formats and sizes up to four inches wide at 18 m/min. High quality results are achieved through the use of Variable Sized Droplet technology which produces ink droplets in a range of precisely controlled sizes. In addition, Nozzle Verification Technology and dot substitution helps prevent misprints and dead pixels to ensure consistent printouts. The printer uses DURABrite Ultra pigment ink in CMYK and features an auto-cutter as standard plus an optional rewinder for roll-to-roll printing.
David Spratt, head of business systems, Epson UK, said, ‘The C7500 eliminates the costs associated with pre-printing, by producing short run, customised labels on demand for a variety of applications such as product packaging, food, beverages, EU Energy Labels and GHS labels.’
New levels
In July, Impression Technology Europe (ITE) was appointed EMEA master distributor of RTI Digital’s Vortex label printers. The companies also announced that they plan to develop a digital print workflow solution using memjet technology.
‘All indications currently point to the fact the market is now ready for complete digital label printing solutions. This is one of the main reasons why we believe our partnership with RTI digital will be so successful. By paring our flagship Eclipse LF3 digital finishing system with the Vortex 850R, we are able to offer not only bespoke on demand cut profiles, but also the ability to laminate, which ensures the water-based memjet labels are able to cope with outdoor conditions,’ said Nathan Daniel, who is the global sales manager for label equipment at ITE
Having previously worked as sales manager for CS Labels, Mr Daniel has had experience of both larger industrial digital presses and smaller ones. He commented, ‘I believe short run, desktop digital is going through the same extreme growth as found with the larger side of the market. The fact that you can own a complete digital finishing system for under £25K only grows the market further, and benefits the larger companies that have already invested in the larger machinery. If an end user purchases one of these systems, and gets used to the idea of digital and what is involved, once their business reaches the volumes where a smaller machine is no longer viable, the logical thing to do is to move onto a larger digital trade printer.’
He concluded, ‘Labelexpo will be the first time the industry will be able to see the Vortex working with Caldera RIP technology, thus enabling spot colours and much greater colour control. This advance is a clear indication of where short run print technology is going.’
Compliance
Primera Technology recently introduced the LX2000e Color Label Printer, which is its fastest ever desktop colour printer. Running at speeds of up to 9.12 m/min that is about 25% faster than the company’s best-selling LX900e printer.
Printing CMYK pigment-based ink for stronger resistance to UV light, chemicals and water, the printer has a built in ‘pizza-wheel’ cutter, colour display, viewing window to see label stock levels and wired Ethernet or USB 2.0 and wireless connection options.
Mark D Strobel, vice president of sales and marketing, said, ‘With large ink tanks, we can offer an extremely competitive cost per label. We have pigment ink that has far more resistance to water, chemicals and UV light. Add to that our connection options, along with 210 mm print width and you’ve got everything most companies would ever need.’
Typical applications include product labels for coffee, wine, water, bakery, confectionary, meat, cheese and hundreds of other specialty and gourmet foods.
With its pigment ink and Primera’s Tuffcoat Extreme PolyJet material, the LX2000e has already passed section 3, BS5609 testing, for GHS compliance.
