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The first few days at drupa have been busy and well attended. Total occupied exhibition space has been reduced, to the delight of the software and paper vendors who finally got rid of the unpopular upper floors in Hall 7. The number of exhibitors remained relatively stable with 1,837, and we wouldn’t be surprised if visitor numbers will turn out to be on the rise. The industry’s multinational players appear to be upbeat, and there are many new developments to be discovered in all printing segments. From Asia, several new exhibitors are showcasing CtP systems, diecutters, cutting and milling plotters, curing systems and consumables.
More than at any drupa before, we are seeing interesting developments in packaging printing, not only in a variety of equipment for the printing and converting of folding cartons, but moreover in corrugated and flexible packaging. Corrugated board, in stronger and finer flutes, is increasingly being used in POP and POS, and a large range of printing and converting systems for corrugated can be seen at drupa.
Digital corrugated presses
Durst is showcasing its first singlepass industrial inkjet press for the corrugated segment, the Rho 130 SPC with print speeds of up to 9,350 square metres per hour at widths of 1300 mm and a resolution of 800 dpi for board of up to 12 mm thick. Screen and BHS Corrugated announced the establishment of a joint-venture, Screen GP (Screen Graphic and Precision Solutions) which together with Screen subsidiary Inca Digital is to develop a high-volume inline digital printing solution for the corrugated board industry. HP doesn’t have its 15000 press for corrugated on the showfloor, but its T1100S inkjet press for corrugated developed with KBA can be found at the KBA stand.
EFI also announced the development of a single-pass inkjet press for corrugated, the Nozomi C18000 with LED imaging for boards of up to 1.8 x 3 metres. With a projected throughput of up to 8,100 square metres an hour, i.e., some 9,000 boards of 90 x 60 cm per hour can be printed.
Flexible packaging presses and laminators
For flexible packaging, there is a panoply of new presses and laminators on show from Bobst, Cerutti, Comexi, Convertech, DCM, Edale, Heidelberg-Gallus, HP, KBAFlexotecnica, KYMC, nordmeccanica, Omet, Soma, TKM, Uteco, W&H and others, as well as material developments from a large number of substrate, adhesives and ink suppliers. Worth noting is Comexi’s presence at drupa, with two central drum (CI) presses shown with robotdriven sleeve changeover, and the water-based Nexus L20000 laminator developed in a collaboration with HP for the latter’s Indigo 20000 flexible packaging digital press which is printing, laminating and converting standup pouches in consecutive production.
Automation at Comexi
Comexi is demonstrating new versions of its CI flexo and offset presses, each with an industrial robot executing the entire changeover of the printing sleeves which are moved and stored at motorised trolleys near the press. With an installed base of 50 presses worldwide, the F1 is Comexi’s 600 metres-per-minute flexo press, which can be configured with 8 or 10 colors for printing widths of up to 1350 mm. Comexi’s CI8, a 7-color CI offset press with printing speeds of up to 300 metres per minute at widths of up to 1100 mm, is being shown in an equally robotized and automated version. Comexi also introduced a new gravure press, the R2, which the company considers an entry-level gravure press for flexible packaging with printing widths up to 920 mm and speeds up to 400 metres per minute.
Omet has three presses at drupa, the 850 mm wide Varyflex V2, the 370 mm wide iFlex and the 430 mm wide xFlex X6. The Varyflex V2 for hybrid offset and flexo printing has new sleeve features and an improved electron-beam drying system. The xFlex, like the iFlex, which was introduced a year ago, is a narrowweb label press this time shown at the Landa stand equipped with a Landa metallizing module where a nano metallic ink replaces foils for producing metallic effects.
