Six new presses reinforces HP Indigo, and its local distributor, Currie Group, in top position across the widest range of printing applications.
Five new commercial print presses plus a new label machine were rolled out last week at the HP Indigo media conference in Israel. Designed to maintain the brand’s high-profile in the digital printing space, the new presses are bigger and faster, building on established models in the market and providing an upgrade path for just about every up sector. While most of them are incremental developments, there are at least two radically new presses – one commercial and one for labels.
Top of the range is the HP Indigo 50000, an oversized B1 (112 x 74cm) duplex roll-fed press designed for high-coverage jobs on virtually any type of paper. Powering along at 42 m/min it’s output is measured at 760 pages per minute in full colour (142 M/min in monochrome).
The giant digital web press is the largest HP Indigo has ever produced and is aimed squarely at high-volume producers of everything from catalogues to brochures, even newspapers with lots of colour at a stretch. At the HP Indigo R&D facility at Ness Ziona, the huge press filled the room, reinforcing the distance the technology has come since it first started 20 years ago.
The other three new commercial presses being manufactured at Kiryat Gat in the south of Israel – the HP Indigo 12000, HP Indigo 7900, and HP Indigo 5900 – are all based on existing models but re-engineered to take advantage of the increased productivity that is a feature of the range. A new Indigo high-definition laser array capable of 1,600 dot-per-inch resolution is transforming the already high image quality to another level. The new press iterations allow the company to come to drupa with a mostly refreshed line-up of machines.
The other radically different press is the new HP Indigo 8000 label press. On the surface it appears to be simply two of the best-selling WS6800 presses linked together. While this holds true superficially, the technology that doubles the web throughput is quite innovative. It goes from a printing speed that topped out at 40 mpm to 80 mpm in full colour. Interspacing a press length of blank space between every print from the first engine, sensors position the unprinted section in the following engine with remarkable accuracy. Hard to explain, but when you see it it’s quite impressive. It also lifts HP Indigo into another level of label production.
It complements the big folding carton press, the HP Indigo 30000 – one of which is installed at Pemara in Victoria – as well as the HP Indigo 20000 for flexible packaging and labels in fulfilling the brand’s commitment to industrial printing.
All the presses will be at drupa, where HP is the largest exhibitor.
In addition to its HP Indigo presses the company will be showing its large format Latex printing range as well as the PageWide and Scitex industrial print engines. 3d printers with the new Multi-Jet Fusion technology will be sure to attract plenty of attention.
Rob Dunnett, CEO Currie Group, is expecting a good roll-up of Australian and New Zealand customers to the HP stand. While he's still counting numbers he says he's impressed by the enthusiasm of the local industry, and especially HP Indigo customers, to attend the show.
"We're taking plenty of appointments not only for HP but also the the Horizon and Scodix stands from customers. It's going to be a big Australian and New Zealand show," he said.
Hard to doubt HP’s claim to be the largest supplier to the graphics industry, as it comes to drupa with a new identity, HP Inc. following the corporate divide last year.