Kodak unveils Stream technology full-colour press, Prosper

Patrick Howard reports on the high-speed, full-colour inkjet engine that is poised to dramatically narrow the gap between offset and digital printing.

The prospect of digital technologies being able to rival offset printing came a step closer with the unveiling of the first commercial Prosper press using Kodak’s revolutionary Stream inkjet technology. Prosper is the product name for the commercialisation of the company’s inkjet technology unveiled at drupa last year.

At an industry analyst briefing in Dayton Ohio, Kevin Joyce, vice-president worldwide sales and marketing for digital printing, led a team that presented Kodak’s range of technologies. From the NexPress through the Versamark range to the release of the high-speed Stream technology presses, Joyce positioned the company as a leader in digital printing technology. He also announced the first signing of a four-colour Prosper press to Webcrafters, a US book printer.

Stream technology is designed to get as close as possible to offset in speed and quality. The quality comparison is with 175-lpi screening (600 dpi) and for my money, the samples shown to us at Dayton were practically indistinguishable from offset.

(Photo Caption) Kevin Joyce and Patrick Howard with the Prosper press in Dayton, Ohio.
The other notable aspect is the speed of the press, pushing paper through at more than 600 fpm (182mpm) or 1800 A4 images per minute duplex. This is well within offset speeds.
The continuous inkjet technology uses pigment-based inks that contain much less moisture than either thermal or piezo inks and so dries quicker. Because the inkjet head is continuously filled with liquid it does not require the same amount of additional liquids to keep it from clogging.

The system is built on a 10.56cm (4.16 inch) wide print head, which is being deployed as a monochrome bolt-on variable data printer (Prosper S10) for web presses. In this configuration it can image at 1,000 (fpm).

The full-colour press, which prints 24 inches wide, is going to sell for somewhere between $3-$4 million, although the company is close-lipped on details. It is targeted initially at direct mail, books, catalogues, transactional and transpromo markets. It is claimed to have running costs 70% -80% lower than other digital printing technologies.

So what’s the clever part of the system? Curiously enough it’s in the name Stream. Because the inkjet nozzles produce a steady stream of ink that is expelled under pressure (20 metres per second), it is able to deliver more ink, faster than alternative drop-on-demand techniques. The fluid stream is broken into equal-sized droplets by thermal energy before being deflected as required by airflow.

This means a single array of inkjets is sufficient for single pass imaging as well providing an inkjet head that, because it has no mechanical parts, has a longer life than DOD heads.

Stream inkjet has the potential to be a game changer in a number of markets. Yes, it requires inkjet-treated paper to produce its best results and this will raise the cost but this is less than imagined when compared to high-quality offset papers.

At this stage Kodak has decided not to target the newspaper market, although it will undoubtedly address it further down the track. The Prosper press, which will be officially launched at Print 09 in Chicago in September, is for the commercial printing industry. At this stage Kodak is presenting its Versamark VL-series systems as the optimum solution for newspapers.

For further discussion on the Dayton analyst’s conference see the August issue of Print21 magazine.