Print 09 kicks off in Chicago

Tradeshow, Print 09 gets off to a cracking start. Blogger, Garry Muratore reports live from the show.

Arakisinkjet makes global debut
New Australian inkjet technology Arakisinkjet has made a successful international debut at Chicago. Arakisinkjet is a new double-sided inkjet technology developed and built by Mark Chinchen. Many will know Chinchen from the early days of imagesetter RIP technology with Hyphen. In recent years Chinchen has integrated off-the-shelf inkjet engines into turnkey double-sided imposition proofers. 

Pictured: Mark Chinchen from Arakis, taking Australian inkjet technology to the world.

This was Chinchen’s eleventh time in Chicago for this show and this time he bought with him the new inkjet technology which has been entirely designed and built in Australia. The Arakisinkjet is a purpose-built single pass double-sided inkjet engine primarily aimed at large format imposition proofing.

“The approach in the past was to integrate off the shelf technology from other vendors for such applications,” said Chinchen. “By developing a specific system from the ground up we have a greater control of the finished product.”

The technology not only has application in proofing but can also be applied to the double-sided banner market being able to print on vinyl, cotton and a range of large format display materials. Chinchen has been more than happy with the product's initial public outing announcing several orders in the United States planned all ready. Chinchen can be contacted at www.arakis.com.au.

Screen widens its reach
Japanese equipment manufacturer Screen kicked off by announcing the biggest digital printing order seen at an international trade show for years. Screen USA President Mike Fox confirmed that the US subsidary of the iconic Japanese brand has taken an order for a range of digital print equipment with a total value of US$ 25 million. The as yet announced purchaser is planning to create multiple greenfield print sites across the US and possibly offshore as well.

"This company will be a US$100 million operation and will not contain any traditional print equipment, the only traditional metal will be the finishing equipment," said Fox, who was guarded when pushed by journalists to name the new company pointing out that they had only reached an agreement to make the initial announcement a few hours earlier. "The announcement will be made by them to who they are and where their sites are in the next month or two as the new equipment is commissioned,” he added.

Pictured: The Screen Truepress Jet520, which prints up to 420 feet per minute in full color, can function as a high-quality, variable data printing system and as a high-speed, on-demand printing system.

Much of the this large order will be made up of Screen's Truepress Jet520.The Truepress Jet520 has a print width of 20 inches and a paper width of 20.4 inches. It prints up to 420 feet-per-minute, the equivalent of 100,000 8 1/2 x 11-inch impressions per hour. With a maximum imaging resolution of 720 dpi x 720 dpi and grayscale printing, Screen claim the Truepress Jet520 provides the highest resolution of any single-pass inkjet digital printing system currently on the market. Fox also made light of the recent announcement by HP regarding installations of their high-speed inkjet web technology. "They claim they have three installs we have 200 like the other markets (CTP) we operate in we plan to be number-one,” he said.


More updates will come from Muratore, who has taken up blogging after a 30-year reign at Agfa. Click here to visit Muratore’s blog and here to view his Twitter.