Revealed – top secret Sydney site for Color 1000
A no-go secure room at the Australian Epicentre housed the print engine at the centre of a worldwide launch.
Henryk Kraszewski, Marketing Manager for Production Colour Systems, (pictured) was a man with a secret. He was the only one with a key to the closed room in the heart of the Fuji Xerox Epicentre. For weeks no one else knew what was inside the sealed space, not the sales people or the technicians.
Today, with the worldwide launch of the Color 1000 Press, Henryk has thrown open the door and invited the industry and his colleagues in to view the machine. The official launch of the press that will be presented at this year’s IPEX brings to an end an extraordinary exercise in corporate product security.
Sydney was part of an extensive worldwide ramp up for the company’s most important product in years. Not even Xerox personnel in the USA, usually part of the close-knit cooperative team, knew that the Australian Epicentre was in on the testing programme.
Henryk was part of a select group around the world charged with trialling the machine, making sure it ran as expected and testing different grades of paper in preparation for the launch. The Color 1000 Press at 100 ppm, along with the slower version, Color 800 Press (80ppm), positions Fuji Xerox in the sweet spot of production digital printing.
The machine is a joint effort of Japan-based Fuji Xerox with design and toner development from the US-based Xerox. The result is a press that in appearance looks like a mini-iGen, while the production engine is a development of the successful 7000.
Check it out
Among the many new features on the Color 800/1000 Press is an optional clear dry ink station that prints a varnish effect either as a spot or as a full-page flood. In the pricing of the machine, which is likely to ballpark around half a million, there is no click charge for the clear toner. This is a graphic arts feature that opens a wide array of applications from photography to security printing.
Another advance is the new silicon coated Teflon belt technology that is designed to transfer energy more efficiently to fuse a wider range of stocks at rated speeds up to 350 gsm. This is coupled with a cooling module, which ensures the prints exit the press without excess heat.
The Color 800/1000 Press uses the US-developed low melt EA Dry Ink technology with no fuser oil. Chemically grown, its small, consistent particles produce a smooth offset-like finish. Color 800/1000 presses print at 2400 x 2400 dpi.
From today Fuji Xerox customers (and staff) will be able to inspect the new addition to the range. As for Henryk, he’s taken off for a well-deserved rest – or so he says.