Xaar will establish its position as the premier independent supplier of industrial inkjet printheads at Labelexpo Americas from September 9-11 in Chicago. Four leading label specialists are demonstrating innovative systems featuring the Xaar 1001 head, printing high quality color labels. The StorkDSI and the JF Machines Narrow Web Press will soon make their American debut.

In addition EFI is showing the award winning Jetrion 4000, while Nilpeter/FFEI displays the quality of its new CASLON digital print module. These new printers demonstrate the benefits of printing labels digitally in high quality color: cost effective printing of variable data, and short run customization. The EFI Jetrion 4000 UV Inkjet System offers label converters an affordable, full-color narrow web alternative to toner-based digital printers for label runs of up to 50,000 labels.

The “industrial strength” Xaar 1001 is a variable drop printhead featuring the company’s patented Hybrid Side-Shooter platform with TF Technology. Xaar’s revolutionary design ensures high reliability and productivity. In addition to the Xaar 1001, they will show its full range of printheads, covering applications as diverse as case coding, flexible packaging, and wide-format graphics.

Making an enviromental commitment is imperative for all print companies today. Digital printing has many benefits to support this. One being that not only does it enable us to print on demand and in very short runs, but it also means we are saving a significant amount of waste and resources, thereby reducing the impact on the enviroment. There is also hardly any waste paper at start up stage - much less than when using offset process. This has a genuine positive affect on your green efforts.

Pacific Printing and Fulfillment in Redwood, California, traded its Kodak NexPress 2100 digital presses for the advanced features of the NexPress 2500 digital production color press, purchasing two machines to expand the company’s ability to deliver fast turnaround with offset like image quality.

The $7.5 million commercial printing, fulfillment and mailing operation runs three shifts 24 hours a day on the new NexPress presses, completing work for clients including AMO Visx, a world leader in laser vision correction technology. The Kodak NexPress 2500 delivers 5,000 A4/letter sheets per hour on a very wide range of substrates. A fully modular design allows it to be field upgradeable for increased speed, paper feeding capacity, delivery capacity, or the addition of a fifth imaging unit.

The five-color configuration enables the Kodak NexPress Fifth Imaging Unit solutions: in-line coating, glossing, or a fifth color to expand the printing gamut and reproduce spot colors. The printing speed and the Fifth Imaging Unit help Pacific Printing expand its business opportunities.

The Digital Print Center (DPC) started operating in Lebanon over a decade ago as a provider of digital printing services primarily in producing scratch cards for various mobile operators around the world. Now, DPC has decided to grow and diversify its product offering a portfolio.

DPC has invested in a brand new Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 74-6LX2. With the addition of the FoilStar module, the new printing press will transform DPC into a unique print shop combining both traditional and digital printing. The new Speedmaster supports a wide range of printing materials and thicknesses of up to 0.8mm. The configuration of this machine offers sheet guidance with Air Transfer system, rapid-response inking units and short setup times made possible by extensive automation.

The FoilStar module applies cold foil on the fly and enables high-quality metallic coatings on a wide range of printing stock. Up to six various foils in a range of web widths can be used, thereby enabling huge savings on jobs that require only a small amount of foil. This development enhances the finishing options available for label, packaging and commercial printers.

The method of offset printing is still the benchmark for which new commercial printing technology is judged by. Eastman Kodak Co. is unveiling a new line of digital printing equipment using a type of inkjet printing that runs as quickly and cheaply as offset, with the image quality of offset.

Kodak has been working on Stream technology for nearly a decade and has been publicly talking about it for close to four years. The Rochester-based printing and imaging company gave its first major public unveiling this spring at Drupa, the print industry’s major trade show held every four years in Germany. Industry research group and Massachusetts-based InfoTrends predicts that the color Stream press from Kodak will be available in 2010 and most likely set the bar for speed and quality of the next generation of products.

Continuous inkjet systems like Stream work by having a hose-like constant flow of ink going through the print heads – a flow that gets broken up into small globules. Kodak’s Stream system then uses air currents to guide the ink – big blobs fall onto the paper, smaller blobs get blown away and recycled back into the print head.