This is not a commercial product launch, but Xerox is taking a step further in revealing its solutions for high-speed continuous feed inkjet production printing with the demonstration of a new roll-fed 500 feet-per-minute full-colour system at IPEX 2010.
Two years ago, at DRUPA 2008, Xerox announced it was working on a high-speed inkjet system using unique "gel" inks, but at IPEX the system being shown is using a granulated, resin-based solid ink system reminiscent of the ink used in the company’s Phaser and ColorQube series printers. The high-volume non-aqueous inkjet printer doesn’t require post-print drying of the ink.
For printing, the paper web is heated prior to imaging, the melted solid ink granules are jetted onto the paper, then the paper is cooled and delivered.
The demonstration device uses 56 piezo-electric drop-on-demand stainless steel print heads representing over 49,000 nozzles jetting nearly two billion drops per second, producing 600 dpi prints. Each print head design contains 880 nozzles, and together the 56 heads stretch across a maximum 20.5 inch print width.
Printing at up to 500 feet per minute (on lighter weight papers), the system can produce more than 2,000 colour images per minute. And the inkjet technology delivers what the company calls "vivid image quality" on untreated low-cost papers. Inside the device is a new Image On Web Array (IOWA) sensor, part of a closed-loop system that autocorrects to maintain colour uniformity.
“This digital production technology is a marvel of research and engineering, and an example of how our unique differentiated ink technology can address the needs of production customers,” said Sophie Vandebroek, Xerox’s chief technology officer and president of the Xerox Innovation Group in a release.
