The high-speed colour inkjet technology Xerox revealed at IPEX last year in Birmingham, UK has been introduced for real now at at the Hunkeler Innovationdays going on in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Using Xerox’s proprietary solid ink (a technology Xerox embraced when it acquired Oregon-based Tektronix in 2000), the Production Inkjet System runs what the company is calling waterless inkjet.
A version of the solid ink technology is currently employed in Xerox’s ColorQube line of cutsheet office printers. The appeal of the solid ink is its ease of use, the environmental benefits of its packaging and de-inking ability, and its ability to adhere to low-cost substrates without experiencing bleeding problems. Building off its established solid ink technology (delivered in bars for the ColorQube products), Xerox developed a granulated resin-based ink formulation to serve the high-speed production market.
The high-speed roll-fed unit, as shown at IPEX, uses 56 piezo-electric, drop-on-demand print heads with more than 49,000 nozzles jetting nearly two billion ink drops per second.
“Xerox’s Production Inkjet System cuts through the barriers – cost, quality and reliability – that stood in the way of producing massive numbers of custom print jobs,” notes Tom Oldfield, vice president, Graphic Communications Operations with Xerox Canada in a release announcing the new system to the Canadian market.
The most recent high-volume colour inkjet technologies introduced by HP, Kodak and Oce all use liquid inks, and in some cases a primer is required prior to the ink in order to ensure sharp imaging.
Xerox’s Production Inkjet System runs at some 500 feet per minute producing close to 2,200 pages per minute.
The digital printing technology presents opportunities for applications like high-volume personalized direct marketing, transpromotional printing and publishing applications, all in full colour.
Xerox has announced that the first test customer is up and running and that additional customer placements are slated for the second half of this year.
Xerox Production Inkjet Printer using solid ink technology
