Large Format Presses Cut Medium Format Quality Gap

KBA North America has claimed to be continuing to hold its global position as the leader in large format (LF) presses.

KBA North America has claimed to be continuing to hold its global position as the leader in large format (LF) presses.

Its range of LF presses - from 51-inch up to 81-inch and its experience has placed the firm ahead of other manufacturers that can offer printers of commercial, books, displays, posters and packaging customised machines, claimed KBA.

The company commented that at Drupa 1995, KBA's launch of large-format Rapida presses heralded an advance in make-ready, automation, manning, ease of operation and net output, closing the quality gap with medium format, even though the sheets are three to four times as big.

KBA added that some of its competitors dismissed large format as a niche application that was all but extinct.

In the company's opinion, they could not have been more mistaken.

KBA said it not only increased its market share in core applications, such as packaging and book printing, but moved in to the commercial market too.

By Drupa 2004 KBA's newer superlarge-format models attracted orders from poster printers, whose run lengths are typically ultra-short, as well as from book printers and commercial printers, which were typically running only 40-inch presses up to that point.

Commercial printers are drawn to the large format size because a large-format sheet can accommodate 32, 48 or even 64 pages, as opposed to just 16 pages on a 41-inch sheet, added KBA.

Packaging printers are also exploiting the efficiency gains that large format can provide - depending on the size of the packaging, where three blanks would fit on a 41-inch sheet, a Rapida 142 or Rapida 162 can print as many as eight.

As an added bonus, LF printers can provide the added-value benefit of single-source production of commercial work, or packaging, as well as associated posters, or displays, commented KBA.

Since Drupa 1995 KBA has delivered almost 900 LF presses with a total of around 7,000 printing units.

The most popular choice is the Rapida 162 with 340 installations, closely followed by the Rapida 142, which has 320 applications and is said to be the favourite amongst packaging printers and, increasingly, amongst commercial printers because the print format is twice that of a 41-inch press.

Over the past three years those installations have been joined by shipments of 40 VLF Rapida 185 and 205 presses.

Presses shipped between 1995 and 2000 averaged five printing and coating units, but that has since increased to six as the market has evolved.

And whilst there is still a demand for simple four-colour and five-colour presses, there has been a noticeable shift towards presses with 10 or more printing, coating and drying units, a high level of automation and all the attendant accessories, added KBA.

The company added that many printers are choosing the LF size.

Edison Litho and Printing, one of the largest large-format litho printers in the north east of the USA, has agreed to purchase its second KBA large format press in less than two years.

Edison took delivery of a Rapida 162 64-inch six-colour sheetfed press with aqueous coater in January, nearly two years after the firm installed its Rapida 205 81-inch six-colour sheetfed press.

T he new Rapida 162 64-inch six-colour press, whilst still a large-format model, provides a different set of features from the Rapida 205 that gives Edison Litho further flexibility.

Joe Ostreicher, Edison Litho's vice president, said: "On the new press, we can use smaller sheet sizes and still be competitive yet flexible for our customers.

The Rapida 162 prints a minimum sheet size of 25" x 38", allowing us to be competitive on any 40-inch job.

But the Rapida 162 offers the same high quality and the same high degree of automation, such as auto plate changing, as the Rapida 205.

We contemplated other press sizes but we agreed that the Rapida 162 64-inch press would give our customers the best printed sheet available." KBA has claimed that it is the only press manufacturer in the global marketplace whose product range extends to convertible eight-colour perfector presses for sheet sizes up to 64".

At present the big perfectors are mainly used to print calendars, textbooks and colour picture books but they will soon be producing commercial publications, as sheetfed printers follow the lead of their web press counterparts in shifting to high-volume print production, added the company.

The German press manufacturer added that large-format sheetfed presses can handle a wider range of substrates than other manufacturers' presses and and can handle a wider range of page sizes than web presses.

KBA unveiled the first Rapida 162 eight-colour perfector in 2002, 10 years after 40-inch presses were furnished with that capability.

For book printers in particular, it is far more cost-effective to perfect print twice the number of pages in one pass and, apart from the time saving, that cuts the number of pages per book and the amount of interim storage space required.

Large-format guillotines in the finishing department cut the sheets down to 40", so that they can be handled by standard 40-inch equipment.

Approximately 15 per cent of all big Rapida presses have a perfecting capability and for folding cartons, or other special applications, the configuration of choice is five colours or six colours, or more with perfecting after the first or second printing unit.

That supports one-pass production, of blister packs, for example, with operating instructions on the back, or folding cartons with assembly instructions or recipes on the inside, said KBA North America.

Inline coating is another application where large format can hold its own against medium format printing, and one or more coaters feature in roughly half the installations of LF Rapidas, commented KBA.

The traditional five colours, plus coater and extended delivery no longer dominate - configurations now include two coaters, a perfector and coater, as well as additional printing units after the coater.

The longest large-format press line currently in existence is probably a Rapida 142 at Anzpac.

Over 131feet long, the 13-unit press is configured as two colours, a coater and convertible perfector, followed by six more colours, a second coater, two interdeck dryers, a third coater and extended delivery.

The press illustrates KBA's level of knowledge in engineering complex press lines for specific applications, believes the company.

Two-coater KBA presses with six or seven colours have become a mainstream configuration, even in large format and they can be found at a string of printshops stretching from the USA, Russia and Germany to France, commented the company.

Providing customised automation systems for pile logistics at the feeder and delivery on individual or multiple packaging presses is no novelty for KBA, which has also started installing pallet-free logistics systems.

Where thick substrates, such as cartonboard or corrugated are printed, such systems can raise productivity without requiring additional personnel, it is claimed.

The big Rapidas are claimed to be also suitable for UV and hybrid production on sensitive substrates.

For the past 12 years KBA's subsidiary Bauer and Kunzi (now KBA-Metalprint) has based its metal-decorating presses on Rapida units.

Here too, the number of printing units per press line has increased over the years from two to five or six.

The longest installation of this type so far is a Metalstar 2 eight-colour press with inline coater and UV dryer.

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