Offset Printing
The New InlineColorPilot in Theory and Practice
Wednesday 09. April 2008 - Automatic inline color measurement in XXL-format sheetfed
The Himmer printing company in Augsburg, Germany, has ordered the worlds first ROLAND 900, XXL in format 8 with a sheet turning system. Another perfecting press, in format 7B, has been ordered by a customer in Europe. That was the special news of the day. To provide information about color control with the new InlineColorPilot system, MAN Roland and Himmer Druck organized a symposium at the beginning of April which was attended by around 70 large-format printing specialists from France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Germany.
The symposium began with speeches in the MAN-Museum in Augsburg. MAN Roland has many years of experience and great expertise in building large-format sheetfed offset presses. The InlineColorPilot which is to be offered at drupa initially for large-format presses is the latest development and will further increase the economical efficiency of the format XXL ROLAND 900 range. Since ink density is measured inline and kept constant automatically, there is no need for time-consuming measuring by the operators and print quality is higher as well. This applies in particular when the large-format sheets are slit in the delivery by the ROLAND InlineSlitter which would make the time required for offline measurement even longer. The InlineColorPilot is very sturdily built: it consists of a massive measuring beam that is locked in place above the last impression cylinder. It only needs three sheets for a complete measurement and the first automatic regulation is made after only 40 sheets. The system is not affected by dust or dirt and merely needs cleaning after several months. It can be easily swung upwards to do this.
InlineColorPilot at the Himmer printing company
At the Himmer printing company in Augsburg where the ROLAND InlineColorPilot has been in operation for the past year on two ROLAND 900, XXL format 8 presses, the visitors could see the new inline color control system in operation. Himmer is convinced that the fast and precise ink density regulation has significant advantages compared with their previous production methods. Furthermore, Himmer supervisory board member Hannes Eisele announced that the company will soon be erecting a new building in which it is planned to install more MAN Roland large-format presses.