Offset Printing
German Printing Industry Innovation Award goes to manroland
Tuesday 29. September 2009 - ROLAND InlineCoater smart honored as outstanding printing technology 2009
manroland had cause to celebrate at the gala that accompanied the German Printing Industry Innovation Awards held in Stuttgart on 24 September: the retractable ROLAND InlineCoater smart took 1. prize in the category Technology.
In the short time it has been on the market, the retractable ROLAND InlineCoater smart has enhanced print products all over the world. The added value this versatile coater provides has convinced print experts in Germany who honored it with 1. prize in the 2009 German Printing Industry Innovation Awards. Dr. Markus Rall, member of the manroland executive board, was very pleased with this success: “The wide variety of inline enhanced products enables smaller printers in particular to expand their business models. With the ROLAND InlineCoater smart, they can now take on jobs that they earlier had to turn down. This is right in line with our Value Added Printing philosophy. This award determined by reader polling proves that the ROLAND InlineCoater smart delivers what many printing companies have been looking for.”
Printing and coating for multi-purpose printing unit
With the ROLAND InlineCoater smart, preferably installed at the last printing unit, applications such as protective, drip-off, or effect coatings can be realized easily. Up to 70 gloss points are achievable which is more than sufficient for many jobs. Since the ROLAND InlineCoater smart is retractable when fitted to a fifth printing unit, its high flexibility makes it a marketing-oriented application module: it can be used for coating, adding a spot color, or for inline finishing. This flexibility is an advantage especially for smaller and medium-sized printing companies: with a low investment sum they can cover a wide range of applications. The price tag is around 60 percent lower than a conventional coating module. The success of the ROLAND InlineCoater smart for the ROLAND 700 HiPrint made it logical to develop a ROLAND InlineCoater smart for the ROLAND 200 and ROLAND 200 high-pile delivery as well.
How does the ROLAND InlineCoater smart work?
With the ROLAND 200 and ROLAND 200 H, the chambered doctor blade system is positioned at the feeder side to ensure optimal integration in and at the printing unit. This position permits the blanket washing unit (ROLAND SelectCleaning System) to remain in the printing unit which avoids time-consuming fitting and removal for normal production. A valve reduces the pressure in the chambered doctor blade system to maintain coating quality and prevent foaming. Under ideal conditions changeover between printing and coating can be done in around two minutes. Pumping the coating out of the system takes ca. 60 seconds and removal of the chambered doctor blade system ca. 30 seconds. Changing the pressure between the coating plate or blanket and the impression cylinder is done fully automatically from PressPilot. In conventional printing mode the chambered doctor blade system must be removed from the printing module to prevent unnecessary wear to the blade but the anilox roller can remain in the press.
New generation dryer
A new dryer has been developed for the ROLAND 200 and ROLAND 200 H to ensure optimal drying of the coating applied by the ROLAND InlineCoater smart. This consists of a dryer cassette, which – depending on the configuration – is equipped with an IR dryer alone or with a combined IR/hot-air dryer. This accelerates drying of the coating layer which means jobs can move to the finishing operations sooner where the coating protects the print products from damage such as scratches. This keeps quality high and avoids complaints.