The V3000 LX six-colour machine with coater and extended delivery is the fourth Mitsubishi press purchased by the Nottingham company, which is a single-press operation.
The press is due to arrive in July, costs £1.5m and runs at up to 16,000sph. It will replace a Mitsubishi V3000 LS six-colour machine with coating unit.
Joint managing director Richard Limer said: “We have enjoyed exceptional reliability from Mitsubishi. Our existing machine has clocked up 140m impressions in six years.
“We are especially strong in the automotive sector, where we print for eight leading vehicle producers. We also have important clients in the fabric sector.
“Both are colour-critical markets: our colour has to be 100% accurate in reproduction. We are also very focused on fine-line screen work. The new press will help us to push that area to new highs.
“The new machine is similar to the existing one but can take both much lighter and much heavier weights, from 70gsm up to 1,000 micron.
“It boasts chrome enhancing to bring out the curves of cars in high definition. Makereadies can take three hours, not because we are bad printers but because we achieve perfection in all areas.”
Central Colour has a turnover approaching £3.5m and its 28 staff offer print, pre-press and post-press operations in-house. The latest Mitsubishi was ordered through distributor M Partners.
Central Colour joint managing director Andy Baxter said: “Other aspects including after-sales service confirmed we were already using the most reliable brand of press on the market.”
The company is also extending its factory at a cost of £80,000, and including a press-side viewing room because “customers like to be press-side not stashed away in an office”, said Limer.
The new machine will be equipped with the MCCSe closed-loop colour-control system, which uses a predictive control algorithm to calculate the difference between measured and target values and automatically adjusts for colour across the whole press.
It provides real-time optimum ink key settings from start to finish for each job. Ryobi Mitsubishi’s Colour Navigator software will match areas and spot colours across a printed sheet. It controls colour and register functions to ensure a perfect match for those areas or spot colours chosen for control.
The six-colour-plus-coater configuration offered flexibility, according to Limer: “We regularly have a demand for one or two spot colours, one of which might be a metallic.
“The last unit is also often utilised to create a dual coating effect – an increasingly popular demand from the design community.”
The press also features a maintenance-free gripper. This consists of a torsion-bar system and oil-less bearings, eliminating the need to lubricate the gripper shaft.
M Partners' joint managing director Mark Stribley said: “Central Colour produces highly demanding, quality conscious colour print and needs the most reliable and consistent of press platforms."
