Victor Abergel, executive vice-president and managing director of the French firm, said: “This is our fourth Ipex and it’s the first time we’ve used the show to launch a full new line of products.
"We know we are playing in the UK garden, but for us this is absolutely an international show – we’ve got more than 25 distributors worldwide coming to London to use our stand as a showroom for their customers.”
MGI’s Ipex launches include the fifth generation of its Meteor digital press, the DP 8700 XL+, which features a longer maximum sheet size at 1,200mm (up from 1,020mm) and the ability to print substrates up to 400gsm (up from 350gsm).
Other new features include a more powerful RIP (EFI’s FS100 Pro), an internal densitometer to measure the whiteness of the substrate (which is combined with a reading of the printed toner to calibrate the press), and a new registration system for duplex printing that improves the front to back registration from +/-0.5mm to +/-0.02mm.
MGI has also unveiled its first inline finishing unit, the DF Pro (also available as an offline system), which combines cutting and trimming with full and selective perforation (horizontal and vertical), and positive and negative creasing on sheets up to 1,200mm long at the same 4,260 A4 sheets/hour speed as the DP8700 XL+. Both products will be available from Q3 2014.
Also on show is the JETvarnish 3D digital spot UV coater with MGI’s new iFoil unit (due to begin shipping in Q2 2014); the iFoil enables the JETvarnish to produce in a single pass both spot UV and flat and digitally embossed hot foiling using most market-available foils.
In addition, the JETvarnish 3D now features an upgrade path that allows users to add a second and third row of inkjet printheads, doubling or tripling the output speed when producing 100 micron embossed 3D effects from 800 B2 sph to 1,600sph or 2,400sph.
The output speed for traditional 3-9 micron flat effects is 3,000 B2 sph regardless for all machines (regardless of the number of rows of printheads).
Last but not least, MGI is showcasing the first co-developed product to come out of its strategic partnership with Konica Minolta: the JETvarnish 3DS, which is a compact version of the JETvarnish 3D featuring the same features as the original.
Abergel said that the machine, which has been developed by MGI exclusively for the Konica sales network, was designed to fit the format requirements of Konica’s devices for the commercial printing and quick printing sectors.
