This is the first in a range of high-quality newspaper presses from Heidelberg, said John Richards, Heidelberg director of product management. The first sale of the Mainstream 80 has already been made, to Copenhagen-based contract printer Dansk AvisTryk, for installation in June.
Significantly, the Mainstream 80 incorporates the gapless technology originally developed on Heidelbergs Sunday presses: the stability of gapless versus the conventional technology allows the 1x4 Mainstream to run as productively as a press with a 2x4 plate cylinder. The Mainstream is designed for large metropolitan and national dailies: its 1x4 configuration gives printers the option of combining one, two, three or four-page plates, and can more easily accommodate on-the-fly edition changes for regionalisation work and late-breaking news.
Shown at Drupa with an Idab Wamac inserter, the Mainstream 80 also features an Omnicrom control system for job storage and planning, and the choice of a jaw or rotary track-mounted folder that can be positioned under the formers, according to the pagination and section configuration of the print run.
With more and more newspaper printers working with non-collect schedules, and with the increasing call for regionalisation and semi-commercial work, the Mainstream 80 represents an excellent choice for a modern newspaper environment, declared Richards.
Story by Karen Charlesworth
