Having entered the label market in 2015 with the launch of the bizhub Press C71cf, the AccurioLabel, priced at around €240,000 (£210,000), will become commercially available in December and will replace the C71cf, which will now cease manufacture with its install base just topping 100.
Konica Minolta Industrial Printing team manager Edoardo Cotichini said there are a number of improvements over the C71cf, with the main one highlighted as being a new default web guiding system for improved accuracy and registration, along with a more stable build, inline finishing capability and also the capability to load bigger reels of up to 600mm diameter. Speed and image quality have remained the same and, as with the C71cf, the system uses Miyakoshi unwind and rewinding technology.
With development beginning in April, the machine was manufactured in conjunction with Danish-based manufacturer Grafisk Maskinfabrik (GM), which supplied its DC330 mini converting unit, which can work inline with the machine or as a standalone unit.
“One reason behind [the collaboration with GM] is that in doing market research we realised there is more and more of a request to do inline finishing,” said Cotichini.
“We started taking a different approach as we realised that in what we defined as being industrial printing the market is changing very rapidly, so we took the decision to partner with a European company as it allows us to be much quicker in going to market.
“We always admitted as Konica Minolta that we were the new kids on the block in 2015 but we started listening to our customers and the feedback they provided and based on that we started working on a new engine with GM.”
Running at speeds of either 18.9m/min, 13.5m/min or 9.5m/min on most commonly used self-adhesive materials at maximum 1,200dpi resolution, the four-colour (CMYK) machine takes a maximum printed image size of 1,195x320mm. It is equipped with a newly developed digital toner to improve image quality and does not require pre-coating of media.
Cotichini said: “One of the defects when talking about electrophotographic toner is that often you get shiny effects on your prints. The composition of our toner avoids that, you get an effect that almost looks like an offset printer, which even in the label industry means you can reach much higher levels of quality.”
He added that the web guiding system is fundamental to the label printing process in making sure that the web is perfectly aligned.
Also on show at LabelExpo is MGI Digital Technology’s new roll-to-roll digital combination label press, which uses Konica Minolta’s drop-on-demand piezoelectric printheads.
Earlier in the summer, Konica Minolta launched its AccurioPress C6100 series of colour production printers.
