Riso, best known for its digital duplicators, launched the new Orphis HC5000 at Drupa. It's the firm's first ink-jet machine, has an output speed of 105ppm, and costs just Euro24,000, including RIP.

"It's a bit galling looking at this when you've just spend 500,000 on two Versamarks," remarked one Drupa visitor.

The HC5000 prints up to A3 format and uses a piezo ink-jet head developed by Olympus, married with inks developed by Riso. It also incorporates Agfa's embedded colour profiling technology.

Paper tray capacity totals 2,500 sheets and the machine can handle stock weights from 46-157gsm.

The full-width piezo head prints CMYK in parallel in one pass, and the simple paper path involves a conveyor travelling under the print head. The self-cleaning ink-jet heads have an estimated life of 2.5m prints and the ink cost is Euro0.025 for an A4 page with 20% ink coverage. Riso said that monthly volumes of 250,000 pages were "easily achievable".

An optional input scanner is also available, together with a variety of inline finishing options including saddle stitching  and folding.

The HC5000 has already been launched in Japan, where Riso has been "swamped with interest". Riso now plans to roll the machine out to other markets, with a UK launch slated for later this year.