In that battle, conventional xerographic technology has long since been left behind in all three respects. And between the three non-xerographic technologies that dominate the top end of the market – inkjet, electron beam imaging and magnetography – the interesting thing is that the optimum ratio, for standard black-and-white duplex work at least, appears to be fairly consistent: all the machines are topping out at around a speed of 150 metres per minute, a quality of 600dpi and a cost per copy of around 0.1 pence per sheet. “At this kind of speed, quality and cost-in-use, it becomes very feasible to tackle the kind of work currently being done by single-colour narrow web offset machines,” says Delphax UK managing director Ian Jaggard, “with the great advantage of being able to do variable data as well, which an offset press can’t offer”.

Digital workhorse
Delphax launched its new CR2200 digital press, built around electron beam imaging technology, at the Hunkeler open house in Lucerne, Switzerland, back in February. At the event, the CR2200 ran for four days, printing 150 kilometres of paper continuously to demonstrate its reliability. The press represents what Jaggard calls Delphax’s “best attempt yet” to consider its customers’ market drivers, “and to attack the cost bases of producing their typical products,” he says.

The CR2200 replaces Delphax’s previous top-of-the-range model, the CR2000, of which six have been installed in the UK since its launch at Drupa 2004. The 2200 has been given a speed bump over its predecessor, taking it to 152 metres per minute or 2,200 A4 sheets per hour and a fractional (two metres per minute) advantage over its closest market competitor, Kodak Versamark’s VX5000. And Delphax doesn’t plan to stop there: future models will boost speed even further. “In this market, speed is key.
There is a move towards producing quality that’s acceptable for a particular market sector at the fastest possible speed, and the CR2200 brings the cost comparison point between digital and offset much closer,” Jaggard says.  

The CR2200 comes with a Delphax unwind – a standard centre-register model with options for flying or zero-speed splicing for non-stop operation – and a range of third-party options are available at the delivery end, including rewinds, stackers, cutters, slitters and folders from the likes of Hunkeler, Stralfors Lasermax, MBO and Ehret.

At the front end, the CR2200 is flexible: for publishing work, Delphax uses a Harlequin-based RIP to
process PDFs, PostScript and 1-bit TIFF files, while for transactional applications it uses a RIP geared to accepting the IPDF file format. Either way, a Windows-based controller is used to set the machine up and make adjustments on the fly, including position of image on the web.

The electron beam (EB) technology was invented by Xerox back in 1980. Originally known as ion deposition, it is based around a ‘printhead’ that generates negative ions to build up an invisible image on the surface of a transfer drum. The drum revolves, attracting positively-charged toner, which it then deposits onto the web. The image is fused onto the web using a combined cold-pressure and radiant-heat process, followed by a baking process that completes the bond of toner to paper.

Stuck in black and white
One drawback of the EB technology is that it remains entirely monochrome, unlike the inkjet-based Kodak Versamark machines, which can produce spot or full colour. But with the main market for the CR2200 – transactional printing – moving fast towards transpromo documents (the combination of marketing messages and transactional data on a single sheet), doesn’t this leave Delphax at a disadvantage? Not at all, says Jaggard. “I’ve come across several organisations that have built colour into their transactional lines, and they don’t use it, either because the marketing people can’t agree on what they want to do with it, or because it simply costs too much,” he says. “A mono document costs fractions of a penny; a colour equivalent will be multiple pennies. Over a run of a million plus, that’s a serious
increase in cost.”

Another ‘drawback’ of the EB technology is the quality it can produce. While the technology’s quality has improved almost out of recognition since its early days, it still can’t (and likely never will) produce image quality to rival offset or even standard xerographic printers, particularly not when it comes to halftone images.  

Key advantages
But Jaggard maintains that this isn’t a problem. Delphax’s philosophy is to make a virtue out of its technology’s limitations: and that virtue is to focus on producing acceptable-quality black-and-white print at the lowest possible cost. “That is still the most important combination for a good 90% of the market,” Jaggard says, “so you’d hardly call it a technology limitation.” He points out that the CR2200 is state-of-the-art for EB technology in two specific development areas: “One, it pushes the boundaries of speed without denigrating the other market standards we address, such as resolution, quality, width and variable substrate capabilities; and two, it continues to focus on getting acceptable-quality monochrome digital print out of the door quickly, at the lowest possible cost.”

Inkjet, however, has the edge over EB technology in terms of innovative capability, and Jaggard knows it: “Candidly, I’m an admirer of inkjet – it’s a serious and very effective production method, even though the colour capabilities affect the speed of production in inverse ratio, where EB stays constant.” Still, Jaggard knows that EB’s survival depends on the core transactional market not embracing colour transpromo. “If we get cut out of the market, we accept that. We’re specialists, not generalists. But we predict that while we may lose some edges of the market to the colour possibility, there will remain a solid core of producers wanting simple, cost-effective, fast black-and-white production printing.”

Future developments from Delphax may present a more serious threat to inkjet technology in terms of production levels: the company currently has in development a 650mm wide EB press which, in Jaggard’s words, “will revolutionise the target market in transactional and publications printing”.

But for the moment, Delphax’s traditional heartland market of transactional printing is changing rapidly. And it may be for this reason that the company is, on the back of its new, faster model, beginning to seriously address the monochrome publishing market in addition to transactional. One of the six CR2000s currently installed in the UK forms the heart of the Muller Martini SigmaLine short-run book production line at academic publisher Bell & Bain in Glasgow, and Jaggard says that short-run publishing is “a very real, key future market for us. It coincides with short-run book finishing becoming a reality, and with the significant market demand from publishers for ultra-short production quantities”.

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SPECIFICATIONS
Maximum operating speed 152 metres per minute or 2,200 A4 images per minute
Maximum image width 463mm
Maximum image length 1,524mm
Print resolution 600dpi (fixed)
Cost CR2000 with unwind system: £450,000
Contact Delphax Technologies 01293 551051 www.delphax.com

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THE ALTERNATIVES
Kodak Versamark VX5000
The Versamark series is based on inkjet technology and, as such, the machines can offer colour printing which instantly gives them a better foothold in the transpromo market than the Delphax. The VX5000 can produce black-and-white, spot colour or full CMYK process colour at a maximum resolution of 600dpi (there’s also an ‘enhanced resolution’ model, the VX5000e, which prints at 300x 1,200dpi. Courtesy of the inkjet technology, the VX5000 can be upgraded, unlike the CR2200 – beginning with a mono simplex one-up configuration, it can move to a full-colour duplex two-up equivalent.
Maximum operating speed 150m per minute or 2,052 A4 pages per minute
Maximum image width 455mm
Maximum image length 1,350mm
Print resolution 600dpi or 300x1,200dpi
Cost not supplied
Contact Kodak UK 01923 233366 http://graphics.kodak.com

Nipson VaryPress 400
The VaryPress 400 is aimed solely at transactional printing. It uses magnetography rather than EB or inkjet. The principle is similar to EB – electromagnets create a magnetised image on a drum which attracts toner; the toner is then transferred to the paper and flash-fused (which allows the VaryPress 400 to print on films and vinyls as well as paper). Like the CR2200, it’s a black-and-white only press, and can’t be upgraded.
Maximum operating speed 125m per minute or 1,680 A4 pages per minute
Maximum image width 469mm
Maximum image length 908mm
Print resolution 480-600dpi
Cost £275,000 (engine only)
Contact Nipson UK 01322 295970 www.nipson.com