But the last couple of years has seen a shift in focus – from manufacturing, where technology was all-important, to service, where technology is just the means to give customers what they want. Now free from the bounds imposed by the focus on machine capabilities, printers are adopting any technology necessary to meet their customers’ needs. In this new service-led age, there’s scope for all kinds of print technology that has nothing to do with the sacred antipathy between oil and water, nor any other print technology hallowed by tradition.

Take Duplo’s Duprinters, for example. Duplo has been selling the Duprinter technology in the UK for nearly two decades. The latest models – the DP-S550 and the DP-S850, launched in April at Northprint – are fast, capable of producing high-quality print, and inexpensive to own and run. But the print industry has largely ignored them – perhaps because they don’t use a traditional offset or xerographic process. In the UK’s educational sector, where there’s no technological protectionism to battle against, there are nearly a thousand Duprinters turning out 150 A4 pages a minute, at a capital cost of around 20% of their nearest rivals, and a fraction of the cost-in-use and floorspace.

Traditional market
With the two new models, in addition to its existing user-base, Duplo is setting its sights on the traditional print market. UK marketing manager Peter Jolly says: “These machines offer significant value to certain sectors, like hybrid digital-offset printers and quickprint or copyshops, and we hope to educate those sectors about the benefits.”

The Duprinter technology is unfamiliar to most printers, but technologically proven. The basic principle is the ‘master’, the equivalent of a lithographic plate, which is made up of four layers: tissue, adhesive, polyester film and a chemical coating. The Duprinter uses a thermal head to burn tiny, precisely-placed holes in the master, through which ink is then squeezed onto the paper. It all sounds a bit Heath Robinson, but it works, and well: the new DP-S550 produces resolutions of 300x600dpi, and the DP-S850 600x600dpi.

The new Duprinters also use an improved version of Duplo’s black ink, known as DS04LH, which contains a higher level of carbon than previous inks so the printer uses less ink to achieve a good solid. The high-carbon ink also boosts the quality of halftones, said by Jolly to be “sharp and crisp”. Also aiding the print quality of the new models is the new high-definition technology of the master material, whose ‘even fibre distribution’ avoids lumps of fibre in the tissue layer that lead to glitches in dot shape and size.

Greener models
Importantly, the new Duprinters are also as environmentally responsible as they can be (given that the master they produce can only be disposed of to landfill). Conforming to the Japanese Green Purchasing Standards, the Duprinters use a fraction of the energy of conventional toner-based xerographic digital presses. Comparative tests by Duplo show that a run of 10,000 A4 black-and-white flyers produced on a 35ppm toner-based press compared with a Duprinter showed the latter using around 20% of the total energy of the former. (Additionally, because the Duprinter has no warm-up requirement, and prints faster, it produced the job in 76 minutes compared with 322 minutes.)

The energy saving makes the Duprinters particularly cost-effective to run: in terms of UK energy prices benchmarked in January this year, an average of 4,600 prints per day on the Duprinter compared with a 60ppm toner-based press would cost £20 (€30) on the Duprinter, as against the £136 (€200) on the toner-based machine. Another attractive point for environmentally-conscious users will be the fact that the new high-carbon inks are based on soya oil rather than mineral oil and, having no selenium drum like a standard toner-based digital press, they emit no ozone.

However, one limitation of Duprinter technology is its colour capability: the machines can only print a single colour at a time. Second and further colours can be printed only by changing the ink bag (although this is quick and, due to the closed-valve bag design, requires no cleaning or colour-up on restart) and putting the stack through for a second pass. Duplo offers 12 standard colours and a colour-matching service (via Japan, so you’d better not be in a hurry). There is also no automatic duplexing – printing the reverse side would demand the making of a new master, so a second pass is needed to print the reverse of the sheet. They also have a single paper tray, so documents requiring multiple substrates must again be handled in multiple passes.

Improvements to the new models include a touchscreen LCD for makeready. This is a simple process: a job is sent direct from a client computer on the network, and the controller creates a master, automatically detecting sizes and document colours. A single test copy is printed or, alternatively, a preview is shown on-screen. The controller includes a ‘last master remake’ function for last-minute reprints.

Previous Duprinters have been limited by their interface, but the new models use a standard USB-2 interface or can be made wireless-compatible to operate over a Wi-Fi network (they can also be configured with a scanner on top). The DP-S850 Duprinter detects paper size automatically, and cuts the master accordingly. Maintenance is lower than with a toner-based press, as the mechanics and chemistry demand less of the printer’s engine. The paper in-feed and out-feed stacks have a total capacity of 1,200 sheets of 80gsm paper, so the Duprinter can be left unattended for a good while, and because it’s a top-loading, bottom-feeding system, it can be reloaded on the run.

While the Duprinters offer a significant challenge to toner-based presses, Jolly is quick to stress that they possess strengths in a mid-range market somewhere between photocopying and offset print. “They come into their own when higher quantities are required,” he says, “or when faster turnaround times are needed, or when the cost per copy or the cost of ownership has to be as low as possible.”

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SPECIFICATIONS
Max print speed
• 150 A4 pages per minute
Max sheet size
• 297x432mm
Stock weight range
• 50–210gsm
Resolution
• DP-S550: 300x600dpi
• DP-S850: 600x600dpi
Footprint
• 1,360x688mm
Cost
• DP-S550: £7,695
• DP-S850: £8,245
Contact
Duplo International 01372 469131 www.duplointernational.com

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THE ALTERNATIVES
Canon iR7086
Canon’s baby ImageRunner is slower than the Duprinters, has a smaller sheet size, a bigger footprint and costs three times as much – although it does offer a higher resolution and handles automatic duplexing. Two paper trays mean it can handle multiple stocks for combination in a single document. The stacker tray can hold 5,000 80gsm sheets.
Max print speed 86 A4 pages per minute
Max sheet size 295x418mm
Stock weight range 64–200gsm
Resolution 1,200dpi
Footprint 1,575x770mm
Cost £27,103
Contact Canon UK 01737 220000 www.canon.co.uk

Infotec IS2265
Infotec’s 65 pages per minute toner-based press has automatic duplexing plus the option for a second paper tray, giving a total capacity of up to 8,300 sheets of 80gsm. It supports a variety of wired and wireless connections but has no colour capability.
Max print speed 45 A4 pages per minute
Max sheet size 330x458mm
Stock weight range 52–216gsm
Resolution 1,200dpi
Footprint 690x790mm
Cost £18,000
Contact Danka UK 01442 415313 www.infotec.com

Ricoh Aficio MP5500
The smallest Aficio prints at just over a third the speed of the Duprinters. It has automatic duplexing included as standard, and a bypass paper tray for feeding mixed stocks. Parent NRG says the Aficio has “toxic-free materials and minimum emissions”. Tiny footprint.
Max print speed 55 A4 pages per minute
Max sheet size 297x420mm
Stock weight range 52–216gsm
Resolution 1,200dpi
Footprint 690x790mm
Cost £15,995
Contact NRG Group 0500 102103 www.ricoh-uk.com