MGI Digital Technology is a French company that has been building digital printers since 1992, however, they were originally specialist devices for plastic card printing. The DP 30 Smart, introduced last year, was the first to be designed to handle commercial print-on-paper, including an offset-type paper feed. The latest DP 40 Pro is the eighth generation – it’s faster and gains auto-duplexing and a colour scanner to further increase its appeal for commercial work while retaining the ability to print on plastics. This is a four-colour printer, but it is Pantone certified and, according to MGI, is able to match about 90% of the Pantone spot colour range.

Graphic Arts Equipment (GAE) has been UK distributor for Meteor presses since last year, starting with the DP 30, but now concentrating on the DP 40. So far, it has installed two DP 30s and two DP 40s with another DP 40 about to be delivered. The Meteor will be shown at GAE’s open house next week, at its premises in Perivale, west London.

Click charges
Meteor printers are sold outright or leased, rather than by the usual digital press model of a click charge. Consumables are sold in packs containing everything you need for either 75,000 (£5,910) or 150,000 (£9,735) pages, giving costs between 6.49p and 7.88p per A3 page.

GAE technical sales executive Jason Seaber says that this pricing model is more flexible than click charges. “Consum­ables packs are calculated on a basis of 40% coverage, where we find most jobs average more like 20%. So with normal jobs the consumables go a lot further. You can also print on paper of the final size you want to use. With a click charge you pay the same for A3 as A4, so it makes economic sense to print an A4 job two-up and trim it.”

GAE configures all of its DP 40s for the UK market with an integral scanner, auto-duplexing unit and external X-Rite calibration kit as standard – these are supplied as optional extras in some countries.

The Meteor’s printing process is LED dry toner electrophotographic, with an unusually high optical resolution of 1,800dpi, which can print 200lpi conventional dot screens. Under a loupe, the halftone screen shows conventional rosette patterns.
MGI calls it a “multi-substrate digital press”, able to handle virtually any printing stock. These can be standard offset grades, with matt, gloss and some textured surfaces. Weights can range from 60 to 300gsm.

Fusing oil
The Meteor doesn’t use fusing oil, which helps the printed appearance resemble litho quality on matt or gloss papers – oil tends to give a semi-gloss finish. It also means Meteor-printed stationery is safe for use in office laser printers.

Plastics from 210 to 320 micron thickness can be handled in most common printable materials, including PVC (coated or uncoated), polyester, polycarbonate, Lexan, PET, vinyl and synthetic papers such as Teslin, Melinex and Artisyn.

It can also print onto self-adhesive foils. There’s no need for pre-sensitisation of the plastic and the press is compatible with RFID or smart card chips and magnetic stripes. Switching from paper to plastic takes about two minutes.

The DP 40’s speed for black-only printing is 45 A4 single-sided sheets per minute, or 38 for CMYK. Auto duplexing is available on all weights up to 200gsm at full speed – in other words you’ll get 19 CMYK A4s. For heavier weights, up to the 300gsm maximum, you can work and turn manually.

An important feature of the DP 40 is its offset-style sheet feeder with a pile capacity for up to 2,500 sheets (assuming 80gsm), with blower/suction wheel and a wooden base board to reduce the static on plastic materials. The paper is precisely aligned in the feed path (it is visible under the clear tinted cover in the centre), initially to a side lay and then to a front edge alignment detector before entering the print engine on the left side of the machine. MGI claims an accuracy of 0.2mm sheet-to-sheet, including front-back accuracy for duplex work. An ultrasound double-sheet detector is built-in because feeding two sheets can damage the machine through overheating.

Under the print engine, on the left of the press, are three copier-style paper feed trays, concealed behind a door. The lower tray can hold up to 2,500 A4 sheets. The middle tray takes 500 sheets in variable sizes from A5 to A3, while the top tray holds 500 sheets in sizes from 90x140mm up to 311x457mm. Tray feeding has a slightly lower alignment accuracy of 0.5mm.

The upper door on the left gives access to the four toner cartridges and other consumables, all operator changeable without an engineer callout. The consumables list includes four toner cartridges, the imaging units, the transfer blanket, the fusing unit, transfer roller, ozone filter and paper dust kits. Toner cartridge capacity is calculated at 15,000 A3 pages at 40% coverage.

Control console
Most control functions are handled from the standard PC console, which runs an EFI Fiery PostScript 3 colour server. This can be networked to practically anything and accepts PDF documents as well as other popular formats including TIFF, EPS, Photoshop, InDesign and QuarkXPress. A small control panel is also built into the press, for set-up and running without returning to the PC console.

The press has two internal densitometers. Every 60 pages, the press pauses briefly and re-calibrates itself. An external X-Rite DTP 41 colorimeter is supplied to set up ICC profiles for new paper stocks or to match the Meteor’s output to another press (such as offset) or across mixed-stock jobs.

“If a litho printer has a client that orders at the last minute, they can output the first 500 copies on the Meteor for same-day delivery, and then continue the rest of the run on an offset press,” says Seaber. “We’ve calculated that for run lengths of under 400 A3 sheets, then the Meteor is cheaper than litho. Of course if the job contains variable data then digital print is the only way to do it, so cost-effective run lengths can be much longer.”

The auto-feeding colour scanner is a flatbed 2,400dpi reflection-only A3 model fitted above the feeder. It can turn the Meteor into a direct colour copier or it can send scans to the front end for use elsewhere.

MGI can also supply a compact multi-finishing unit, tailored to the Meteor’s sheet sizes. Called the UFA3, it can slit, perforate, cut and crease in both directions and costs about £13,000. MGI’s Punchcard is a dedicated die-cutter for standard CR80 cards with round corners and is priced at about £17,000. MGI is also set to launch Presscard, a £35,000 hot laminator for 1,000 cards per hour.

Last year, at the introduction of the DP 30, MGI talked about a forthcoming DP 60, which would feature two of the DP 30 engines. This hasn’t appeared yet and there has been no word of a twin-engined DP 40 either. At Ipex, in April, there was a demonstration of a photo kiosk Meteor, linked to a PC and a digital camera memory card reader, but this hasn’t reached production.

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SPECIFICATIONS
Max speed
• 2,280 4/0 A4pph
• 1,140 A3pph (on paper)
Max sheet size
• 311x457mm
Substrate weights
• 60–300gsm (paper)
• 210 – 320microns (plastic)
Resolution
• 1,800x1,800dpi
Front end
• EFI Fiery server
Price
• £79,500
Contact
• GAE 020 8997 8053 www.gae.co.uk

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THE ALTERNATIVES
HP Indigo press 1050
The entry-level HP Indigo is also available with six colours. As it’s a multi-pass press, the speed depends on how many colours you run. There’s provision for spot colours using IndiChrome – these can be bought pre-mixed or you can buy a mixing kit. The 1050 is primarily intended for paper, but it’s fine for plastics as long as they’re fairly flexible.
Max speed 1,980 A4pph
Max sheet size 320x464mm
Substrate weights 115–270gsm
Max resolution 800x800dpi
Front end Indigo Rip (Adobe PostScript 3)
Price from £105,000 (four-colour)
Contact HP 0845 270 4000 www.hp.com

Océ CPS900 Platinum
Oce’s unique seven-colour opaque dry toner process produces consistent high gamut colour on practically any coated or uncoated paper. Low oil and fusion heat means the gloss-matching to the paper is good, but also means that it’s fine for plastics. Speeds are the same for all weights and there’s a built in duplexing unit.
Max speed 2,000 4/0 A4 ppm
Max sheet size A3+
Substrate weights up to 300gsm
Max resolution 600x2,400dpi
Front end Océ Prisma
Price from £85,000
Contact ICG 01179 805978 www.icgscanners.com