A brief report from being out on the LabelExpo show floor most of the day meant that Ron Augustin and I met most of the Indian exhibitors and also some of the major exhibitors that were showing new technologies. Although the show is much bigger than the previous edition and we don’t have numbers from Tarsus yet, the crowds seem thinner. This might be the actual case or possibly that with the show covering a wider area, one meets up with fewer visitors and this is also the feedback we got from one of the Indian exhibitors. At the evening happy hour events as well there were fewer but no less happy label printers – one could get a seat apart from the drinks and in some cases, hearty delicacies.
Bobst this time seems the star of the label press exhibitors showing its new waterbased Mouvent label press, its hybrid flexo press with the very small size but highly capable Mouvent digital engine in the middle. What is important about the Master DM5 press is the level of automation – it is truly a digitally operated hybrid label press with the automation of job changes as well as the tooling change in the die-cutting unit.
All analog tools (print cylinders, flexible dies) are changed automatically while waste stripping is also fully automated. Built to be a digitally controlled and managed ‘non-stop’ label press it has the widest color gamut in the digital print station. The ink-on-demand which was shown on another innovative Bobst label press is an optional extra for DigiFlexo print units that replaces conventional inking reservoirs with a single rubber pipe that dispenses 30 grams of ink to the print unit. The system eliminates ink trays and chambered doctor blades and performs fully automated washing of the print unit in less than one minute.
The DM5 also has an exclusive screening and digital front end (DFE) solution. A full range of added value capabilities, including coatings, varnishes, tactile effects, 3d effects, hot stamping, cold foil, embossing, die-cutting, punching, silkscreen, flexo and digital Variable Data Printing (VDP).
“The MASTER DM5 is a fully digitally integrated label press like this has never been invented before,” said Federico D’Annunzio. “The benefits for printers and converters are significant, and we are planning to demonstrate the full capabilities of this highly innovative press at Labelexpo.”
In our subsequent articles, we will report on some of the truly innovative developments at Labelexpo such as the Omet 670 mm wide press that incorporates fully automatic unit to unit register and a water-based gravure unit as well as a vertical water-based flexo unit near the end of the press. More details on this press in our further coverage in the coming days.
The developments at Baldwin Vision are also an ongoing effort to connect the various technologies that the company has acquired recently and which are used for their unique capabilities with the same press or environment. Since the company now makes color and registration controls, UV curing systems as well as other subsystems in a press system, it can collect data from each of these and start to build an overall performance radar whose software handles the relationships between the several inter-related phenomenon taking place simultaneously in the system. We will report in more detail in subsequent articles.
