Finishing & Screen Printing

Exciting Premiere of dmax

Tuesday 28. October 2014 - First customers saw the dmax large-format digital varnishing machine in practical operation

Almost 50 experts visited Druckhaus Mainfranken / Enthusiasm about the quality of varnish application and the performance / dmax made ready for the market in recent months / Massive response from the market
The new dmax large-format digital varnishing machine is getting the finishing market moving. The development partners, Steinemann Technology and Schmid Rhyner, already gave the trade press an exclusive presentation of their trendsetting innovation in June. European print providers, finishers, printing press, packaging and paper manufacturers, together with brand owners, were then invited to the Premiere in late September 2014. The first publications in the professional media had already elicited a massive response from very different segments of the finishing market, and the almost 50 participants at the event proved to be equally impressed by the performance, the versatility and the extremely high quality of varnish application of the dmax. The greatest enthusiasm was aroused by the filigree varnish application with extremely sharp contours, even on very fine lines and types, the possibility of applying different quantities of varnish on one and the same sheet, and the haptic effects, which are unique for a non-contact application method.
In a close, cooperative partnership and under the motto ‘a joint competence’, Steinemann Technology, Schmid Rhyner and Druckhaus Mainfranken had prepared the dmax for the market under real production conditions at Druckhaus Mainfranken in the preceding months. The dmax is based on the diVar technology (Digital Varnishing Technology) of Schmid Rhyner and the sturdy mechanical engineering of Steinemann Technology, and can spot varnish up to 10,000 sheets per hour in formats up to 1,080 x 780 mm, applying quantities of varnish between 4 g/m2 and 35 g/m2. The principal target markets are packaging and commercial printing.
“We’re convinced that you won’t regret spending your valuable time here today!” That was the promise given by Christof Stürm, CEO of Steinemann Technology, to the visitors from home and abroad at the start of his welcoming address. He said it was ultimately the enormous progress in print head technology that had been the decisive factor encouraging his company to commit itself so intensively to the development of the dmax. “Not only the price and quality of the latest print head technologies prompted us to take this step, but also the speed. The time was simply right for such a sophisticated project,” said Stürm. In addition, Druckhaus Mainfranken had proven to be a first-rate partner for practice-oriented development involving high demands on industrial production. The result was that the name dmax stood for ‘digital maximum’, and that specifically related to maximum return-on-investment, maximum quality and maximum productivity.
“When the project started, we couldn’t foresee the magnitude of what we can present to you here today,” said Dr. Dirk Schlatterbeck, Director Technical Department at Schmid Rhyner and ultimately the father of digital varnishing technology, expressing his enthusiasm about what had been achieved. Regardless of the trend in the printing and media industry towards producing short runs by digital printing, Druckhaus Mainfranken had particularly found ways of producing short runs economically by offset printing. “However, especially when it comes to short runs, conventional varnishing is uneconomical. That’s why the dmax optimally supports the processes at Druckhaus Mainfranken.”
On the other hand, he said, there was a strong trend towards finishing in the packaging sector. Here, too, the large-format dmax could provide attractive answers for the folding-carton industry, for example. This also applied to the development of new packaging designs. For instance, the time taken for previously lengthy and costly approval processes could be significantly reduced, since the varnishing results could be checked and approved directly on the machine. The high time requirements and costs involved with conventional varnishing processes arise simply from the need to produce corresponding copies – flexo plates, gravure cylinders or screens. These can often not be produced on-site. Several days of test runs subsequently have to be planned and implemented.
Said Schlatterbeck: “That’s why any run length can be printed, from 1 to N. At the same time, thanks to its non-contact process, the dmax offers optimum conditions for sensitive substrates.” He said the inkjet process could also easily match other technologies in terms of speed. “You can individualise prints and apply two different film thicknesses on one and the same sheet. With other methods, that’s either impossible or a very complex undertaking,” said Schlatterbeck, indicating further advantages of the new machine. “And thanks to the high resolution of 600 x 600 dpi, you can varnish even the finest of lines.” That is a clear advantage over screen printing.
One secret behind the extremely high varnishing quality of the dmax is the patented ‘Pinhole Killer’. This term denotes a special process for post-treating the liquid varnish film (diVar Post Print Enhancement). According to Schlatterbeck: “When using printing substrates with open surfaces, pinholes are a constant companion of this non-contact method. The Pinhole Killer smoothes out these surface defects with the help of a stream of air, thereby eliminating the pinholes, but without impairing edge definition.”
For Schlatterbeck, Steinemann was the partner of choice when it came to developing the dmax. “The company has been at home in varnishing for decades and has comprehensive machine expertise. Together, we succeeded in optimally coordinating varnish and machine.”
Varnishing machine for industrial requirements
“From the very beginning, our aim was to develop a solution for industrial production,” said Markus Müller, Vice President Marketing & Sales at Steinemann Technology, formulating the goal of the three partners. Consequently, dmax also stands for maximum sheet format and maximum availability.
The digital varnishing machine is of classical modular design and can be expanded to include various options, such as a redundant inkjet system or an IR drier in addition to the UV drier of the standard configuration. “The print mark sensor with register correction in the lateral and machine directions makes a decisive contribution to the high varnishing quality, together with skew compensation,” said Müller, emphasising a component at the start of the machine. In contrast, alignment by the front edge of the sheet would not have met the high demands on the accuracy of spot varnishing. “The defined print marks enable the dmax to detect the actual positions of the printed images and take them into account, in that it calculates the necessary angular corrections before the sheets are fed in under the inkjet heads, and thus during varnishing.” He said that this, too, was a capability that could only be offered in this form by digital printing technology in combination with maximum computing power in the machine controller.
The calender at the front end of the machine is likewise a key factor for the high varnishing quality of the dmax. The time-proven Steinemann calender smoothes out any sheet roughness, while at the same time automatically removing the powder. The result is substrate surfaces that are perfectly prepared for varnish application.
“Among other things, the dmax owes its optional sample gate, and the integrated inspection table with data RIP for corrections during production, to suggestions from Druckhaus Mainfranken,” noted Müller. At the gate, the machine operators can conveniently have control sheets ejected at the push of a button at any production speed, so that they can examine them directly on-site in suitable light and, if necessary, adjust the machine settings via the control system monitor. These features alone illustrated that the dmax was created in close cooperation with experts in practical industrial printing.
As the manufacturer of the print heads, Ricoh likewise showed high commitment in its work on the development project. “We greatly appreciate their all-round support,” said Müller in recognition of the manufacturer’s help.
Stepping off the beaten track
“We’re convinced that printing needs a new dimension if it wants to remain competitive in today’s media mix,” said Ulrich Stetter, Managing Director of Druckhaus Mainfranken, summing up his company’s interest in the dmax project. He said digital varnishing technology was the ideal method for the low-cost, high-quality finishing of short runs of print products of the kind that Druckhaus Mainfranken produces as an industrial print provider for the European online print market. On the other hand, the dmax offered the necessary capacity for also finishing longer runs quickly and economically. As a result, even a number of external print providers today availed themselves of the sophisticated production processes used by Druckhaus Mainfranken, a company that was only founded in 2006. All in all, up to 15,000 jobs per day are now handled there.
Just a few weeks after installing the prototype, the company was able to produce stably on the machine at speeds of 8,000 sheets per hour and more. “The high production speed and large format of the dmax make it possible for us to achieve a real quantum leap in terms of productivity when varnishing print products,” said Stetter. The high quality of the haptic effects was another winning feature. “We can now open the door to a market that’s been waiting for years and couldn’t be served in the past.” From his point of view, the dmax is nothing less than a milestone in print finishing.
The dmax in practice
In the subsequent hands-on session in a production shop of Druckhaus Mainfranken, the visitors watched both a combined form with various jobs and a completely black sheet being finished at different machine speeds and with different quantities of varnish. Drops of water on fresh, crisp apples, glittering scales on the skin of a shiny green snake, or the finely branching veins of a leaf – the eye-catching varnish effects on the images of the combined form certainly had an impact on the participants at the customer event.
The same applied to the varnished screen tints, the varnished merging positive and reverse types in different point sizes, the varnished lines with a fineness of as little as two points, and numerous other, mostly decidedly filigree print elements of different sizes on solid black surfaces, on both the combined form and the completely black sheet. Many of the visitors stood together in groups and discussed the results that could be achieved with the dmax – waiting for the machine operators to hand them the results of the next print job.
Finally, the dmax was even ‘opened up’ to give the visitors a clear view of key components. For example, the shutter was raised on the unit behind which the inkjet printing unit was concealed. The things presented by the team of technicians from Steinemann Technology surrounding dmax Project Manager Patrik Moser and the machine operators from Druckhaus Mainfranken included the cleaning of the print heads. They are automatically moved into a collecting tank and washed there. The machine is ready to start work again just a few minutes later. Replacement of the print heads is equally convenient. If the worst comes to the worst, they are quickly exchanged by Plug & Play. “Those are all features that underline our ambition to develop a machine for industrial requirements,” said Müller, summing up the many fine points of the dmax – produced at the Steinemann factory in St. Gallen in Switzerland – that enable smooth-running, dependable workflows in daily production.
“There’s enormous scope for further development of diVar technology and the dmax. Given the response from the market to date, there can be no doubt about that,” said Schmid Rhyner CEO Jakob Rohner, looking to the future. The next development steps would now be defined in cooperation with customers.
“After the advance reports in the professional media, we came here with pretty high expectations,” said one participant. “It was very important for us to see for ourselves just what the inkjet process is capable of doing today when it comes to varnishing printed sheets.” The excellent quality, in combination with the high productivity, cost-efficiency and flexibility of digital printing, opened up enormous possibilities, even in the production of finished print products, that were previously not feasible solely for reasons of cost.