RMGT announces UV LED partnership with GEW

RMGT pioneered UV LED technology and introduced the world’s first LED curing system for sheetfed printing at drupa in 2008. This original innovation started a slow revolution for the printing industry, one that is now gathering an ever-increasing pace.

In pursuit of continuous technology improvement and after many months of assessment of all major UV LED manufacturers, RMGT formally adopted the high performance GEW product as its definitive new technology.

Katsushi Hirokawa, president at RMGT, commented: ‘RMGT is committed to building relationships of trust with customers, peripheral device manufacturers and all others involved in the industry. We continually work with our partners to refine and perfect technologies and to bring innovative new products to the world of printing. Inspired by this corporate philosophy, we have pioneered LED UV, and it is our in-depth experience and knowledge of this technology that has enabled us to make a sound judgment about our future UV curing partner.’

The foundations of this new partnership were formed in 2018, following GEW’s drive into the sheetfed offset market. The introduction of a compact, high-performance LeoLED UV curing system in 2019 was perfectly suited to sheetfed applications. It drew attention from RMGT’s distribution network, which ultimately led to the first test installation at its headquarters in Hiroshima in early 2020. The LeoLED system was tested on several presses in multiple configurations, and the results surpassed all existing performance criteria.

Managing director of sales at GEW, Robert Rae, commented: ‘This announcement affirms GEW as the leading supplier globally for UV LED curing systems. Our latest LeoLED system offers very high power and is used in one form for all markets and applications. This means that it is produced in high volumes, bringing outstanding reliability at a highly competitive cost. In a sheetfed environment, GEW’s Modular Lamp Array (MLA) allows any number of lamps to be positioned and quickly moved anywhere throughout the press. This means the same LeoLED product can be used for low, medium, and high-performance applications but arranged in single, double, or triple MLA configuration dependent upon the application and speed requirements – always guaranteeing performance. It is this concept that appealed to RMGT, both for ultimate reliability and for the flexibility of configurations across their wide range of presses.’

The ability to easily adapt system configurations was a key consideration for RMGT. 

‘Multiple lamps are a requirement in more complex applications, and being able to move lamps around the press is a huge advantage for various processes,’ said Gary Doman, international sales manager for Sheetfed at GEW. ‘GEW lamps are designed with this in mind, and users can easily move lamps from the delivery to any interdeck position and back again. For coatings and other more demanding applications, the ‘Modular Lamp Array’ is used and offers more power, exactly where and when it is needed.’

‘GEW is proud to have been selected as the new UV LED partner of RMGT. We have a long history of producing reliable, high-performance products, and our fast, friendly, and flexible approach to business has kept customers loyal to us over many years. We sincerely hope to continue this tradition with such a prestigious, highly regarded company as RMGT and to serve their customers as our own,’ concluded Rae.