09 September 2014

Xeikon unleashes Cheetah

Xeikon has introduced Cheetah, a new dry toner digital color press dedicated to the self-adhesive label market that runs 60 percent faster than its current 3000 series and described as the ‘biggest leap in its technology in 15 years’.

The Cheetah is a full rotary press that can print at 98ft/min (30m/min) in five colors at a true print resolution of 1,200 x 3,600dpi, with a web width of 7.9-13in (200-330mm). This places it directly in the narrow web market, said Filip Weymans, director of segment marketing and business development for labels and packaging at Xeikon, and meets the needs of printers and converters that are looking to print higher volumes of self-adhesive labels more economically.

Weymans said: ‘We have noticed that our customer’s volumes are growing and you have to consider how many presses they can operate to meet this.

‘We took this as signal as a press manufacturer to develop a more efficient and economical press.’

‘This increase in speed represents a huge leap forward in digital press technology,’ said Patrick Van Baelen, vice-president of worldwide marketing at Xeikon.

‘It will enable Xeikon label printers and converters to embark on a new era of productivity and efficiency, with much greater flexibility to react to their clients’ requests for shorter time-to-market.’

‘The Xeikon Cheetah narrows the gap between digital printing and traditional flexo/offset methods for producing labels,’ Baelen added.’ In addition, the increase in speed also results in a lower total production cost.’

The press offers five colors, with a standard configuration of CMYK+white, although further colors are available, such as orange and green, as well as custom colors that can be specified and delivered in a four-week time frame.

The toner used with the Cheetah is based on Xeikon’s Ice toner, which was launched last year, although a specially modified version, Cheetah toner, has been developed to handle the increased printing speed of the press with a reduced particle size.

By materials, the Cheetah can handle a wide gamut of those used in the self-adhesive label market, from coated and uncoated papers to BOPP and coextruded plastics.

Shipments of the Cheetah will begin next year, and it will be shown at in-house Xeikon events in Europe for those that were unable to see it at Labelexpo Americas 2014, where the Cheetah is on show on the Xeikon stand.