Page 27 - PWM2023_January

TECHNOLOGY REPORT

competitive with digital. 144kW per to consider – all of which are taken into account when designing The dye sublimation process needs sig-
hour is many times the consumption the ideal solution for our customers. Digital print technology and nificant heat for the ink to transfer to
claimed for the digital presses below, but inline finishing for example, require less manual intervention – textiles and other polyester-based
the XL106 prints vastly more A4 page while print-on-demand reduces inventory and waste, making the media. Solvent and eco-solvent ink types
areas than they can produce in an hour. entire print process more flexible,” Rising adds. have heated beds, largely to condition
Remember though that litho and flexo The bigger-is-more-efficient logic doesn’t seem to stretch to vinyl to accept and lock in the pigments.
presses also consume extra electricity in digital presses however, where B2 is popular as a step up from LEDs have largely replaced mercury
the platemaking processes as well as the SRA3, especially with HP Indigos, but B1 sheetfed is yet to really vapour lamps for UV curing, with a huge
extra consumables, which digital doesn’t take off despite numerous tries. saving on energy (and cold running
need. means they can handle lighter, cheaper
Inkjet v toner consumption
LED-UV retrofits media with less environmental impact
We did manage to get some idea of a few digital presses’ con- too). According to EFI’s UK distributor
If you’re in the market for a new litho sumption. Kyocera, which stressed the low consumption of its
press, bigger can mean more efficient, SRA3 Taskalfa Pro 15000C inkjet production press when it was CMYUK, the current Vutek Q5r or 5r,
says Murray Lock, managing director of launched last year, has drawn up a comparative chart of some which are 5m roll-to-roll inkjets with
M Partners, distributor of RMGT other digital presses. Stuart Johnson, production print manager at LED-UV lamps, draw 2.9kWh, where
presses: “Our sales pitch is, you can Kyocera Document Solutions (UK), said these are real-world the older mercury lamp based equiva-
replace two B2 presses with one B1. measurements from some of its global customer sites that also lent Vutek GS 5000r used 10kWh. The
Their economics are better and you’ll get have the competitors’ machines. current 3.2m Vutek 32r draws 1.8kWh.
twice the throughout for less than twice We haven’t been able to independently verify these figures. HP’s Latex process originally needed a
the power use.” Canon did give us figures for its VarioPrint ix inkjet series and great deal of heat to cure the water-based
RMGT was also a pioneer of LED-UV polymer inks, although the current itera-
curing 10 years ago, and all litho (and these are significantly lower than Kyocera’s measurements, but tions have reworked heating systems, a
they may not be comparing like-for-like. We’ve added the manu-
flexo) press makers offer it now. We’ve facturers’ official figures in brackets where we can find them. faster warm-up and a new ‘Optimizer’
Nailing down the kilowatts UV-LED (or low-energy UV, which is modules, which each need a single-phase plug, use a total of 2021 Mimaki put up a YouTube video
primer to reduce this significantly. In
heard of printers that have retrofitted
According to Kyocera its own Pro 15000C press’ four main
where it printed the same 4sqm job on
different), purely for their energy sav-
4.576kW per hour. It says a Ricoh Pro C9200 colour toner press
ings – with the instant curing as a side-
then the equivalent HP Latex
benefit. While UV-cured inks cost more, totals 14.168kW per hour (Ricoh says “less than 9,000”); a slower its UJV100-160 LED-UV printer and
the energy savings are tipping the bal- Ricoh Pro C7200 toner press is 8.008 (Ricoh says 11.2); a Xerox 600W/700W model, while measuring
ance. Nuvera 288 mid-range colour toner press is 8.3 (which is what the power consumed throughout.
Xerox says too, though its claims half that for the slower 100-144 Starting from standby (with a power
Digital savings models); a Canon VarioPrint iX3200 B3 sheetfed inkjet is 37.5 spike to warm up) the HP used about six
Energy concerns are also leading more (Canon says 26.1 though that covers the iX3200 and slower times as much electricity. HP itself pub-
printers to consider digital, says Stuart iX2200); and a Xerox Baltoro HF B3 sheetfed inkjet is 14.478. lished figures in 2016 comparing its
Rising, head of commercial print for You’d need to do a lot of cross-comparisons of throughputs to Latex 360 with a Roland XF-640 eco sol-
Canon UK & Ireland. “We are now see- get a standardised figure in terms of kW per A4 page or whatever. vent printer, and found the Latex used
ing energy consumption featured in However it seems clear that inkjet’s high power use is due to the about four times as much electricity.
almost every conversation that we have hot air driers needed for the water-based inks, which is more Steve Baker, managing director of
with our prospective customers,” he power-hungry than the heat/pressure fusers of the slower toner Baker Labels in Brentwood, highlighted
says. “In particular, we are seeing more presses. the potentially catastrophic impact of
litho press users seeking out devices that The Kyocera inkjet puts down less ink, so needs very little help the predicted electricity price rises in a
offer advanced product specifications as with drying, but it’s really more of a fast document printer than LinkedIn group in August, which
well as energy-saving potential – as this the Canon and Xerox inkjets which can produce litho-like colour received a lot of responses from other
can help them to meet wider business depth and quality but with a lot more ink to dry. HP Indigo mod- companies in the same boat.
and sustainability objectives. Our inkjet els heat the transfer blanket to transfer the ink, but don’t need fur-
technology has recently captured the ther energy to cure it. Official figures for the HP Indigo 7000 Correlations in conclusion
attention of PSPs as it boasts a number of sheetfed SRA3 press are 14-18kw when printing, apparently for a These figures aren’t comprehensive,
energy-saving capabilities which can four-colour version. The WS6000 web press is the same. B2 and there may be inconsistencies in how
help to evolve production print pro- sheetfed models (12000 and 3000) are 38kW. they are measured. Nevertheless, they
cesses and improve sustainability. do provide a broad idea of what various
“Comparisons need to take many dif- Wide-format processes processes use, which may be useful to
ferent aspects into account. As well as It’s much the same story for wide-format inkjets. Water-based readers in judging how to allocate their
energy savings, there are a number of ink printers (for fine art and photo work) tend not to have acceler- production this winter, and how to plan
other important environmental factors ated drying, but they are slowish and need special coated papers. investments before the next one.

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