Konica Minolta has announced a new series of black and white digital presses, the AccurioPress 6136 series, which will replace the bizhub Press 1250e series.
The series consists of three models AccurioPress 6136, which includes a new colour scanner, the 6136P, for print only and the slower 6120. The 6136 is somewhat faster than the older 1250 eeries, running at 136 A4 ppm and 78 A3 ppm, while the 6120 produces 120 A4 ppm and 70 A3 ppm. The 6136 can handle monthly volumes of 500,000 to 2.6 million A4 pages, while the 6120 is best suited to monthly volumes of 250,000 to 2.3 million pages.
The series supports various media types, such as coated and embossed paper from 40gsm up to 350 gsm. However, the speed drops for media over 216gsm.
Ines Wennemann, product manager for Konica Minolta Europe’s monochrome printers, says that although the market for monochrome is declining overall as people move to colour, Konica Minolta is still seeing some growth in Europe. She says this is partly due to consolidation as people shift work from multiple presses to one faster machine, adding that “for presses above 124ppm the volumes are expected to rise.”
The 6136 series gains Konica Minolta’s IQ-501 integrated colour care unit, which automates a number of adjustments for higher quality and shorter delivery times. Wennemann explains: “We can set up the density adjustment as well as the registration. It has a spectrophotometer and two cameras so it can see the registration from both sides within a couple of sheets.”
It’s also fitted with Konica Minolta’s RU-518 unit, which cools the paper for smoother finishing and also includes de-curling functions. There’s a humidification option that reduces electrostatic charging to the paper.
There is an intelligent paper catalogue and optional envelope fuser. It’s compatible with the existing range of finishing equipment from Konica Minolta and companies such as Watkiss, GBC and Plockmatic.
In addition, this new series can be used with Konica Minolta’s new Accurio Pro software and the Accurio Print Manager, which will allow these mono presses to be part of a work group with their colour siblings. Wennemann adds that there Konica Minolta’s OpenAPI systems allows it to hook into external programs such as accounting or authentication software. The user interface can be customized for each operator and the press can be run from a mobile device.
It’s also worth pointing out that Konica Minolta’s Bizhub Press 2250 is essentially a twin-engine version of the 1250 so I think it’s highly likely that this will also be replaced at some point with a model based on the new AccurioPress 6136.
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