Heidelberg has officially revealed the B1 inkjet press that its been dropping hints about for the last year. The Primefire 106 is built on a Heidelberg offset chassis with Fujifilm inkjet technology. If this press is capable of the sort of results we normally associate with a Heidelberg press then this has the capability to be a genuine game-changer.
Heidelberg claims that this press will help it take digital printing to a more industrial level, for short to medium production runs of personalized products including packaging.
It also proves that Heidelberg can work in partnership with another company. The strategic partnership with Fujifilm was formed in late 2013 and has resulted in a brand new press in less than 24 months’ time. Gerold Linzbach, CEO of Heidelberg, commented: “Our original partnership was based on a joint evaluation of Fujifilm’s core inkjet technology, and after two years of co-development, we remain convinced Fujifilm is the best partner.”
The press uses Fujifilm’s Samba printheads together with its water-based pigment ink, which are said to meet food packaging safety regulations. It uses a seven-colour inkset with CMYK, orange, green, and violet as well as a varnish from Heidelberg.
This new press should be available in the latter half of 2017, with the first machine installation for field testing planned after the drupa exhibition.
Heidelberg will add the name ‘fire’ to all of its digital products, including renaming its Linoprint dry toner printers as Versafire and the Gallus label press as the Labelfire 340.
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