APRION Digital's Speed ​​Magic inkjet Print Head

Two years after Drupa came to life, APRION began selling its inkjet products. It has evolved into the world's fastest printhead that sprays 25,000 dots per head per second, and has the potential to further accelerate this speed.

In 1992, Scitex paid the $25,000 it raised to an inventor to try to develop the fastest fax machine in the world. As part of this project, a multi-line graphics color inkjet printhead (MAGIC) was born. In 1997, Scitex established an Advanced Printing Products group to tap their development potential around the 20 patents of this technology. With the help of them and other investors, APRION was established on September 9, 1999. Its venture capital was as high as $33 million, which was a huge sum of money in any new Israeli company at the time. Among the most important investors are Scitex, Israel Infinity Fund, Clal Electronics Industries, Discount Investment, Temleton, Hapoalim Bank and CDI.

APRION made its debut at Drupa2000. Several different print series were exhibited, some of which were subsequently put on the market. Since then, APRION has gradually grown to 150 employees, 90 of whom are engaged in research and development work. The company has applied for and obtained 60 patents and has the capacity to produce 20,000 inkjet print heads and 3,000 tons of inkjet inks (although it has not used all its capabilities yet). APRION invested 52 million U.S. dollars in funds and achieved a total of 170 million U.S. dollars in the stock market.

At a recent exhibition in Germany, we had the opportunity to talk with Miki Nagler, President and CEO of APRION. Nagler has been an expert at Scitex for 17 years and also served as CEO of Iris Graphics for 3 years. He introduced us to the most important aspects of APRION technology.

Magic Printhead The APRION inkjet printhead is a multi-layer structure with 5 layers. From the top down, they are the electronic controlled layer, the electrical contact layer, the piezoelectric driver layer, the porous ink layer, and the (bottom) nozzle metal plate layer. Each layer is only a few millimeters thick and is a new type of inkjet printing. The bottom layer is the nozzle plate, which has 600 openings per inch (600 dpi resolution for the setup). At its upper part is a millimeter-thick porous ink layer that can carry large-capacity water-based pigment inks. The next layer contains the piezoelectric drive components with the electrical contact layer on top of this layer. The top layer contains the electronic components that control the dots. The ability of the print head to rapidly eject a large volume of ink results from a rapid transfer rate of 25,000 Hz (25,000 20 picoliters per second) and high ink holding capacity of the porous ink layer.
Printheads currently produced are about 6 inches long and 1 inch wide. Any model can be installed adjacent to each other to cover a wider area.

The special ink APRION has invented a technology for its print heads that allows them to be integrated with a variety of different substrates. This aqueous ink can even produce long-lasting pictures on materials like polyethylene films. APRION said that this ink is better than most other inks in terms of their water solubility, lightness, and abrasion resistance. In addition, the company offers a range of UV-curable inks that do not vaporize or odor during drying. These inks are used exclusively for advertising products that require good gloss, high water resistance, good resistance to lyase, or particularly high abrasion resistance.

"Inkjet will conquer offset printing" At a meeting with consumers, Nagler said he is convinced that ink jet printing will become faster than any other type of printing. He compared ink jet printing to electronic phototype color laser printing. It is a mature technology. It has reached a very high level of quality, but (about 100 pages per minute) is relatively slow, which leads to high cost per page. In contrast, inkjet printing still has great potential for development, and (about 1,000 pages per minute) has been about 10 times faster than toner-based technology. And the cost per page is much lower.

The speed of the APRION printing system can still be greatly improved in the future. Today's printheads are very fast. They currently spray 25,000 dots per second - but APRION has achieved 150,000 dots per second (a six-fold increase) in the lab.

Nagler confidently predicted that by 2010, inkjet printing will achieve a 25%-45% market share in his estimated annual $850 billion printing market. That will make inkjet printing the dominant printing technology. In terms of long-term development, inkjet printing will replace lithographic offset printing in most applications.

Different channels for different markets At Drupa, APRION announced printing equipment for three different markets: Book-oriented printing, home decor printing and cardboard carton printing. (The Scitex Superjet is not exhibited at Drupa. It just describes the printing that is suitable for a wide range of models. It is actually the same model that is suitable for home decoration.)

Book printing: BookNet APRION presents a non-operational model of a book printing press. It was designed to print pages of paperback books. It also printed the covers and bound the printed books. In the lab, this machine can complete a 600-page fine book within 5 minutes. The prototype version of this machine has been completed, but (according to traditional chicken and egg problems) APRION is still waiting to find a partner for the booknet project. Nagler explained: “We are very interested in the cooperation of printers, publishers, bookstores, e-commerce sites, academic organizations and institutions that want to reduce inventory and expand product ordering.

The second machine the Scitex Superjet APRION exhibited at Drupa was a 165 cm wide web printer that can run at a rate of 160 square meters per hour on a variety of materials like paper, polyethylene film, banners and label materials. print.

This new type of digital press has been sold in various markets by strategic partners developed by APRION. In order to occupy a broader printing market in the printing industry, APRION's sister company, Scitex Vision, has exclusive rights worldwide. It was sold under the name Scitex Superjet and the machine that was initially installed was displayed near Kurten+Lechner and Cologne in Germany at the end of March. The company used it to print soft materials that had previously been screen printed. This digital technology allows 400 copies to be printed at a lower cost than screen printing with at least the same quality. Customers from around Europe who were invited to the exhibition were enthusiastic about the Superjet.

One of the earliest DPS65 agreements before Drupa 2000 was signed with Polytex in New York. It has established a new auxiliary system called digital printing with a drum-to-drum structure that sells APRION technology to the home decor market (eg wallpapers, fabrics and even blankets). The prototype machine for this market, called the DPS65, was exhibited at Drupa. Since then, the initial machine has begun to shift to consumers.

Shaldag SP/Bel2000 Another use of the same nozzle structure as the Superjet has been developed specifically for packaging applications. This is a machine with a loading platform for printing on hard materials such as card paper and crumpled cardboard. It is sold by many vendors in Europe under the name of Shaldag SP: Lastercomb of Germany, Typon AG of Switzerland and Artaker of Austria.

In the United States, the same machine with a loading platform is sold by the Bellwood-based North American LLC to the wallpaper and carton folding industry. It is called Bel2000. The first two Bel2000s were installed in early 2002, one of which was at Menasha Displays (Mequon, Wisconsin) and the other at Lewisburjg Container (Lewisburjg, Ohio).

The shaldag SP at lasercomb

Lasercomb represents the laser bonding system and is a supplier to the internationally renowned packaging industry. For more than 25 years, the company has been selling laser dies for packaging production. Lasercomb has a modern factory about 30 kilometers from Stuttgart. There are a large number of different types of products produced there, and Shaldag SP is installed.

The printer itself is also spectacular: it is 3.5 meters long, 2.21 meters high, 2.3 meters deep, and as large as the full Superjet. In addition, it has a paper-feeding mechanism with a large enough space for 160 x 260 cm on the left side of the press, a drive system for moving the paperboard, and then a drying device with a length of about 1 meter, followed by a paper-feeding mechanism. The same size of the delivery mechanism. The total length is 13 meters.

Christors Tatsis, the marketing director of APRION Digital, showed us this machine and pointed out its solid structure, which was designed to be fully automated in 24 hours. Paper feeders and transmission mechanisms can handle cardboards from 1 mm to 10 mm thick and stack them up to 1.5 meters high.

This machine incorporates 42 Magic print heads: 7 headers for each of the 6 colors. The paperboard moves through the machine along X-rays, and the printhead moves along a track that passes through the full width Y-rays of the machine. The adjustment of the speed of the X-ray movement is optional, so the printing is turned off (this results in a print speed of 160 square meters per hour) or 4 turns (leading to a printing speed of 90 square meters per hour).

The ink is supplied by a one-gallon container, which can be replaced without affecting the printing. The memory buffer has enough power to support the machine to turn off the printing for the previous half hour. You can choose CMYK plus light blue green and pastel purple, or CMYK plus second grade C and M. Since the water-based ink dries quickly (without an unpleasant solvent odor), the drying unit speed is fast enough to follow the on-off or 4-on printing speed.

For flexo and screen-pinters Tatsis proudly showed us several large printed prints printed with thick colors on white corrugated cardboard for auction display. The 600dpi resolution makes the text even sharply visible from close quarters, using a 4-color printing process that is more full-color. The biggest advantage of inkjet compared to flexo and screen printing is the fact that inkjet does not require "skilled workers". In the short term, this is the biggest cost factor for the other two technologies. At the same time, inkjet printing provides a very fast turnaround.

Tatsis predicts that investing $750,000 (sharing of 840,000 euros) in shaldag SP will quickly generate returns if you have enough business. Until now, tradition has meant that products that were previously printed with flexo, and gradually, it will mean products that are printed with a screen printer. The quality competition between Shaldag and other printing processes is not a problem, especially on white cardboard, thanks to high resolution and FM outlets. It will be interesting to see how this kind of machine is done in the market.