Xeikon Cheetah runs at Labelexpo Europe

Following a successful series of five pilot installations, Xeikon’s Cheetah press technology will be commercially available from the start of Labelexpo Europe on September 29.

The press – claimed the fastest 5-color digital press on the market – has been renamed the CX3 and will sport a Xeikon Red livery rather than the cream with Cheetah logo of the pilot machines. At Labelexpo Xeikon also launches metallic spot colors, a retrofittable inline spectrophotometer and the latest version of its X-800 DFE, giving faster processing speeds and integrating more tightly with MIS and pre-press workflows. In addition Xeikon will show a 3300 press on the stand and a 3500 dedicated to folding cartons at the Packprint Workshop.

The underlying technology for the CX3 – still named Cheetah – allows for faster charging and de-charging of the five electrophotographic drums, which required development of modified toners able to perform at these faster speeds.

The press runs 60 percent faster than any other model in Xeikon’s current press portfolio, operating at up to 30m/min (98ft/min). The CX3 can handle substrate widths up to 300mm (13in) with a native print resolution of 1.200 x 3.600 dpi. Media weights are between 40-350gsm.

The need for faster data processing on the CX3 is reflected in the latest version of Xeikon’s X-800 digital front end (DFE). Version 4.0 includes full support for Adobe’s Mercury RIP architecture, which takes full advantage of multiple CPU cores in modern servers to accelerate overall job throughput in print production workflows. This will have a particular impact in areas like variable data processing and handling multiple transparency layers.