New UV-cured industrial inkjet printer from TOPPAN

TOPPAN Printing Company of Tokyo, Japan, has developed a high quality industrial use inkjet printer for on demand printing. It plans to use the system in its own printing facilities and then also sell the press to other printers. TOPPAN's inkjet printer incorporates UV curing technology to solve a common inkjet issue – producing offset quality ink that is also water resistant.

Inkjet printers dominate the office and consumer markets, but have not penetrated into industrial use applications. This is due primarily to the fact that typically inkjet printing costs about ten times more than offset printing and also has lower water resistance when standard printing paper is used.  TOPPAN solved these issues by using UV-curable inks. The new printer incorporates two Fusion UV Light Hammer 6 (LH6) UV-curing systems. Fusion UV's LH6 is a six-inch, microwave-powered, high output UV-curing system.

Over the last three years, TOPPAN has developed a new ink drop delivery technique which it claims is of an equivalent resolution to offset printing.  The new printer is capable of printing 2,200 sheets per hour with A2 (16.5"x 23.4") size paper.  While this print speed is slower than high-speed offset printing, which is typically 5,000 sheets per hour, this is an acceptable print speed for on demand printing.

This is the first time TOPPAN has entered the printing equipment sales arena. Komori Corporation, a large printing press manufacturer, will be manufacturing the new UV inkjet printer for TOPPAN.

A pre-production machine is now being used for internal print testing. TOPPAN factories plan to start using the UV inkjet printer this October and sales to outside companies is expected to begin in 2005. The first year sales target for this printer is 600 million yen at a sales price for the single color system expected to be 30 million yen.