Fujifilm Jet Press 1160CFG: Continued Inkjet Innovation

You only need to mention the name Fujifilm, and as one of the heavyweights of the printing industry, the brand can often be attributed to technical innovations.

The latest offering for the European and American markets is a press which has already proven itself in Fujifilm’s heartlands of Asia. The Jet Press 1160CF was released at drupa earlier this year and is another step forward for inkjet technology.

In order to look forward you need to look at history to understand the success this press delivers. Fujifilm was originally at the vanguard of the inkjet revolution, going back as far as the 1970s when it started delivering presses capable of delivering commercially acceptable copy from this new technology.

Roll onto 2011 and it showed the world the first single pass sheet fed inkjet press, the Jet Press 720. Being present at the release you couldn’t help but take a step back and really understand this technology which had found its feet and proved it was here to stay.

Following on from this was the Jet Press 750S, which raised the bar with 1,200 dpi and client ready copy at lithographic standards.

In 2019 the company started to move the technology into web-fed markets and primarily into the transaction market, but the new press, the Jet Press 1160CFG, not only is a quality machine, but the speed of the press is another boundary which has been pushed to new levels.

Web Innovation

It is quite natural when we highlight web integration that thoughts automatically turn to websites and web pages doing ever more clever image processing. However, Fujifilm take a far more industry focused interpretation, and this innovative new press has a piece of technology underpinning the ability of it to uphold speed and quality.

Typically, a lot of energy and thought goes into the printing process trying to alleviate problems with quality by adapting and changing parameters on the chemicals and inks being applied. Fujifilm has looked at this issue from the ground up and tackled the issue of substrates by controlling them prior to printing rather than after which is far more conventional.

In the Jet Press 1160CFG, lots of investment has gone into a unit they call the Paper Stabilizer. What Fujifilm do with this technology is accurately adapt the biggest culprit of paper issues, which is moisture. This is done by passing paper through a series of rollers stacked in the unit prior to the printing unit. The media is then heated and the moisture content is set to the most desirable condition for the inks to be applied.

Moisture is a massive headache to printers but a machine that has a conditioning unit built into it means that regardless of the month or weather, at the point of delivery to the printing unit the paper is at the optimum condition. If you apply that thought process further, once printed, quality issues such and waviness or cockling can be all but consigned to history, plus ink adhesion is greatly improved on thicker papers.

As would be expected with any web press, the Jet Press 1160CFG has an unwind unit at one end of the press being capable of holding reels up to 1,270mm in diameter and stock of 64 to 250gsm. Moving these from the floor to reel stand is accomplished by the use of a series of buttons so the operator has the minimum of effort to lift even the heaviest of rolls.

The whole unwind section, infeed and tension control system, and edge registration control is all fully integrated into the machine’s control systems, meaning the paper is in the perfect place and condition for the first drop of ink.

The Business End

As with previous presses from Fujifilm there is no need to use primers or pre-coatings on the web. You can apply the newly formulated, water based, and highly pigmented inks directly to the web and as it has been conditioned through the Paper Stabilizer unit, the definition is outstanding at 1,200 x 600 dpi at 160m/min. For the highest possible quality, 1,200 x 1,200 can be achieved at 80m/min.

The inks are of CMYK colour format and for half tones there are three levels per droplet, so the graduation across the sheet is seamless. The Jet Press 1160CFG uses twin piezoelectric drop-on-demand duplex print heads, the web being reversed at the mid-point of the press configuration.

The Jet Press 1160CFG uses two forms of drying technologies to ensure the work is finished dry and ready to be processed. The first is a sub-drying unit which is an IR heater which dries the ink and minimises any deformation of the sheet (bear in mind a lot of conditioning was applied to the substrate in the Paper Stabilizer, so you do not want to undo all that work). Once processed by the IR heater, the substrate then passes over the first of two heat drums which finalises the drying of the applied ink.

Fujifilm do not tie a user into a reel-to-reel configuration. Whilst this might be a typical choice, a number of post-print options are available.

The rewind stand is of the same specification of the unwind stand, but should your production need sheeted work or any other finishing, Fujifilm can provide a number of options.

High Speed Data

The conditioning of the substrate, application, and drying of the ink all needs to be done at a speed which can deliver variable data. Fujifilm take care of this with a very powerful print server and the company's Business Innovation technology for the rapid processing of data. The print server can process a vast volume of data, producing high quality images to be printed, and sits protected by a UPS externally to the press itself.

The Jet Press 1160CFG focuses on paper conditioning via the use of the Paper Stabilizer units

Aside from highlight technology such as the print server, Fujifilm place a lot of focus on the simpler points of operation such as ink pack carts to allow the smallest individual to change ink and a clever trolley and pump to decant processed water for the process.

Overall, the printer is bound to get attention, just because it comes from Fujifilm, but that attention will stand up to scrutiny as this is a powerful and high-quality press.

Statistics:

Production speed Up to 160m/min
Resolution 1200 x 600 @ 160m/min
1200 x 1200 @ 80m/min
Colour CMYK water-based inks
Web width 152.4 to 520.7 mm
Grammage 64 to 250gsm

Brian Sims, principal consultant, Metis Print Consultancy, www.metis-uk.eu