Xeikon 5000

The company, which currently operates three Indigo UltraStream machines and one Xeikon DCP 500, sees the B2 format of the new machine, coupled with Xeikon's improved print quality and new spot colour capability, as the key reasons for purchasing the 5000.

"We have been waiting since DRUPA 2000 for Indigo to produce its B2 machine. It doesn't appear to be coming, so the Xeikon 5000 is the ideal solution to our large format requirements," said Lawrence Dalton, managing director of 1st Byte.

“The inclusion of the spot colour capability really does lift this machine into the “Premier League” of digital printing systems,” said Lawrence Dalton. “It means that corporate clients can be assured of the accurate reproduction of the company colour in everything that we print for them.”

“The ability of the 5000 to work with materials up to 350gsm in sizes of 500mm wide by virtually unlimited length will allow us to explore new markets. Folders, for example, are something that our customers are always asking us about; and in the packaging sector – where we see the potential for production of test marketing runs of packaging materials.”

The twenty-six strong team at 1st Byte operate a 24-hour, 5-day shift system and focus strongly on short-run colour print production for a London client base. "We see plenty of future potential for variable data work, but currently this only makes up a very small percentage of our customers’ requirements," said Lawrence Dalton. “The most important benefits we provide for our customers are short-run, high-quality colour print, which is finished to a high standard, and delivered back to them very quickly.” To aid fast-turnaround, the company handles the entire production process in-house, including a wide range of finishing operations, such as folding, laminating, stitching, wire-o-binding, drilling, and shrink wrapping.

The Xeikon 5000, announced in February of this year, provides for significantly improved print quality, as well as the facility to add a fifth duplex printing unit for spot colours. The 5000 also comes integrated with a new digital front-end – Swift. As its name suggests, Swift processes PostScript, JDF, PPML, and PPML/VDX files at high speed. The product has also been designed to support JDF-based job tickets.

The Xeikon 5000 can print at speeds of up to 7,800 full-colour duplexed pages per hour (130 A4 pages per minute). It is envisaged that the 5000 will handle monthly volumes of up to 3 million A4 full-colour pages, and early calculations suggest a cost per page of just 0.02 Eur. For fast and efficient service, the machine can be remotely monitored by Xeikon engineers.