Evolution of the Australian-developed Memjet inkjet technology and a new concept from digital print veteran Benny Landa are among the anticipated highlights at DRUPA in May.

US-based Delphax – which has brought some of the fastest web-fed systems to previous shows – will present new colour systems powered by the Memjet technologies. The ‘transformational advance’ in imaging technology  will be shown in sheetfed production offering speeds up to 500 impressions a minute in full colour and 1600 dpi print quality on a range of substrates.

Dieter Schilling, president and chief executive officer of Delphax, says the company is introducing a “game-changing print system” representing an entirely new category of digital print technology.

“It is our response to growing customer demand for more efficient, versatile and affordable color printing equipment. Multiple Memjet printheads have been integrated with transport technology to provide a high-resolution, high-quality and high-speed inkjet printing system.

“There is nothing approaching this performance in the market today,” says Schilling. The Memjet printheads each deliver up to 700 million drops of ink per second using more than 70,000 ink nozzles.

Commercial print-on-demand applications beckon in direct mail, transpromo, book and manual publishing.

Schilling says Delphax has captured the largest worldwide market share in cheque-printing applications using industry-leading paper-path designs, and the world’s fastest toner-based monochrome sheet-fed and roll-fed presses.

Benny Landa, who kick-started the digital printing revolution with the Indigo press technology he sold to HP, will have new ‘nano printing’ technology to show at DRUPA.

Since selling to HP in 2001, he has developed a raft of technologies within the Landa Corporation business he set up in 2002.

A new batch of patents – in addition to the 700 he already holds – cover the new nano printing technology. It has been described as a kind of inkjet technology in which particles "smaller than a germ” are used with a flexible new printhead.

It is understood the print application may be a a spin-off of research into energy technology. Landa Digital printing is one of four divisions of Landa Corporation, which has interests in lenticular printing, cutting-edge science and engineering.
Those who remember the stylish Indigo launch of 1993 will be crowding the 1500 m2 corner stand in Hall 9, where five presentations a day are planned in an amphitheatre-style setting.