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Enhanced Folding Carton Suite demonstrates Xeikon’s dedication to meet changing needs of packaging market

New basic Xeikon configuration for digital production of folding carton extends color gamut.

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Xeikon will be showcasing its enhanced Folding Carton Suite at Ipex 2014 on stand S1-E090. The digital production of folding cartons is ideal for event-driven seasonal packaging, intensive test marketing, just-in-time delivery contracts and customization of shorter runs to appeal to smaller geographic and demographic market segments. With the Folding Carton Suite, Xeikon offers a ready-to-use package, making it easy for customers to configure an efficient and cost-effective set-up for the digital production of folding cartons. It’s the ideal solution for packaging converters who need to add high quality cost-effective short runs of folding cartons to their mix of offerings as well as for commercial printers looking to enter the packaging market. The Xeikon Folding Carton Suite includes a Xeikon 3000 Series digital press, a range of recommended substrates, specific workflow and software components, toners, consumables and finishing equipment.

“Digital printing technologies are proven to be the most effective means of meeting evolving market needs such as greater variety of products, smaller quantities and faster time-to-market. The continuous enhancements to the Folding Carton Suite demonstrate our dedication to providing the best end-to-end digital printing solutions to the market, and address the changing needs of brand owners and packaging converters,” says Filip Weymans, of Segment Labels and Packaging at Xeikon. “The Xeikon Folding Carton Suite allows them to digitally produce the same high quality packaging but for a whole range of new applications, allowing them to build new revue streams with higher profit margins.”

He continues: “The fact that we offer a web-fed solution ensures maximum productivity and minimum waste thanks to the full rotary press technology with a variable repeat length, as well as cost effectiveness by purchasing the substrate on a roll. Its ability to offer B2 and larger format print is another advantage of the Xeikon 3000 Series presses. Specifically the Xeikon 3050 and Xeikon 3500 are tuned to the production of high quality short runs of folding cartons for a wide variety of industries.”

Extending the color gamut

The enhanced Folding Carton Suite now offers a basic press configuration where the print stations are equipped with orange toner, in combination with CMYK. The extended color gamut achieved with this configuration ensures the accurate production of a wider range of brand colors. Optional the orange toner can be replaced with other colors such as red, blue or green when the work of the print provider would rather require a color gamut in that area. “The new configuration with orange toner is the result of Xeikon’s listening to and answering the needs of today's brand owners and packaging converters," comments Weymans. "With orange toner, we ensure the best possible match for the broadest array of brand colors.” Also included in the Folding Carton Suite is the cloud-based Xeikon Color Control to make color management even easier.

One-pass digital printing and digital varnishing

An alternative press configuration includes a digital spot varnish station, equipped with Durable Clear Toner. The Durable Clear Toner applies in-line spot varnish to make the folding box scuff and scratch resistant, a standard requirement with folding carton production. Having printing and varnishing done one-pass, on one press, saves time and space in the plant, and also eliminates the need for additional investments in separate varnishing stations. Weymans adds: “Durable Clear Toner supports greater diversification with one compact solution for inline production of unique cartons with the possibility for each one to be different. It is the perfect solution for small to medium-sized folding carton printers that are mostly serving local markets.”

In addition, Xeikon QA-I toners which are used for all label and packaging applications, score well in terms of lightfastness and comply with FDA guidelines for indirect food contact and direct contact with dry food substances that contain no surface oil or fat.

Stand-out technologies

The Folding Carton Suite also features a unique fuser drum to enable the production of smooth and consistent print on uneven and textured media, especially recycled board stock ranging from GC board to GC, GT and GZ grades. The Alpine 516 fuser drum has a flexible outer layer as opposed to a standard hard drum surface which can result in an uneven gloss level on textured materials. It is offered as an option for the two 516 mm wide printing presses in the Xeikon 3000 Series, the entry level Xeikon 3050 and high speed Xeikon 3500, and existing installations can be field upgraded to benefit from this exclusive Xeikon capability.

In order to increase the lifecycle of parts a simple-to-activate web cleaning system has now also been included in the Folding Carton Suite, lowering the overall cost of production.

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