KYOCERA TARGETS COMMERCIAL PRINT

Inkjet print developer Kyocera is launching a new digital colour SRA3 press, the Taskalpha Pro 55000c, aimed squarely at the commercial print market, with the first showing at the big US trade show next week.

With ink supplied by Screen, and the printheads and chassis from Kyocera, the new Taskalpha Pro 55000c supports a wide range of media, including offset coated paper. The company says it achieves “comparable” print quality to offset printing, and “high” print durability.

David Procter, national print production manager at Kyocera, said the Pro 55000c will be a volume printer, running at between one million and ten million prints a month. He said, "We will gauge the reposnse of the market to the preview machine at Printing United next week. The launch to market will likely be at drupa in May, it should be available in ANZ a few months after that."

Procter says the lower running costs of ink versus toner, along with lower service costs and high uptime of the inkjet printer, will drive interest and ultimately orders, which according to Kyocera are “set to exceed the expectations of customers” in the printing industry.

According to Kyocera, the Pro 55000c provides “smooth and rich” colour reproduction and “high-definition” printing, using Kyocera technologies such as 1,200dpi inkjet heads and edge smoothing technology, that it says “precisely” reproduces lines and text outlines.

Applications for the SRA3+ printer include brochures, books, direct mail and other materials that require high-quality image resolution in the commercial printing market.

Kyocera is one of the world’s major inkjet head developers, with its printheads in many print systems from OEMs, and at PacPrint last year launched its first production press, the TaskAlpha Pro 15000c, aimed at the transpromo and transactional print markets, printing onto uncoated stocks. There are already a dozen Pro 15000c printers in Australia.

Company strategy now includes a focus on the commercial print industry. Here in ANZ, Procter heads the production business, with well-known identity Brett Palmer joining the company as service manager.