IST METZ surpasses attendance expectations at drupa
IST METZ announced today the overwhelming success of its daily live demonstrations at drupa. Four times a day a live demo on a Heidelberg XL 75 six colour with coater Anicolor 2 machine equipped with IST LAMPcure traditional UV technology and IST LEDcure LED UV technology took place.
The company’s trade fair appearance got an “outstanding reception” and the order books were filled, it claimed. The purpose of the demonstration was to offer an up close and personal real time view of two different printing job formats, one representing packaging with five colours, a special drip-off varnish and iridescent coating on board substrate, and the second representing a commercial job with five colours. The packaging job was produced at full press operating speed using an IST LAMPcure UV system with two interdecks and end of press lamps.
Upon the completion of the packaging job, while the press operators changed plates, colours and substrate, one IST LAMPcure UV interdeck was exchanged with an IST LEDcure interdeck using IST’s exclusive ‘Hot Swap’ technology. From the finish of the packaging job to the start of the commercial job spans an average time of just seven minutes, the actual UV exchange is only roughly two minutes. The commercial job was also run at full press rated speed using just one IST LED UV curing module.
Of the two jobs, one was part of the printed brochure selection available from IST, the other was actually the vehicle for the exclusive IST Virtual Reality Glasses, which delivered a tour of the inside of the press and the installed IST UV system.
According to Holger Kuehn, managing director sales at IST METZ: “We were seeing crowds in excess of 200 people for each event every day. As we did this four times a day you can imagine the excitement at the stand.”
IST was the only UV manufacturer at drupa with an operating printing press doing live print demos. “We much prefer to show people what we can do and provide solid information and education regarding the differences between traditional and LED UV curing, rather than simply surrounding the subject with hype and hearsay,” added Kuehn.
One of three world premiere technologies introduced at IST’s stand, the exclusive ‘Hot Swap’ is based on an electronic power supply produced by IST that provides power for both traditional UV lamps (LAMPcure) and LED UV modules (LEDcure). Both UV light sources connect to the same cables, mount to the same point, are controlled by the same interface and are automatically identified with no input required by the operator.