Twelve months on from the Drupa that never was, Heidelberg has shown its latest sheet fed press offering to the global market. The new Speedmaster CX 104 is aimed squarely at growing the company’s share of the packaging print market sector, while offering a number of variants for commercial print houses.
Designed to be scalable, Heidelberg claims the CX 104 offers excellent price to performance ratio, from a relatively basic specification up to the full ‘Push to Stop’ functionality that Heidelberg launched at a previous Drupa. It is available with up to 15 print and coating units.
Rainer Hundsdörfer, CEO, said, “Heidelberg is investing in the industry’s future by developing technology that is intelligent, competitive, and affordable for a broad cross section of the sheet fed sector.”
Key to the new CX 104’s control system is the new Heidelberg UX operating philosophy, which assists the operator at the Prinect control station and at the press itself. The aim is to foreshorten make-ready times and provide as much pre-setting of various parameters on the press before the print run begins. Designed to be intuitive for end-to-end operation, the new system reduces waste and energy consumption and provides maximum consistency for today’s industrialised global print business.
One of the highlights of the press is a new design of coating unit. Based on technology used Heidelberg’s XL range, it is simple to operate, quicker to make-ready, and offers a more consistent coating layer. Lighter anilox rollers make for easy handling and a new blanket cylinder design speeds up changeover. For the first time, Heidelberg’s new PLP (Pulse Laser Process) laser engraving system is available for improved coating surfaces and a uniformly higher gloss level.
Heidelberg CX 104 – The Speedmaster CX 104 is Heidelberg’s latest tilt at the package print sector – its new design of coating unit offers quicker make-ready and improved lacquering consistency.
There are innovations in the inking and dampening process too, with improved performance using UV inks and lacquers. Features include ink mist extraction for lower pressroom emissions, auto ink agitation for improved viscosity, additional wash up capability for easier switching from conventional inks to UV and back, and a deep clean function that’s useful when switching from dark to light colours.
Announcing that series production of the new Speedmaster CX 104 is already underway, Heidelberg Product Manager, Florian Franken commented that several European pilot schemes already running show customers working successfully with the new press and seeing productivity gains of up to 20%.
In addition to the new CX 104, Heidelberg also launched a new version of its Speedmaster CX 92 at the China show. Featuring many of the innovations seen on the new CX 104, the smaller press is also available from a simple spec right up to ‘Push-to-Stop’ capability, which according to the company makes it ideal for short run work.
