Compact Profile Press

Genius 52, the uniquely configured 20´´ waterless UV press, is catching on in North America, says manufacturer KBA. It's cylindrical (KBA calls it “avant garde”) profile and compact size, enables it to fit in small locales. Positioned as an easy-to-run machine that offers operation automated to a point just shy of direct-imaging presses, more than 15 of the machines have been sold since Print 05.

Rated at speeds of up to 8,000 sheets per hour (depending on the substrate) and available in 4- and 5-color versions—or even outfitted with curing extension for UV printing—the Genius 52 uses a common impression cylinder with four gripper systems. It's designed in such a way that each sheet is printed in one gripper bite with no sheet transfer required.

Radiating from the central, quadruple-sized impression cylinder are the four or five print units and their inkers grouped as V-shaped assemblies. (On 4-color versions, a fifth printing unit can be retrofitted at any time.) An aqueous coater is available as an alternative to the fifth printing unit.

Keyless inking with the anilox roller Gravuflow inking system and short, temperature-controlled ink trains (just two jumbo rollers) are factors that both simplify operation (no roller adjustment) and minimize ghosting. The ink form roller, which is the same size as the blanket cylinder, is also outfitted with a blanket.

In the Gravuflow inking system, a thin coat of ink is transferred to the plate coating roller with each rotation of the ceramic-coated anilox roller. A doctor blade removes surplus ink, providing the basis for consistent laydown.

The guards over the inking units and delivery can be raised with one movement, and the side guards pushed towards the feeder and delivery. This affords easy access to the inking and printing units for operating and maintenance tasks. But there really isn't much adjusting required inside the Genius.

One example of its simplified operation is the auto-platechanging feature with a new type of pneumatic lock-up and registration system, said to guarantee register-true mounting. New plates are guided into the changing shafts while the guards are still in place, and then automatically mounted. At the end of the run, the used plates are ejected into a disposal shaft, then removed manually. A complete plate change on a 4-color press takes around five minutes; changeover on a 5-color press takes six minutes.

The sheets are guided from the infeed pile (19¾´´ maximum) over the suction-tape feed board to the infeed by a streamfeeder with rear-edge separation and cantilevered suction head. The infeed features a mechanical sidelay for infeed registration, plus an electro-pneumatic skewed and missing sheet control. Side, front and cover lays can all be adjusted manually.

The sheets are then transferred to the impression-cylinder grippers via a double-size infeed drum. The large diameters of the infeed drum and impression cylinder permit stiff, heavy materials like board and plastic lenticular to be transported smoothly with minimum curvature. The straight-through paper path accommodates stocks ranging from 0.06 mm to 14-pt. board.

In UV versions, an integrated drying unit is built over an extended delivery belt. Sheets are delivered ready for finishing. www.kbavt.com