PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: Inca Chasing Offset with Onset

Offset and screen printing have owned the short-run, ultra-wide format market, but Inca hopes to change that with Onset, announced in May as “the world's fastest digital UV flatbed printer.” Inkjet is an obvious wide-format rival to screen printing, but the offset process—with pricier plates and makeready in wider formats—is also being targeted. Even the device's name suggests the challenge: Onset versus offset.

More than two years in the making, the Onset architecture is based on that of the Inca Turbo printer—both the printhead array and media table move during printing, speeding ink delivery. The company specifies a production speed of 5,328 sq.ft. per hour. At a demonstration for analysts, Inca officials handed out stopwatches so reporters could time an actual 10-sheet run. Because the auto-loader was not yet installed, each 10.5×5´ sheet (maximum size) was hand-fed. The entire run took slightly under six minutes, indicating the likelihood of the company's claim that the Onset will run about 100 full-bed sheets per hour in real production.

Edge-to-edge printing lets images be printed to bleed on substrates up to 10 mm thick (15 mm when fed manually) and up to 22-lb. weight stock at full speed. The change from automatic to manual feeding takes a matter of seconds. The Onset also offers a choice of a satin or gloss finish, which can be changed on the fly.

Inca achieves this speed with 576 Spectra printheads addressing 73,728 inkjet nozzles. The heads are engineered for a high level of fault tolerance to allow for occasional nozzle failure.

Pricing for the unit comes in at $3 million, perhaps another indication that the offset market has been targeted. To cite one example of the competitive stature of offset, in this arena KBA reaches up to 81´´ wide with its Rapida 205—running at a gazelle-like 9,000 sheets per hour. KBA's 64´´ wide Rapida 162 provides another comeback for offset—perfecting, which isn't in the cards for the humongously long (more than 10´) Onset sheet.

With Rapida large-format speeds up to 14,000 sph, it'll be a long time before inkjet can touch these presses for long-run jobs. Offset presses in this size category start at about $6 million. As print runs shorten, Inca believes it will find an important niche. Since the Onset prints a sheet up to 123´´ long, it can deliver 300 posters 36×60´´, each printed three-up. Total print cost per square meter (including labor, ink and depreciation, but not substrate) is estimated at between $1.92 (standard quality) and $2.12 (high quality).

Without plates or screens, the device can be used for one-off proofing that would be cost-prohibitive in the screen and offset worlds. Inca says about 20 minutes of makeready are required each day. Using previously ripped files, Onset can go from one job to another almost instantly.

You won't see this unit at many trade shows—it's simply too big. The Onset weighs 12 tons, and 20×12 meters is needed to store it. (The demo unit shown at Inca headquarters near Cambridge, U.K., didn't have the automatic loader attached, in part because it wouldn't fit in the building.) Operators walk into the machine to access printheads and ink supplies. The first Onset was installed this spring at a U.K. beta test site, St. Ives-owned SP Group, where it will run for six months.