The world’s first cutsheet printer that can print simultaneously on two sides of a document has hit the market. Océ debuted its new VarioPrint 6250, which uses Gemini Instant Duplex Technology to enable simultaneous duplex printing, at its annual Open House in Poing, Germany, March 27, where it unveiled approximately 20 new hardware and software products to some 7,000 attendees.
“Did you know that over 80 percent of the jobs produced on high-volume cutsheet systems are double-sided prints? Yet all existing systems are designed for simplex printing. To produce double-sided prints, each sheet must be fed through the system twice,” said
Michael Frequin, executive vice president, Océ Digital Document Systems, during the press conference where the 6250 was announced to more than 130 members of the international media.
The 6250’s debut comes two years after Océ unveiled its VarioStream 9000 series, the first continuous-feed digital printers to offer two-sided printing in a single pass.
“For the past five years, in a time of low economic activity, Océ has continued to invest,” said Rokus van Iperen, the company’s CEO. “We have maintained strong R&D investments, which will increase to $230 million this year.”
According to Océ, the 6250 offers 100-percent accurate registration via a sensor-controlled positioning process and offset-like quality. It uses the Océ Gemini Instant Duplex Technology (named Gemini for the Latin word for twins) to press toner images simultaneously onto both sides of a piece of paper, enabling 250 A4 or 132 A3 double-sided prints per minute.
The printer can be equipped with up to 12 paper trays (totalling almost four hours of run time, according to Océ), and can handle oversized (12.6 inches by 19.2 inches) and custom-sized papers, coated media and preprinted paper stock.
The VarioPrint 6250 is available in several configurations, and can come equipped with a high-capacity stacker, which can accept up to 6,000 sheets of paper in two stacks. An optional set finisher can staple sets of up to 100 sheets of paper. It can also integrate with various inline finishing devices for perfect binding, cover binding, punching, etc.
The company will announce pricing for the U.S. market at AIIM On Demand Expo this month. Guy Broadhurst, the senior director of product marketing, says he anticipates it will fall in the $250,000 range, depending on the configuration, but it is not yet finalized.
The 6250 is targeted at commercial print shops and in-house corporate print centers. It is also being presented as an alternative for short-run book production. With the introduction of the 6250 to its existing products in the production-class monochrome printing segment, “we aim to raise our market share to 20 percent,” said Frequin.
Océ Aims for Offset Market
The company also unveiled a new technology for its VarioStream 9000 series of printers: the Graphic Arts Plus (Dot Modulation), for improved precision in fine detail prints.
The technology targets quality documents traditionally made on offset. “It produces gray scales and photos at 141 lines per inch without any visible gray-level transition,” explained Frequin. “The 9210 is … particularly suitable for books on demand.”
The potential in this market is enormous, Frequin noted. “Book printing is the largest segment of the offset market. If just 1 percent of offset volume migrates to digital, the digital printing market will increase by 13 percent.”
The Graphic Arts Plus formula makes it possible to vary the luminance of each and every light-emitting diode in the printer—all 11,000 of them, according to Océ.
www.Oce.com