Duplo introduced two machines new to the UK at a three-day open house to show off its expanded showroom in Surrey last week.
The showroom now covers the whole of the ground floor of the building giving space for the machines to breathe and for Duplo to include all possible options, folders and delivery units for its multifinishers for example.
It also has space for the PFI Blade Pro, the largest machine that Duplo International has sold. This is a high speed finishing table, with the options for automated operation from stack to stack, and with a 1300x1100mm cutting area.
This makes the machine a little too small for display work, but suits a commercial printer wanting two-up operation and continual operation, for producing short run boxes for example. The paired sheet operation and a 1600mm/sec maximum knife speed equate to double the output of the B2+ equivalent model.
There is automated tool changeover: a job may start with a creasing wheel, move to a perf wheel and then to a tangental knife for cut out a folding carton blank. A routing tool provides the possibility go cutting out corrugated and solid materials, acrylic sheets or wood for example, the latter to different depths for a 3D finish. It will cope with a 50mm deep Foamex.
The Blade Pro is designed to run with minimal attention, using barcodes to identify and load job parameters. The feeder and delivery, both taking a 650mm pile, are options either side of the cutting table itself.
The cutting table had been on display at Drupa as a prototype or concept machining aiming to gather feedback from the market. That had been incorporated into the machine which is now available commercially. Other machine concepts shown at the show two years ago remain under development in Japan.
Duplo intends to include a BGM Compact label finishing unit, but there are currently none available. Duplo UK has included the Skandacor Cheetah S15 a laminator/foiler/spot varnish machine developer for the photo finishing market which provides an entry level option for value add finishing. A job can have clear polymer applied as a spot varnish with this softened on a second pass for foil to be applied. Foiling can be applied as in more conventional over a black toner printed on the laminated sheet. This is a slow device and limited in format, but may provide the confidence that Duplo customers need before committing to more productive DuSense 810 for SRA1 and B800 for B2 sheets.
Both are naturally part of the showroom line up, though the B2 die cutting platen, the heaviest machine Duplo had developed, remains in the technical area because its weight exceeds the floor loading limit.
In all Duplo International has 18 machines under showroom conditions across three distinct areas. Previously it had managed to cram in 12 machines. Today that line up includes the Senshi top of the range saddle stitcher and desktop machines from products aimed at schools and inplants. The combination of machine in future is sure to evolve.
This was enough to attract more than 100 UK visitors over the three days and others representing overseas distributors. There had been a dry run the previous week with a 150-strong delegation of French distributors and printers and more international groups are expected at the enlarged facility for discussions, demonstrations and training.
By then the plan is to illustrate the largely plain walls and probably to name each of the different areas.
