New DocuTech, DocuColor Options

Xerox has announced several new products designed to fill the gaps in speed not covered by its current offerings.

Judging by the number of new digital printing devices introduced or hinted at during last month's On Demand conference in New York, it's clear that industry vendors see a big future in digital printing—and digital color, in particular.

One of those vendors, Xerox, has been on the cutting edge for years. Its DocuTech forever changed the way black-and-white documents were produced. Likewise its DocuColor 40 made production digital color more viable for in-plants.

Now Xerox has stepped forward again with new developments in black-and-white and color:

• The new DocuTech 6155 joins four other printers in the DocuTech 2000 Series to handle the 155-page-per-minute market.

• On the color side, the new DocuColor 2060 and 2045 digital color presses comprise the DocuColor 2000 Series. They will output 60 and 45 ppm respectively, while offering operating costs of 10¢ per page.

"What we did with DocuTech in the black-and-white world, we're now going to do with this new product in the color world," proclaimed Frank Steenburgh, senior vice president and worldwide general manager for the Xerox graphic arts business, at a recent press conference in New York.

Xerox is counting on the digital color market to take off, based in part on data from CAP Ventures that predicts that, by 2001, short-run, on demand color printing will grow to a $4.1 billion market.

The DocuColor 2060 and 2045 models use the Xerox digital blanket technology, which transfers images from the units' four photoreceptors to the printed page, similar to an offset printing blanket. Registration errors are reduced thanks to an alignment roller and sensors that center the page to the image.

In addition, the enhanced paper transport system lets the presses handle a broader range of substrates, including coated stock, and extra thin and thick stocks. The transport system uses air assist feeding and paper conditioning to keep paper at optimal temperature, eliminating curling.

Featuring low oil fuser technology (LOFT), the printers use 95 percent less oil than is used by the traditional heat-and-pressure-roller fusing method, lowering the cost of operation and enhancing output quality.

Electronics for Imaging and Splash Technology have released new digital front ends for the DocuColor 2000 Series: the Fiery EX2000 RIP from EFI and the Xerox RIP from Splash.

Both the 2060 and the 2045 have 600x600 pixel per inch resolution. An automated color calibration and process control system called I-TRACS recalibrates image quality throughout the system.

The DocuColor 2060 can produce up to 3,600 sheets per hour, with a recommended average monthly volume of 100,000 (81⁄2x11˝) pages. Set for second quarter availability, the 2060 and 2045 round out the DocuColor 2000 Series, which also includes the DocuColor 70 and 100.

New 155-ppm Printer

To fill another perceived gap in page productivity, Xerox has launched the DocuTech 6155, a 600-dpi, 155-ppm printer that boasts a 7,000-sheet paper capacity from five input sources. Like the DocuTech 6180 before it, the 6155 is recommended for monthly print volumes of between 1.5 and 5 million pages.

In addition, Xerox has made other introductions to its DocuTech 2000 Series. Version 2.0 of the DigiPath Production software, scheduled to ship in June, adds more than 50 new features, including new document management and Web-based knowledge-sharing services.

Additionally, a new DigiPath scanner offers 65-ppm scans at 600 dpi, and a 100-sheet automatic document feeder that reliably feeds a range of stocks. Documents as large as 12x18˝ can be scanned, with reduction and enlargement ranging from 38 to 200 percent.